Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T22:04:05.737Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Did the Ancients Care When their Children Died?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Mark Golden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Did the ancients care when their children died? The question is blunt, but not straightforward. How are we to define ‘care’? Whose children – anyone's, family members', one's own? Any thorough answer must be correspondingly complex, taking into account variables of many different kinds. So, for example, it has been argued that mothers cared for their children more than fathers, that very young children were missed less than older ones, that urban and servile populations tended to commemorate young children with gravestones more than others, that variations in burial practices among Greek communities may ‘suggest varying degrees of affection on the part of the parents’, that care for children increased in the later fifth century in Athens or in the Hellenistic period in Greece or in the later Republic or the Imperial period at Rome. In this paper, I make no claim to the nuanced and sophisticated presentation these difficulties demand; I will present evidence from various genres, referring to diverse places and times, concerning children from a range of ages. My aim is modest: to consider two arguments that have been applied to this subject. My question has been raised several times within the last few years, each time by first-rate scholars, and these have given what I think is clearly the correct answer. Yet that answer has not been expressed as firmly as it might be; and in giving it some have raised an issue which needs clarification. Let these be my excuses for opening the question again.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , October 1988 , pp. 152 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. So already, e.g., Eur. fr. 1015N.2, Xen., Oec. 7.24Google Scholar, Arist., Gen. An. 3.759b7–8Google Scholar and now Schmidt, M., Hephaistos 5/6 (1983/1984), 133–61, especially 136–37Google Scholar.

2. Bradley, K. R., CPh 82 (1986), 267Google Scholar.

3. Sailer, R. P., Shaw, B. D., JRS 74 (1984), 130, 138Google Scholar.

4. Bremmer, J., The Early Greek concept of the soul (Princeton, 1983), p. 97Google Scholar. An interesting example of regional variation in practices of commemoration is provided by gravestones apparently meant to mark the graves of children who died before naming, which are found especially frequently in Boeotia; see IG 7.690 (with Dittenberger's commentary), Robert, L., Noms indigenes dans I'Asie-Mineure gréco-romaine 1 (Paris, 1963), pp. 371–2Google Scholar and (for an example from outside Boeotia) BullEp 1973, 184 no. 484.

5. Raepsaet, G., Decocq, C., LEC 55 (1987), 3–15Google Scholar.

6. Herter, H., BonnerJ 132 (1927), 250–8Google Scholar.

7. Manson, M., History of education 12 (1983), 149–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Overbeck, J., Neue Jahrbücher für Pädagogik 27 (1924), 1–8Google Scholar; Eyben, E., AncSoc 11/12 (1980/1981), 5–82, especially 52–3Google Scholar; Néraudau, J.-P., Étre enfant à Rome (Paris, 1984), p. 380Google Scholar.

9. Griffin, J., Homer on life and death (Oxford, 1980), p. 108Google Scholar. Cf. Block, E., Ramus 9 (1980), 128–49, especially 130–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Little Iliad fr. 19.

11. The sherd was first published by Brann, E. T. H., AntK 2 (1959), 35–7Google Scholar. The identification of the figure shown on this and other early pots with Astyanax is not secure; see Laurens, A.-F., DHA 10 (1984), 203–52, especially 206–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But this does not affect the point made in the text, that the death of a young child as a result of warfare evoked pathos. On the iconography of Astyanax, see now Rühfel, H., Das Kind in der griechischen Kunst. Von der minoisch-mykenischen Zeit bis zum Hellenismus (Mainz, 1984), pp. 45–59Google Scholar.

12. Eur., Tro. 757–8Google Scholar, Medea 1071–5.

13. Hdt. 6.27.2, Thuc. 7.29.

14. Antiphon 87 B 49D.–K. (translated by K. Freeman); cf. Thales in Stob., Flor. 4.22.65Google Scholar, Eur., Medea 1090–116Google Scholar. Aristotle regards such concerns as natural, and says that the most intelligent species (human beings and some quadrupeds) devote attention and care to their children for the longest time (Gen. An. 3.753a7–15).

