Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture

Investigations into the daily life of Roman families show that children were key actors in the process of the construction of social memory: they were the pivotal point of the transmission of family tradition and values in both elite and non-elite families. This collection of essays draws together the perspectives of various disciplines to provide a multifaceted picture of the Roman family based on a wide range of evidence drawn from the 1st century BCE to Late Antiquity and the Christian period. The contributors define the notion of memory, discuss the role of children in the transmission of social memory and social identities, and also deal with threats to familial memory, in the cases of children deliberately or accidentally excluded from tradition, long believed to be invisible, such as those born at home to slaves, or outcast because of illness or their unusual status, for example as the offspring of an incestuous relationship.

"Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture presents an interesting array of studies on Roman childhood and family identity. This collection alerts us to new directions in the study of the Roman family and childhood, and demonstrates clearly that thirty years after the first Roman Family Conference, interest in these subfields has not waned." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Veronique Dasen is Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Fribourg

Thomas Spath is Professor of Ancient Cultures and Constructions of Antiquity, University of Bern

Introduction, Veronique Dasen and Thomas Spath

I. Family Identities and Traditions

1. Ancestors as Models: Memory and the Construction of Gentilician Identity, Catherine Baroin

2. Roman Patchwork Families: Surrogate Parenting, Socialization and the Shaping of Tradition, Ann-Cathrin Harders

3. Children and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge, Francesca Prescendi

4. Women and Children in Ancient Landscape, Michel E. Fuchs

5. Wax and Plaster Memories: Children in Elite and Non-Elite Strategies, Veronique Dasen

6. Cicero, Tullia, and Marcus: Gender-Specific Concerns for Family Tradition?, Thomas Spath

7. Children and the Memory of Parents in the Late Roman World, Ville Vuolanto

II. Children on the Margins?

8. Degrees of Freedom, Vernae and Junian Latins in the Roman Familia, Beryl Rawson

9. Modestia vs licentia: Seneca on Childhood and Status in the Roman Family, Francesca Mencacci

10. Delicia-Children Revisited: The Evidence of Statius' Silvae, Christian Laes

11. The Sick Child in his Family: A Risk for the Family Tradition, Danielle Gourevitch

12. Hidden in Plain Sight: Expositi in the Community, Judith Evans Grubbs

13. Rome: The Invisible Children of Incest, Philippe Moreau