(no subject)

Can anyone think of a character, fictional or real, who condemned his own son(s) to death or some lesser punishment? Or, famously ordered his son into an undesirable marriage?

Why? Because there is a line in The Mikado about "the Lucius Junius Brutus of his race". Victorian gentlefolk would have understood the reference, by our audience won't any more than I did until I consulted various online references (just now). I wonder if there is a more modern, more likely-to-be-understood, reference I might use instead?

Any suggestions would be most gratefully received.