15. Amulets: Juvenal 5.164 (with Courtney's note) and Eckstein, F., Waszink, J. H., RAC 1 (1950), 397–406 sGoogle Scholar. Amulett. Stag-beetle horns: Pliny, , NH 30Google Scholar. 138. Dog dung: NH 30.135. Wolf skin and teeth: NH 28.257.

16. On the paediatric literature, see e.g., Ghinopoulo, S., Pddiatrie in Hellas und Rom (Jena, 1930), Neraudau (above, n. 8), pp. 78–83Google Scholar. There is some interesting material in Goetze, R., Der Tod im Kindesalter: Eine medizinhistorische Studie auf der Grundlage von Epitaphen der Anthologia Graeca (Erlangen, 1974)Google Scholar.

17. Pliny, , Ep. 3.16Google Scholar.

18. IG 22 12335, cf. Plaut., Men. 34—6Google Scholar (a father dies of grief for loss of a seven-year-old son), Poen. 65–9 (a father falls sick when his son of seven is kidnapped), CIL 6.35769 (a couple wish to die soon and join their child). Young siblings might feel similarly (or be thought to do so by adults); see Leonidas of Tarentum, , Anth. Pal. 7.662Google Scholar (a girl, 6, dies mourning a brother, 20 months). On metrical epitaphs for those who die young, see Veugt-Lentz, J. ter, Mors immatura (Groningen, 1960)Google Scholar; Griessmair, E., Das Motiv der mors immatura in den griechischen metrischen Grabinschriften (Innsbruck, 1966)Google Scholar; Vérilhac, A.-M., Paides ahoroi: poésie funéraire I and II (Athens, 1978 and 1982)Google Scholar.

19. SEG 20.747 (Cyrenaica), cf. CIG 3.6248 (Rome), on which a two-year-old boy is said now to be anaudon. That this interest in children's speech is not exceptional is indicated by the influence of baby-talk on Greek and Latin; see e.g. Ar., Nub. 1382–5Google Scholar and, most recently, Stephanopoulos, T., Glotta 61 (1983), 12—15Google Scholar; Dixon, S., Papers and synopses from the twenty-second congress of the AULLA. Classics section (Canberra, 1984), pp. 9–24Google Scholar.

20. IG 22 12629.

21. Eur., HF 634–6Google Scholar, and cf., e.g., Pho. 965–6, fr. 346N.2 Here as elsewhere, of course, the characters of Euripides' plays provide evidence for almost every attitude; see Masqueray, P., ‘Euripide et les enfants’, REA 8 (1906), 85–92, especially 85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. See in general Daube, D., The duty of procreation (Edinburgh, 1977)Google Scholar. Sparta punished bachelors (Plut., Lye. 15.1–2Google Scholar, Lys. 30.5, Mor. 227F), while those with three and four sons were exempted from some civic duties (Arist., Pol. 2.1270bl)Google Scholar. At Rome, we hear of similar laws from the early period; see Dion., Hal., Ant. Rom. 9.22.2Google Scholar, Val. Max. 2.9.1, Plut., Cam. 2.2Google Scholar The best attested (though not necessarily the most effective) are Augustus'; see now Raditsa, L. F., ANRW 2.13 (1980), 278–339Google Scholar; Wallace-Hadrill, A., PCPS 207 (1981), 58–80Google Scholar; Nörr, D., The Irish Jurist 16 (1981), 350–64Google Scholar.

23. For puns on the word tokos, ‘offspring’ and ‘interest’, see, e.g., Ar., Nub. 1156Google Scholar (cf. 34), Thesm. 845, Pl., Resp. 6.506c–507a, 8.555eGoogle Scholar, Arist., Pol. 1.1258b6Google Scholar, cf. Plaut., Men. 59Google Scholar. The relation of interest and affection was an issue in antiquity too; see especially Plutarch's essay On affection for offspring (Mor. 493a–497e) and the comments by Lambert, G., Rhetoric rampant: the family under siege in the early Western tradition (London, Ontario, 1982), pp. 11–14Google Scholar.

