In today's world culture, filicide and infanticide are seen as horrible and shocking crimes. In Greek culture, filicide was perceived very differently. Reading texts such as The Sayings of Spartan Women, Medea, Life of Lycurgus and Spartan Society, the difference becomes evident. Each text alludes to the era's vision of infanticide and filicide, and together, they show us a general vision that filicide fit into: that is, if it were to benefit the community as a whole, filicide was an appropriate action. Spartan society had a more extreme perception of community than any other Greek city-state. Whether what they claimed to do was fact or rhetoric remains to be demonstrated; however, the writings of ancient Sparta give us an idea of ​​what the Spartans at least aspired to be. This so-called Spartan mirage was the common Spartan way of convincing their citizens, and the rest of the Greek city-states, that Sparta was sui generis. Sparta didn't want its citizens to just believe it; they wanted them to continue with actions based on propaganda. In The Sayings of Spartan Women, many of the quotes can be directly attributed to the Spartan Mirage. Regardless, the quotes still show us how the Spartans wanted to be perceived and remembered. Looking at the sayings through this lens, the Spartans believed that filicide should be expected from mothers with children unfit to belong to Spartan society. In The Sayings, an unnamed woman is quoted as saying, "[A] Spartan woman killed her son, who had deserted, as unworthy of her country (Unnamed Spartan Woman 1)." This quote is so extreme that it is generally dismissed as rhetoric. However, this shows us that filicide was encouraged in ancient Greece, and... middle of paper... even. If Xenophon was ashamed, we can consider it as his personal feeling; or it may have been the general vision behind the filicide. If this was the general view underlying the filicide, it contradicts what was stated about Spartan propaganda, and shows us that the Spartan Mirage was just that: a mere mirage. It is also possible that filicide was a regular part of life in all Greek city-states. It was therefore not considered sufficiently out of the ordinary to be documented as special. The view of infanticide and filicide in ancient Greece was completely different from that of today. Because of their general view of the community before the individual, the ancient Greeks did not consider filicide to be at the same level as we would. For the most part, this led to a communal society, where everyone respected laws and traditions to ensure the survival of the entire community..