training for young boys. Girls married in their teens and were
considered adults at that point. Many girls conducted rituals
on the day before their weddings to mark this change in their
status, but there were no specifi c public ceremonies to com-
memorate their transformation into women.
ROME
BY AMY HACKNEY BLACKWELL
In ancient Rome children were valued as the best means of
supporting their parents in their old age and the only means
of carrying on the family name. Childbirth was very danger-
ous to mothers and babies. Ancient midwives and physicians
did not understand the mechanisms of birth very well and
had few useful treatments to off er mothers. Many infants
died during or aft er birth, and any women died during or
aft er childbirth from bleeding, exhaustion, or infection. If a
baby’s mother died in childbirth, the father or other caretaker
would have to fi nd a wet nurse to feed the child, or the baby
would be at risk of dying as well.
When a baby was born, the midwife would determine the
sex and then examine the baby to see if it was healthy. If the
parents kept the child, they celebrated its birth on the eighth
day of life in a purifi cation ceremony called the lustratio. If
the baby was sickly or deformed or if it was a girl, the par-
ents might decide to abandon it in the countryside to die. An
ancient law attributed to Rome’s legendary founder Romulus
directed parents to keep all male off spring and the fi rst born
of their girls, but most people disregarded these old laws and
did not abandon their female children.
Mothers were encouraged to breast-feed their infants.
Th e physician Soranus of Ephesus (fl. second century c.e.)
recommended that mothers breast-feed their own chil-
dren because this provided the best food for the baby and
strengthened the bond between mother and child. In prac-
tice, many mothers with the resources to do so hired wet
nurses to nurse their babies. Soranus provided detailed
advice on selecting a wet nurse, suggesting that the nurse
not drink wine and that she live with the family. He advised
breast-feeding a baby exclusively for six months and then
gradually introducing foods until the child was weaned at
about two years of age.
A high percentage of Roman babies and children died.
Scholars believe that about 25 percent of infants died before
their fi rst birthdays. Of those children who survived the fi rst
two years of life, another third died before the age of 10. Re-
spiratory illnesses, gastrointestinal diseases, accidents, fi res,
and violence killed large numbers of children.
Children of both sexes were under the authority of their
fathers or other male relatives. Th e father, or paterfamilias,
technically had the power of life or death over his children,
though in the days of the Republic (509 b.c.e.–ca. 27 b.c.e.)
a nd E mpi re (c a. 27 b. c. e. – 476 b.c. e .) a l mo s t no f at he r e x e rc i s e d
this right. Both boys and girls spent their early childhoods in
the home nursery in the care of women. Mothers sometimes
raised the children themselves, but many mothers employed
slaves as caretakers for their young children. Corporal pun-
ishment was a common means of enforcing discipline.
Boys learned what they would need to know as men—
the sons of craft smen were taught their fathers’ craft s, and
the sons of farmers learned farming and animal husbandry.
Sons of nobility went to school or studied at home with tu-
tors called pedagogues, who were usually slaves owned by the
family. Schools were informal by modern standards; many
teachers simply set up portable desks on street corners or in
town squares and taught their students amid the hubbub of
the marketplace. Boys studied grammar, mathematics, geog-
raphy, history, and law as well as Greek, the language of edu-
cated people in the ancient world. All boys had to learn the
basics of warfare, such as swordplay, in preparation for their
military service. On festive occasions boys dressed in a spe-
cial toga called the toga praetexta, bordered in red or purple
to mark the boy’s juvenile status. All boys wore a necklaceRoman rag doll made of linen, rags, and papyrus and dating to the
fi rst to fi ft h century c.e. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)196 children: Rome