Javier Requena

Rome did not play games with child rapists. Rome was an empire of order. And Rome understood one thing the modern West has forgotten: a man who touches a child has declared war on the entire family, and the family must answer with death. In old Rome, a child was not just a child. A child was a paterfamilias in training. A child was the future of the bloodline. A child was the honour of the house. To violate a child was to violate the honour of Rome itself. The Romans had a word for it: stuprum. It meant sexual disgrace. It meant defilement. It was not a private sin; it was a public crime against the state. If a man raped a child, he was not sent to therapy. He was not given a second chance. He was not protected by human rights lawyers. He was dragged before the court. He was tried under the Lex Julia de vi publica, the law against public violence. If found guilty, he was executed: sometimes by beheading, sometimes by being thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, sometimes by being beaten to death in public, so that every man in Rome would see what happens to a predator. Rome did not wonder what his childhood was like. Rome did not consider whether he was mentally ill. Rome did not debate whether he could be rehabilitated. Rome asked one question: did he do it? If yes, he died. That is why Roman mothers could send their children to the market without fear. That is why Roman fathers could sleep at night. The predator knew: if I touch a child in Rome, Rome will kill me. There were no NGOs in Rome to defend the rapist. There were no journalists to call the punishment Islamophobic, racist, or inhumane. There were no activists holding signs saying, "His life matters too." In Rome, the child's life mattered. The predator's life did not. The father of the victim had the vitae necisque potestas, the power of life and death over his household. If a man defiled his child, the father could kill him on the spot, and Roman law would call it justice, not murder. Today in London, a man rapes a child and gets eight years, or one year of unpaid labour with no jail time. Today in Paris, a man rapes a child and gets sympathy. Today in America, a man rapes a child and the media worries about his pronouns. Rome would have looked at the modern West and called it a civilisation in collapse. A civilisation that cannot protect its children has already lost its right to exist. Rome fell when it stopped being Rome: when it became soft, when it became tolerant, when it began to protect criminals instead of children. The West is now repeating the fall of Rome. t.me/fmazhindu