Page 171 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

IMAGES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Children in the Roman World
LIKE THE GREEKS, the Romans did not always raise all the children born into their families. Not only were deformed children exposed to die, but infant mortality rates were high—as many as half of all infants did not survive into adulthood. Nevertheless, upper-class families did take good care of their surviving children. The statue of a young boy shown in the illustration at the top reflects this concern. He is wearing a bulla (also seen in the inset), a golden amulet given to male children on the day they were named, nine days after birth, to protect them against evil spirits. The illustration at the bottom, a scene from a third-century sarcophagus, shows an idealized version of an upper-class child’s life: he is depicted being breast-fed by his mother, being held by his father, playing in a small chariot pulled by a goat, and reciting to his father. The father was largely responsible for providing for the education of his children. Roman boys learned reading and writing, moral principles and
family values, law, and physical training to prepare them to be soldiers. As shown in the middle image, boys were encouraged to engage in athletic games at a very young age. Girls learned at home what they needed to know
to be good wives and mothers.
The end of childhood for Roman males
came at the age of sixteen, when the young man gave up his bulla, exchanged his purple- edged toga for a plain white toga—the toga of manhood—and soon after began his career. For Roman girls, childhood ended at age fourteen, the common age of marriage. Lower-class children were put to work in their teens and were often apprenticed to a craftperson at age twelve. Slave children were expected to work when they were five.
Left: Louvre, Paris//Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; Right: a Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy
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Roman Culture and Society in the Early Empire 133
Louvre, Paris//DeAgostini/SuperStock
Louvre, Paris/// The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images