24. Thompson, E. P., New Society 41 (1977), 501Google Scholar.

25. Finley, M. I., G&R 28 (1981), 159Google Scholar.

26. Ariès, P., L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous I'ancien régime (Paris, 1960), especially p. 39Google Scholar; Pinchbeck, I. and Hewitt, M., Children in English society 1 (London, 1969), especially pp. 301–2Google Scholar; Shorter, E., The making of the modern family (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Stone, L., The family, sex and marriage in England 1500–1800 (London, 1977)Google Scholar. Cf. too Mitterauer, M. and Sieder, R., The European family (Oxford, 1982), pp. 60–61Google ScholarPubMed.

27. See, e.g., Frier, B., HSCP 86 (1982), 213–51Google Scholar (especially the life-table at 245); id., Phoenix 37 (1983), 328–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Woman of 73: SEG 20.621 (Egypt). The only exception I know is SEG 26.1555 (Commagene), for a child of one, but neither the reading nor its reliability is very certain; see Wagner, J., Seleukeia am Euphrat/Zeugma (Wiesbaden, 1976), p. 212 no. 67Google Scholar, cf. BullEp 1977, 429–30 no. 531.

29. For summaries and citations of evidence, see Kurtz, D. C. and Boardman, J., Greek burial customs (London, 1974), pp. 55, 70, 92, 188–90Google Scholar; J. Bremmer (above, n. 4), pp. 96–100.

30. Cic., Tusc. 1.39.93Google Scholar.

31. IG 5.2.413.

32. On these protests, see now M. Golden, ‘The effects of slavery on citizen households and children: Aeschylus, Aristophanes and Athens’, Historical reflections/Réflexions historiques.

33. For the institutional context, Herman, G., Ritualised friendship and the Greek city (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar.

34. Cf. also Manson, M. in L'enfant. Société Jean Bodin pour l'histoire comparative des institutions. Recueils 39 (1975), p. 147Google Scholar.

35. Konner, M. in Leiderman, P. H., Tulkin, S. R. and Rosenfeld, A., eds., Culture and infancy. Variations in the human experience (New York, 1977), p. 315Google Scholar.

36. See R. A. LeVine, in Leiderman et al. (above, n. 35), p. 23.

37. Campbell, J. K., Honour, family and patronage (Oxford, 1964), p. 154Google Scholar.

38. On funerary rites in the Greek and Roman worlds, see Toynbee, J. M. C., Death and burial in the Roman world (London, 1971), pp. 43–64Google Scholar; Kurtz and Boardman (above, n. 29), pp. 142–61, 200–217; Hopkins, K., Death and renewal (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 201–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garland, R., The Greek way of death (London, 1985), pp. 21–37, 104–20Google Scholar.

39. For example, the Sarakatsani, ‘will sometimes agree that the measure of God's punishment is hard, particularly when the life of a small child is taken’ (Campbell [above n. 37], p. 323)Google Scholar.

40. On weeping and lamentation as ritual, see Alexiou, M., The ritual lament in Greek tradition (Cambridge, 1974)Google Scholar; Huntingdon, R. and Metcalf, P., Celebrations of death. The anthropology of mortuary ritual (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 24–8Google Scholar.

41. Cf. Schiff, H. S., The bereaved parent (New York, 1978), p. xiiGoogle Scholar.

42. Hertz, R., Death and the right hand (tr. R., and Needham, C.: Oxford 1960)Google Scholar (= Année sociologique 10 [1907], 48–137)Google Scholar; cf. e.g., Parker, R., Miasma: pollution and purification in early Greek religion (Oxford 1983), p. 41Google Scholar.

43. For such explanations, see Binford, L., An archaeological perspective (New York and London, 1972), p. 219Google Scholar.

