Senicide, or geronticide, is the killing of the elderly, or their abandonment to death.
History
Societal views and legal repercussions have varied greatly in regards to senicide.
Philosophical views
doctrine held that all creatures were being punished by the gods who imprisoned the creatures' souls in a body. Thus, any attempt to alter this punishment would be seen as a direct violation of the gods' wills. In the fourth century BC, the Hippocratic Oath was developed and reads, "I will not give a fatal draught to anyone if I am asked, nor will I suggest any such thing." Through the lens of the Hippocratic Oath, euthanasia by means of a fatal draught was forbidden. However, one of the most famous examples of deviation from this code occurred when the physician of Seneca, a philosopher and tutor of Nero, provided the scholar, who was 69 years old at the time, with poison for one of his many failed attempts at suicide.
Religious views
The societies of antiquity viewed suicide and euthanasia very differently from modern culture. Although factors such as better medical and psychological insight have affected contemporary society's view of suicide and euthanasia, much of the shift in opinion of these forms of death occurred because of the change in religion—that is, Greco-Roman society was dominated by pagan religions that did not categorically condemn suicide and euthanasia. Many modern Christians do not accept the practice of suicide or senicide, holding that only God should have control over a person's life and death.
The Heruli were a Germanic tribe during the Migration Period. Procopius states in his work The Wars, that the Heruli placed the sick and elderly on a tall stack of wood and stabbed them to death before setting the pyre alight.
India
In the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the illegal practice of senicide – known locally as thalaikoothal – is said to occur dozens or perhaps hundreds of times each year.
A common belief is that the Inuit would leave their elderly on the ice to die. Senicide among the Inuit people was rare, except during famines. The last known case of an Inuit senicide was in 1939.
Ubasute, a custom allegedly performed in Japan in the distant past, whereby an infirm or elderly relative was carried to a mountain, or some other remote, desolate place, and left there to die. This custom has been vividly depicted in The Ballad of Narayama.
An alleged custom was to throw incapable or ill elders off certain cliffs, a confirmed practice was the performing of euthanasia on ill, senile or suffering elders carried out by selected women named accabbadoras that after a blessing of the soon to be deceased would proceed to kill them through suffocation or blunt force to the back of the head by wooden mallet.
Serbia
Lapot is a mythical Serbian practice of disposing of one's parents.
Sweden
In Nordic folklore, the ättestupa is a cliff where elderly people were said to leap, or be thrown, to death. While the practice has no historical evidence, the trope has survived as an urban legend, and a metaphor for deficient welfare for the elderly.
Greece
Parkin provides eighteen cases of senicide which the people of antiquity believed happened. Of these cases, only two of them occurred in Greek society; another took place in Roman society, while the rest happened in other cultures. One example that Parkin provides is of the island of Keos in the Aegean Sea. Although many different variations of the Keian story exist, the legendary practice may have begun when the Athenians besieged the island. In an attempt to preserve the food supply, the Keians voted for all people over 60 years of age to commit suicide by drinking hemlock. The other case of Roman senicide occurred on the island of Sardinia, where human sacrifices of 70-years-old fathers were made by their sons to the titan Cronus.
Rome
The case of institutionalized senicide occurring in Rome comes from a proverb stating that 60-year-olds were to be thrown from the bridge. Whether or not this act occurred in reality was highly disputed in antiquity and continues to be doubted today. The most comprehensive explanation of the tradition comes from Festus writing in the fourth century AD who provides several different beliefs of the origin of the act, including human sacrifice by ancient Roman natives, a Herculean association, and the notion that older men should not vote because they no longer provided a duty to the state. This idea to throw older men into the river probably coincides with the last explanation given by Festus. That is, younger men did not want the older generations to overshadow their wishes and ambitions and, therefore, suggested that the old men should be thrown off the bridge, where voting took place, and not be allowed to vote.
In fiction
Works of fiction which have dealt with senicide include:
