FURTHER READING
Traci Ardren and Scott R. Hutson, Th e Social Experience of Child-
hood in Ancient Mesoamerica (Boulder: University Press of
Colorado, 2006).
Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G. Cook, Ritual Sacrifi ce in Ancient
Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001).
Jean Bottéro, ed., Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Baltimore,
Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
Mark Golden, Children and Childhood in Classical Athens (Balti-
more, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).
Rosalind M. and Jac. J. Janssen, Growing Up in Ancient Egypt (Lon-
don: Rubicon Press, 1990).
Lynn Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 2002).
Sarah B. Pomeroy, Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Beryl Rawson, ed., Th e Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987).
Beryl Rawson, ed., Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Sobonfu E. Somé, Welcoming Spirit Home: Ancient African Teach-
ings to Celebrate Children and Community (Novato, Calif.:
New World Library, 1999).
Marten Stol, “Private Life in Ancient Mesopotamia.” In Civiliza-
tions of the Ancient Near East, ed. J. M. Sasson (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995).
Marten Stol, Birth in Babylonia and the Bible (Groningen, Net her-
lands: Styx, 2000).▶ cities
introduction
One of the basic problems in the study of ancient cities is
defining what makes a settlement a true city and not a town
or village. Some archaeologists use population to make this
determination, with 40,000 to 50,000 inhabitants making
for a true city. By that definition, the Mesopotamian set-
tlement of Uruk, when it was ruled by Gilgamesh in about
2700 b.c.e., would have been a city because it had about
50,000 residents. Yet the requirement that a city have that
many people would exclude most other Mesopotamian
settlements that are called “cities.” Elsewhere, the Indus
River valley settlements of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro,off end you, Socrates?—replied: Not at all, for I can as well
bear with a fool in a play as at a great feast....Th ese things, you will perhaps say, are very diffi cult to
be imitated. I confess it; but yet we must endeavor to the
utmost of our power, by setting such examples before
us, to repress the extravagancy of our immoderate,
furious anger. For neither are we able to rival the
experience or virtue of such men in many other matters;
but we do, nevertheless, as sacred interpreters of divine
mysteries and priests of wisdom, strive to follow these
examples, and, as it were, to enrich ourselves with what
we can nibble from them.And as to the bridling of the tongue,... if any man
think it a small matter or of mean concernment, he
is much mistaken. For it is a point of wisdom to be
silent when occasion requires, and better than to
speak, though never so well. And, in my judgment, for
this reason the ancients instituted mystical rites of
initiation in religion, that, being in them accustomed
to silence, we might thence transfer the fear we have of
the gods to the fi delity required in human secrets. Yes,
indeed, experience shows that no man ever repented of
having kept silence; but many that they have not done
so. And a man may, when he will, easily utter what he
has by silence concealed; but it is impossible for him
to recall what he has once spoken. And, moreover, I
can remember infi nite examples that have been toldme of those that have procured great damages to
themselves by intemperance of the tongue... When
Ptolemy Philadelphus had taken his sister Arsinöe to
wife, Sotades for breaking an obscene jest upon him
lay languishing in prison a great while; a punishment
which he deserved for his unseasonable babbling,
whereby to provoke laughter in others he purchased a
long time of mourning to himself. Much after the same
rate, or rather still worse, did Th eocritus the Sophist
both talk and suff er. For when Alexander commanded
the Greeks to provide him a purple robe, wherein, upon
his return from the wars, he meant to sacrifi ce to the
Gods in gratitude for his victorious success against the
barbarians, and the various states were bringing in the
sums assessed upon them, Th eocritus said: I now see
clearly that this is what Homer calls purple death, which I
never understood before. By which speech he made the
king his enemy from that time forwards....Besides all these things, we are to accustom children
to speak the truth, and to account it, as indeed it is, a
matter of religion for them to do so. For lying is a servile
quality, deserving the hatred of all mankind; yes, a fault
for which we ought not to forgive our meanest servants.From: Oliver J. Th atcher, ed., Th e Library
of Original Sources. Vol. 3: Th e Roman
World (Milwaukee: University Research
Extension Co., 1907), pp. 370–391.cities: introduction 201