It was a lousy time to be born. I mean, of all the times and all the places, why bring a baby into that world?
A tyrant was on the throne, known for his cruelty to children, even his own. A nervous tyrant, no less, indebted to a foreign power, as he was. If he couldn't maintain his authority, he knew they had the goods on him, and were just as cruel as he. So when he trembled, everybody around him trembled. They knew he would not go down easy.
It was a lousy time to bring a child into the world, when anything could happen, and it was not going to be good. And it's not as though these parents had any resources to protect this child, hardly more than children themselves, on the move, sleeping rough, soon to be refugees depending on the hospitality of people whose language they did not speak.
It was a dark time to bring a child into the world.
