Fratricide

For the military usage, see Friendly fire.

"Cain kills Abel", a fratricide illustrated by Gustave Doré (And Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him).

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Fratricide (from the Latin words frater "brother" and cida "killer," or cidum "a killing," both from caedere "to kill, to cut down") is the act of a person killing his or her brother. Related concepts are sororicide (the killing of one's sister), child murder (the killing of an unrelated child), infanticide (the killing of a child under the age of one year), filicide (the killing of one's child), patricide (the killing of one's father), matricide (the killing of one's mother), mariticide (the killing of one's husband) and uxoricide (the killing of one's wife). See also siblicide.

Religion and mythology

According to the story of Cain and Abel, fratricide was the first type of murder to be committed. In the mythology of ancient Rome, the city is founded as the result of a fratricide, when the twins Romulus and Remus quarrel over who has the favor of the gods, and Romulus becomes Rome's first king and namesake after killing his brother.

Military terminology

Fratricide may also be used to refer to friendly fire incidents. It also refers to the possible destruction of one MIRV warhead by another. Targets may be arranged deliberately to increase the likelihood in a strategy called dense pack.

Ottoman Empire

In the Ottoman Empire a policy of judicial royal fratricide was introduced by Sultan Mehmet II whose grandfather Mehmed I had to fight a long and bloody civil war against his brothers (which brought the empire near to destruction) to take the throne. When a new Sultan ascended to the throne he would imprison all of his surviving brothers and kill them by strangulation with a silk cord as soon as he had produced his first male heir. The largest killing took place on the succession of Mehmed III when 19 of his brothers were killed and buried with their father. The aim was to prevent civil war. The practice was abandoned in the 17th century by Ahmed I, replaced by imprisonment in the Kafes.

Antigone

In the Greek tragedy Antigone the brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices kill each other in combat. Polyneices invaded Greece and Eteocles fought with Greece against his brother. The two killed each other by stabbing the other through the heart.

Ashoka's Empire

Ashoka, also known as Chand-Ashoka (Cruel Ashoka), killed his real brothers as punishment for the kings's (his father) death and quarrel for the kingdom. Later on Ashoka conquered Greater India entire, before he adopted Buddhism and forsook war.

In popular culture

• In Code Geass, Lelouch kills his brother Clovis by shooting him in the head.
• In the comic book series Spawn, God and Satan are shown as twin brothers and supervillains who squander their powers in a constant struggle to kill each other.
• In the manga series Trigun, Knives attempts to kill his brother Vash several times throughout the series.
• Eteocles and Polynices in Greek Mythology, as depicted in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes
• Claudius, in Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Michael Corleone orders the death of his brother Fredo in The Godfather Part II.
• In the show Dexter, Dexter Morgan kills his long-lost brother Rudy Cooper who was the Ice Truck killer, in the episode "Born Free."
• In Disney's animated musical film The Lion King, Scar murders his brother Mufasa in order to make himself king.
• In the Devil May Cry video game series, the twin brothers Vergil and Dante are shown to have an immense, fratricidal rivalry with one another.
• In Portal, killing the Companion Cube earns you the achievement "Fratricide".
• In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver video game, after killing his own brother Raziel says "Am I reduced to this? A ghoul? A fratricide? "
• In Dragon Age II depending on player's decisions Varric Thetras can kill his older brother Bartrand for leaving him and player to die during an expedition.
• In the novel A Dance With Dragons Roose Bolton believes that his bastard son Ramsay Snow murdered his half-brother Domeric and will murder any more children that Roose has.
• In the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Adjunct Tavore Paran kills Sha'ik, who is also her sister, Felisin.
• In the Legend of Drizzt novels, protagonist Drizzt Do'Urden personally kills his elder sister Vierna, his only full-blood sibling (though he had several half-siblings).

See also

• A Fratricide by Franz Kafka
• Cain and Abel
• Romulus and Remus
• List of fratricides

• Suicide, the killing of one's self

Familial killing terms:

• Avunculicide, the killing of one's uncle
• Filicide, the killing of one's child
• Mariticide, the killing of one's husband
• Matricide, the killing of one's mother
• Nepoticide, the killing of one's nephew
• Parricide, the killing of one's parents or another close relative
• Patricide, the killing of one's father
• Prolicide, is the killing of one's offspring
• Sororicide, the killing of one's sister
• Uxoricide, the killing of one's wife

Non-familial killing terms from the same root:

• Deicide is the killing of a god
• Ecocide is the killing of the ecology of planet Earth
• Genocide is the killing of a large group of people, usually a specific and entire ethnic, racial, religious or national group
• Genucide is the killing of the human species by the human species
• Homicide is the killing of any human
• Infanticide, the killing of an infant from birth to 12 months
• Regicide is the killing of a monarch (king or ruler)
• Speciacide is a term for the potential mass suicide of the human species by overpopulation or global warming
• Tyrannicide is the killing of a tyrant

External links

• Fratricide in Ottoman Law