{"id":3302,"date":"2011-10-16T15:39:07","date_gmt":"2011-10-16T21:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3302"},"modified":"2011-10-16T15:39:07","modified_gmt":"2011-10-16T21:39:07","slug":"what-was-ancient-roman-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3302","title":{"rendered":"What Was Ancient Roman Childhood?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Historian Peter Thonemann reviews books on childhood in the Roman republic and empire in the TLS<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

A lot is about trying to uncover the Romans’ balance between sentimentality and utility, particularly in the upper classes:<\/p>\n

House-reared slaves, as Beryl Rawson shows in Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture<\/em>, could play a variety of roles in the Roman elite family, from surrogate son to erotic plaything. What is difficult for us to deal with is the notion that, as in the case of Statius\u2019s beloved boy, they might have played both roles simultaneously.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the inevitable problem:<\/p>\n

Needless to say, both of the books under review see Roman children through the eyes of their parents and owners. How could it be otherwise? Aside from the odd cheeky remark about enjoying Cicero, the voices of ancient children are lost for good. A rare exception comes from the temple of Sarapis at Memphis in Egypt, where, in the mid-second century BC, an eccentric recluse called Ptolemaios faithfully recorded the dreams of two little Egyptian twin girls, Thaues and Taous: \u201cThe dream that the girl Thaues saw on the 17th of the month Pachon. I seemed in my dream to be walking down the street, counting nine houses. I wanted to turn back. I said, \u2018All this is at most nine.\u2019 They say, \u2018Well, you are free to go.\u2019 I said, \u2018It is too late for me\u2019.\u201d It is salutary to be reminded quite how little we really know or understand about the experience of childhood in antiquity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historian Peter Thonemann reviews books on childhood in the Roman republic and empire in the TLS. A lot is about trying to uncover the Romans’ balance between sentimentality and utility, particularly in the upper classes: House-reared slaves, as Beryl Rawson shows in Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture, could play a variety of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[150,100,56],"class_list":["post-3302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childhood","tag-history","tag-rome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-Rg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10872,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10872","url_meta":{"origin":3302,"position":0},"title":"Alexa, I Want to Talk to Julius Caesar","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Mary Harrsch's Roman Times online magazine: She is creating Alexa \"skills\" on ancient Roman topics. I received word from Amazon that the newest version of my FREE educational Alexa skill, \"Caesar's Ancient World\" has been certified. This latest version of the skill includes 280 images of ancient art from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Classics\"","block_context":{"text":"Classics","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=classics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-ss88VnyAS0s\/XSz0QZcttBI\/AAAAAAAAE-0\/wtdfoxDFqnYjM2gUgQkkAyNuuPIL-QLVwCLcBGAs\/s1600\/Caesar.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5467,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5467","url_meta":{"origin":3302,"position":1},"title":"Ancient Roman Music (Conjectured, Imagined)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The trouble with most of the \"early music\" groups that I have heard is that they take stuff originally played by drunken peasants (setting aside Christian church music) and make it sound like it is played by anorexic graduate students. In this case, however, no one knows what ancient Roman\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"music\"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=music"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1535,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1535","url_meta":{"origin":3302,"position":2},"title":"Roman Britain on the Big Screen","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"During a recent conversation over margaritas in the old provincial capital, Peculiar mentioned two new forthcoming movies set in Roman Britain. There is an added resonance to Americans flocking to films set during the rise and fall of ancient empires as they contemplate their own long-dominant place in the world\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13209,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13209","url_meta":{"origin":3302,"position":3},"title":"Lakshmi or Yakshi? The Story of a Hindu Idol in Ancient Pompeii","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 17, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The 1938 excavation of a house in Pompeii produced a statuette that first was believed to be Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity and fertility. Newer reseach says no, but she still is Hindu. Where did she come from? A podcast interview with art historian Laura Weinstein examines the statuette's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Trade routes from Roman Empire to India","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/India-trade-routes-300x164.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3646,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3646","url_meta":{"origin":3302,"position":4},"title":"Why is Saturn\/Cronus in Saturnalia?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At this time of year, when the popular press runs articles on Christmas customs, a few rhetorical bases are always touched. The Christmas tree is a \"Pagan survival,\" that sort of thing. And that Christmas bears some relationship to the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. At Religion Nerd, Louis A. Ruprecht,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2640,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2640","url_meta":{"origin":3302,"position":5},"title":"Quick Review: Caesar’s Druids","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I am a little more than halfway through Miranda Aldhouse-Green's Caesar's Druids: Story of An Ancient Priesthood. As the British archaeologist Stuart Piggott pointed out back in the 1960s, there are no texts written about Druids by Druids. The sum of what ancient writers of the Greco-Roman world wrote would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cover image of Casar's Druids by Miranda Aldhouse-Green","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51AAWVY--yL._AA160_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3304,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3302\/revisions\/3304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}