THE WORLD OF CHILDHOOD

Roman marble portrait bust of a young girl (2nd century CE)

Extant texts and images tell us how important children were in the ancient world. Among the elite, sons promised continuity of the family name while grown daughters could forge advantageous alliances for the family through marriage. As adults, both could tend the family tomb and honor the spirits of their ancestors at festivals for the dead. In poorer families all children worked at home to support the family, while daughters might be exposed or sold in infancy to avoid the dowry. The child's birth was not celebrated until its 8th day of life and parents were given 30 days to register the birth with the state. Puberty was the defining limit of childhood, when a boy put aside his bulla and donned his toga and a girl could be married. Tombstones are a reminder of the dangers of childhood in the ancient world and give evidence of the love and grief felt by parents at all class levels. For further information about childhood, see the Companion bibliography and Images of Childhood below.

IMAGES of CHILDHOOD

Toddler: bronze statuette of a nude little girl with an elaborate high-fashion hairstyle. Roman, probably from Egypt, c. 100 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

Girl Playing Knucklebones: Marble statue of a seated girl with a "melon hairdo" playing knucklebones. 2nd century CE Roman copy of a Hellenistic original. Front view. Found 1732 on Caelian Hill. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.

Girls Playing Ball: Fragmentary relief of girls playing ball. Mid-2nd century CE. Paris, Louvre Museum. The full relief shows the boys playing separately on the left.

Children Playing: marble sarcophagos relief. 170-80 CE.Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum

Puella: marble statue of a young girl in a toga standing beside her mother. 50-40 BCE. Rome: Museo Montemartini.

Seated Girl: Marble statue of an elegantly dressed girl gazing reflectively at the ground. Hadrianic copy of a Hellenistic original of c. 280 BCE. Rome, Montemartini Museum.

Young Girl dressed as Artemis, full-length marble statue. Ostia, 60-79 CE. Rome, Massimo Museum.

Girl with a Dove: Marble statue of a standing girl holding a dove on her shoulder. 2nd century CE Roman copy of a Hellenistic original. Rome, Palazzo Nuovo.

Girl's Portrait in marble. Rome, Vatican Museum

Bust of a Young Girl: Portrait bust of a lively young girl with curly hair. Late 2nd century CE. California, Getty Museum.

Bust of a Young Girl, marble. 3rd century CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Portrait Head in marble of a young girl. Found in Rome near the Via Flaminia, perhaps from a statue in a family tomb, c. 15-40 BCE . Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

Head of a Young Girl, marble (back view of hair arrangement). Roman, 200 CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Young Priestess: the rolled ribbon on this portrait head indicates that she was a priestess, despite her young age. Roman, from Greece (probably Corinth), 100-140 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

Young Assistant, elegantly dressed, serves the goddess Aphrodite at her toilette on this gilded silver relief medallion incised around the rim with various symbols associated with love and beauty, such as a fan, a flower, a butterfly, a bird, grasshopper, and lyre. Taranto, 300-200 BCE London, British Museum.

Ivory Doll: Jointed ivory doll with gold necklace, leg and arm bracelets, and the face and hairstyle of the empress Julia Domna (side). Found in a marble sarcophagus in Tivoli. End 2nd century CE. Rome, Massimo Museum.

Amber toy chest, part of a child's burial goods (together with ivory doll), perhaps used to hold jewelry. Found in a marble sarcophagus in Tivoli. End 2 century CE. Rome, Massimo Museum.

Fragmentary Doll: Crowned head and torso of a doll of bone, now missing its movable arms and legs. Found in Ephesus; now in London, the British Museum.

Gold pendant with glass beads and cameos carved with faces of children. Roman, from an eastern province. 3rd century CE. London, Victoria & Albert Museum.

Minicia Marcella: Minicia is the daughter of Marcella Statoria (see the mother's matching tombstone) and C. Minicius Fundanus, friend to Pliny the Younger, who describes Minicia's death in Epistulae 5.16. About to be married, she died at 12 years, 11 months, 7 days of age.105-106 CE. Rome, Baths of Diocletian.

Minucia Suavis: Detail of Minucia's portrait from her funerary altar; the inscription is the first of the text-commentaries above. 1st century CE. Rome, Baths of Diocletian.

Portrait of a Young Girl: The wreathed bust of a young girl with a "melon" hairstyle is held by two nude flying cupids, the central image on her sarcophagus. On either side stand Cupid and Psyche (the goddess has the same hairdo as the girl). Early 3rd century CE. Rome, Baths of Diocletian.

Funerary Portrait: relief of a young girl with her mother; Greek inscription: "Mimia, too soon, farewell; Koartilla farewell." The mother wears native Mesopotamian costume; the daughter holds a wreath and wears fashionable Roman jewelry. Roman, from the Euphrates region of Syria, 70-100 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

Alimenta: Trajan holds his right hand out to girl and boy who look up and reach out to him. This aureus commemorates the emperor's program of subsistence for freeborn girls and boys in Italian communities. Inscription: CO[n]S[ul] V P[ater] P[atriae] S[enatus] P[opulus]Q[ue] R[omanus] OPTIMO PRINC[ipi] | ALIM[enta] ITAL[iae]. Minted in Rome, 103-111 CE. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.

Alimenta 2: another gold coin issue celebrating Trajan's program of subsistence for freeborn girls and boys in Italian communities with the same inscription as above (lower portion contains the abbreviation ALIM ITAL. Minted in Rome, 103-111 CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

Alimenta 3: a silver denarius celebrating Trajan's program of support for children with the same inscription as above. A goddess with a cornucopia in her left hand (Ops? Abundantia? personification of Annona, the grain dole?) holds her right hand out to a child, who looks up at her. Minted in Rome, 103-111 CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.

Girl in Toga Praetexta: this reconstruction of the clothing worn by young girls before their marriage is modeled on the younger girl on the Ara Pacis. She wears a white tunic bound with a cingulum tied in a nodus Herculaneus beneath the toga. From an image supplied by Judith Sebesta of a student in a course (late 1990's).

All images are courtesy of the VRoma Project's Image Archive.