Does anyone know how common infanticide was in ancient Rome and Greece?
I am only aware of the practices of the pederast Spartans.
They had an institutionalized infanticide. Babies deemed to have physical imperfections were left on a hill to die in the elements and be picked at like carrion.
These are the same people whose contemporary historians complained that pederasty was so common and preferred by their men at one point (later in Sparta's history, not coincidentally near their end!) That it was impacting their population growth(!).
Even the godless Athenians acknowledged the Spartan proclivity and composed invectives towards the Spartans, which the Spartan statesmen only claimed in retort the vice was not as common as the Athenians suggested, never denying that it was common among their 'men'
Again, these repeatedly tend to go hand in hand in history: rampant ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, infanticide, materialism.