Fratricide
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| Homicide |
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Fratricide / Sororicide
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| Other |
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.
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[edit] Religion and mythology
According to the Bible and the Qur'an, fratricide was the first type of murder committed in human history (see Cain and Abel). 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.[2]
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 entire Greater-India, before he adopted Buddhism and gave up Wars.
[edit] 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
- 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 the Disney film The Lion King, Scar kills 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".
[edit] See also
- 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
[edit] References
- ^ "Holy Bible 21-th Century King James Version -". BibleGateway.com. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=1&chapter=4&version=48. Retrieved 2009-04-07.
- ^ The political significance of the founding fratricide is discussed at length by T.P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1995) passim.
