Fratricide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"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[1]).

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.

Contents

[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

[edit] See also

  • Suicide, the killing of one's self
Familial killing terms:
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

  1. ^ "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. 
  2. ^ The political significance of the founding fratricide is discussed at length by T.P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1995) passim.

[edit] External links

Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages