Children conquered Roman hearts

Traditionally, Ancient Rome is remembered for the Colosseum, political intrigue and a ruthlessly-effective military — but a new book by ANU historian Professor Beryl Rawson shows that Romans had a strong notion of family.

It is the 1960s. A young PhD student is on the verge of tears. She has spent hours looking through records of Roman tombstones handed to her by her supervisor.

“So many dead children,” she says, mournfully.

Almost 40 years later, Beryl Rawson (right), now Professor Emerita in History in the ANU Faculty of Arts, has returned to the subject which inspired her PhD: the Roman family.

Her new book, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, confounds conventional images of Roman life as brutal and austere — suggesting a caring society where childhood was celebrated and valued.

Using artwork and carvings as evidence, Professor Rawson has found records of children being actively involved in many levels of Roman society: in the family, in religion, and in the community.

“There is very little evidence from the children themselves — in other periods children sometimes kept diaries — but I used other sources to show how children were perceived. They were very visible in public life.”

Previously, historians had believed that notions of children as anything more than little adults were a modern idea that started in the seventeenth century. Professor Rawson’s study shows that children dressed, behaved and were treated and cherished as children centuries earlier than first thought.

The tombstones themselves and the tenderness of the epitaphs they contain are a sign of how valued young life was.

Roman visual representations — paintings, frescos and carvings — show children were not only involved in public life, but were valued for their childishness.

To see a Roman fresco featuring children, click here

If the way a society treats its children is a barometer of how humane it is, then Roman life was far friendlier than today’s images of mistreated slaves, merciless conquering armies and bloody gladiatorial bouts suggest.

“I don’t really know where this image comes from,” Professor Rawson says.

“It is partly from the classics. These literary texts tend to deal with the political and the military, how the Romans came to conquer the Mediterranean and beyond.

“One of the great innovations in the last generation in my field has been the ability to use a range of evidence to look at the lower classes, the under-privileged, women, children and slaves. I don’t deny that life for many children was wretched, as it was for many adults, but a greater range of evidence gives a more balanced picture.”

Looking at tombstones, Professor Rawson has found evidence of strong bonds within families of all classes.

“We tend to think of the nuclear family as a recent innovation, but there is evidence of great affection within Roman families.”

Not only was the nuclear family alive and well two thousand years ago, but there was a range of other carers who had a hand in the upbringing of Roman children.

“Because you had this great range of slaves, you had someone to bathe the child, someone to read stories, wet nursing was common and there would often be a slave to accompany the child to school.”

Thanks to the information contained in ancient tombstones and the latest demographic computer modelling technology, a clearer picture of life expectancy in Roman times has also emerged. Not only were deaths in childhood common, but 50 per cent of boys would have lost their father by their fifteenth birthday.

This information and close inspection of Roman law have revealed complex provisions for the guardianship of free, slave and ex-slave children, adding further weight to Professor Rawson’s argument that children and social relationships were highly valued.

She has also found that where children were concerned, the boundary between slave and citizen was blurred.

“Slave children would often be brought up as a surrogate brother or sister to the children of their owner and might be freed and become heirs if the owner’s children died. This demonstrates a social mobility that is more liberal than in other slave societies where class differences were more rigid.”

In her book, Professor Rawson argues that the same care that was taken with the young performers at the 2000 Olympics would have been taken with Roman children in public festivals and events.

“Adults would have taken time to teach these children [in the Opening Ceremony], to rehearse with them, to help them memorise their lines and learn their dance routines so that they could have a key role in an important national ceremony.

“The children were told they would remember the experience for the rest of their lives — a Roman poet wrote those same words for children before a religious ceremony, which really does resonate with modern life.”

The visual nature of so many of Professor Rawson’s sources has resulted in a book that has more illustrations than the average academic text.

“There is a lot of general interest in this periodand I have written it with that in mind.”

For someone who has spent most of her career at ANU, turning it into a world centre of Roman family study, why return to a subject she investigated as a student?

The fact is, those Roman tombstones never really left her. “It was time to go back to my children,” she says.