44. Thompson (above, n. 24), 500; Macfarlane, A., History and theory 18 (1979), 103–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45. On wet-nursing, see Sussman, G., Selling mother's milk: the wet-nursing business in France, 1715–1914 (Urbana, Ill., 1982)Google Scholar; Lehning, J. R., Peasant studies 9 (1982), 250–57Google Scholar.

46. See McCracken, G., Journal of family history 8 (1983), 303–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goody, E. in Medick, H. and Sabean, D. W., eds., Interest and emotion. Essays in the study of family and kinship (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 266–77Google Scholar.

47. Forgotten children: parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900 (Cambridge, 1983), p. 127Google Scholar; cf. p. 140. Some of the same arguments are put forward, apparently independently, in a welldocumented article by Wilson, S., Social history 9 (1984), 181–198CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pollock's conclusions are welcomed, and Stone's approach critiqued, by Spiecker, B. and Groenendijk, L. F., British journal of educational studies 33 (1985), 5–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Herlihy, D., Medieval households (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1985), pp. 112–30Google Scholar, has stressed the care for children in mediaeval families.

48. Bradley, K. R. in Rawson, B., ed., The family in ancient Rome. New perspectives (London and Sydney, 1986), pp. 201–29, especially 216–20Google Scholar; R. Garland (above, n. 38), pp. 80–86; K. Hopkins (above, n. 38), pp. 222–26.

49. Cf. Kurtz and Boardman (above, n. 29), p. 331; deMause, L. in deMause, , ed., The history of childhood (New York, 1974), pp. 1–73, especially 25–32Google Scholar; Sagan, E., The lust to annihilate. A psychoanalytic study of violence in ancient Greek culture (New York, 1979), p. 210Google Scholar. Contra: Africa, T. W., Journal of psychohistory 9 (1982), 403Google Scholar.

50. See, e.g., Golden, M., Phoenix 35 (1981), 316–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar and (for reasonable doubts) M. Schmidt (above, n. 1); Engels, D., CQ 34 (1984), 386–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gallo, L., Opus 3 (1984), 37–62Google Scholar; Patterson, C., TAPA 115 (1985), 103–23Google Scholar.

51. See Howell, N., Demography of the Dobe !Kung (New York, 1979), pp. 62, 119–20Google Scholar.

52. See, for example, R. Schulte in Medick and Sabean (above, n. 46), pp. 77–102, especially 92.

53. Vekemans, M. and Dohmen, B., Studies in family planning 13 (1982), 355–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54. Moseley, D. T., Follingstad, D. R., Harley, H., and Heckel, R. V., Journal of clinical psychology 37 (1981), 276–93.0.CO;2-H>CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55. Steinhoff, P. G. in Sachdev, P., ed., Perspectives on abortion (Metuchen, NJ. and London, 1985), p. 127Google Scholar. Cf. too Bracken, M. B., Klerman, L. V., and Bracken, M., American journal of obstetrics and gynecology 130 (1978), 251–62Google Scholar.

56. Polyb. 36.17.5.

57. Musonius Rufus fr. 15A and B (= Stob., Flor. 4.24.15)Google Scholar.

58. Different approaches are presented by Sailer and Shaw (above, n. 3); Shaw, B. D., Historia 33 (1984), 457–97Google Scholar; Humphreys, S. C., GRBS 27 (1986), 57–91Google Scholar; Bradley, K. R., Historical reflections/Reflexions historiques 14 (1987), 33–62Google Scholar.

59. For a valuable review, see Lutz, C. and White, G. M., Annual review of anthropology 15 (1986), 405–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60. For a useful discussion of this distinction, see Stearns, P. N. with Stearns, C. Z., AHR 90 (1985), 313–36Google Scholar.

61. Euripides and Dionysus (Cambridge, 1948), p. 11Google Scholar.

62. Scheper-Hughes, N., Ethos 13 (1985), 291–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar.