When the emperor Augustus had his daughter Julia exiled from Rome for committing adultery and pissing on the rostra, the Roman people spent all their time exhorting him to be nicer to her and bring her home. They thought him terribly cruel and unforgiving. He exiled her to what was basically a permanent detox holiday on a tiny island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Imagine how they’d have felt if he’d executed her. In the real world, when parents really killed their children, they did so for selfish, stupid reasons and were treated as monsters.
