A Mother’s Cannibal Infanticide

Mary, a wealthy Jew, cannibalizes her own child and offers the child’s remains to the Jewish rebels as the remaining populace of Jerusalem longs for death. The Roman legions are disgusted when they hear of it. According to Josephus, this episode leads Titus to vow to ruin Jerusalem.

This episode is likely not historical. Indeed, it reads as the fulfillment of a biblical curse for breaking the covenant with God: a mother will eat her own children “secretly, because of utter want, in the desperate straits to which your enemy shall reduce you in your towns” (Deuteronomy 28:57, NJPS).