Sponsored by: Archaeological Institute of America
The study of birth, infancy, and earliest childhood in the Roman world is a newly emerging field, and this lecture presents some of the most recent developments in this exciting area of research. The first year in the life was packed full of challenges, achievements, and milestones that helped shape the child’s physical and social development. In Roman society, birthdays were celebrated by young and old, but the marking of the first birthday, in particular, will have been an important event in an era of high infant mortality, a celebration which perhaps thirty percent of Roman children may not have lived to see. By integrating the information provided by archaeology, art, literature, history, and science, we are able to recognise the physical and emotional investment by the Roman family and society in the health, well-being, and future of the very young, from newborn to toddler.
Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:
M. Carroll, Infancy and Earliest Childhood in the Roman World. ‘A fragment of time’. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018
M. Carroll, Infant death and burial in Roman Italy, Journal of Roman Archaeology 24: 2011, 99-120
V. Dasen, Childbirth and infancy in Greek and Roman antiquity, in B. Rawson (ed.), A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011, 291-314
B. Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxford, University Press, 2013
Website:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/archaeology/research/infancy
Norton Lecture
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