The commemoration of children in Rome and Italy in the Early Empire

Abstract

What would life have been like for a child growing up in Rome or in any part of Italy during the first three centuries AD? The answer to such a question is not straightforward. How does one determine that someone was a 'child'? Was this child male or female? To what social class did this child belong? 'What position did his or her parents hold in the community? Were his or her parents alive? A series of equally complex questions must therefore be addressed before the first, seemingly simple question can be approached. The reconstruction of Roman childhood can be an arduous task because, although it is known that children were very visible in both public and private life, the remaining material that records the existence of children during this time was often not created with children in mind. Nor was it produced for the purpose of describing the characteristics of Roman childhood. There IS no material In existence created by children themselves such as diaries , poems, stories, letters or paintings that · give any indications of how children themselves perceived their world. Children appear in literary texts, papyri, art, funerary inscriptions and the law code. This type of evidence was created by adults, not for ch~ldren , but for themselves and hence also reflects adult preoccupations and concerns. Show more