Ancient Roman Parental Reactions to the Death of an Infant: Indifference Or Grief?

Ancient Roman Parental Reactions to the death of an Infant: Indifference or Grief? Tania Patel (11162228) MA Thesis Classics and Ancient Civilisations Number of Words: 27000 (excluding footnotes and bibliography) UVA University, Amsterdam March 2017 Supervisor: Professor Emily Hemelrijk Preface Writing this thesis on the emotions of bereaved Roman parents has proved to be both an enjoyable and eye-opening experience. My interest in the history of emotions first arose at the suggestion of professor Emily Hemelrijk, who understood that I wanted to cover new ground. I would like to thank professor Hemelrijk for all her guidance and support in this process – she has been an inspiration to me and I have learned more from her than I could have ever imagined. I would also like to thank Dennis de Hoop and Perry Patel for their unwavering support throughout this year – I could not have achieved any of this without them. 2 Table of Contents: Preface ................................................................................................................................................ 2 Chapter one: Introduction .................................................................................................................. 4 Chapter two: The Emotional Conventions at Rome Regarding the Mourning of Infants. ................ 11 The Elite Roman Male ................................................................................................................... 12 Elite Women .................................................................................................................................. 24 Freedmen and -women ................................................................................................................. 30 Chapter Three: Individual Parental Reactions to the Death of an Infant. ........................................ 42 Does High Infant Mortality Cause Parental Indifference? ............................................................ 43 Signs of Grief Among the Freedman Community? ....................................................................... 45 Signs of Grief among the Elite? ..................................................................................................... 54 Wet-nursing, Puer Senex and Exposure ........................................................................................ 64 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 73 Appendix A ........................................................................................................................................ 82 Appendix B: ....................................................................................................................................... 83 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 92 3 Chapter one: Introduction Nature declares that she has given the human race the gentlest of hearts by her gift of tears… It’s by Nature’s command that we sigh when … a baby is buried in the ground, too young for the pyre’s flame1 Whether infants were as appreciated in Roman society as the words of Juvenal would seem to imply has sparked a great deal of debate among scholars of the ancient world. The majority of historians, while believing older children were mourned, are fairly unanimous that infants were undervalued in Roman society and that their parents were largely unaffected by their deaths.2 Such conclusions appear to be mainly based on assumption rather than research. For example, several historians assume high infant mortality3 always led to parental indifference without actually investigating whether this was indeed the case for ancient Rome.4 Other scholars point to the under-representation of infants in Roman funerary inscriptions and Roman practices such as wet-nursing and exposure as proving Roman parents were largely disinterested in their infants. The small minority of scholars on the opposing side of the debate, however, are no less presumptuous: insisting those few, tombstone inscriptions dedicated to infants proves Roman parents deeply loved their infants and grieved for them when they died.5 The fact of the matter is that the literary and material evidence on this subject is both scanty and contradictory and, thus, can be used to argue either side. I believe the real problem lies in the fact that scholars have attempted to analyse the emotions of Roman society without using emotion as a serious category of historical analysis, which has led to a great deal of misinterpretation and false assumption. The aim of this thesis, therefore, is to use the theory of the history of emotions to see if a fuller and deeper understanding can be gained of the emotions of Roman parents when their infants died. This is an innovative approach, as to my knowledge, no one has yet applied the theory of the history of emotions to ancient Rome. 1 Juvenal, Sat. 15. 134 – 140. 2 Bradley, 1986, 22; Wiedemann, 1989, 16 – 17; Rawson, 2003, 346; Dixon, 1988, 104. 3 Infant mortality was high at Rome as will be demonstrated in chapter 3. 4 Bradley, 1986. 5 Laes, 2007; King, 2000. 4 This is rather surprising as the history of emotions is currently experiencing something of a boom among historians of the medieval and modern period. Yet, the history of emotions is not a new field of historical research. Indeed as early as 1941, Lucien Febvre, urged other historians to include emotions in their work as he believed emotions influenced political life and were thus paramount to historical study.6 His view, on the whole, was that emotions were violent and impulsive but that some societies were better at controlling their emotions than others.7 Norbert Elias shared a similar idea in 1939 when he wrote “The Civilizing Process”. He argued that prior to the modern era, people were emotionally childlike and that it was only from 1600 CE onwards that people began to exercise greater restraint in their emotions and to become more “civilized”.8 Surprisingly, the historians Peter and Carol Stearns seemed to largely follow this notion when they introduced the term “emotionology” in 1985. “Emotionology” refers to “the attitude or standards that a society, or a definable group within a society, maintains toward basic emotions and their appropriate expression; [and the] ways that institutions reflect and encourage these attitudes in human conduct”.9 The Stearns were, thus, more interested in the emotional conventions surrounding emotional expression than in individual expressions of emotion. They also believed the only way to uncover emotional conventions was by reading popular advice manuals such as etiquette books.10 This meant “emotionology” could only be applied to the modern era as that is when advice manuals for the middle classes began. Yet, the Stearns did not consider this to be problematic as they agreed with Febvre and Elias that people had no control over their emotions before the modern period: Public temper tantrums, along with frequent weeping and boisterous joy, were far more common in premodern society than they were to become in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Adults were in many ways, by modern standards, childlike in their indulgence in temper…11 6 Lucien Febvre’s theory is discussed by both Plamper, 2015, 40 – 43, Rosenwein, 2002. 823. 7 Rosenwein discusses this theory of Febvre in Rosenwein, 2002, 823. 8 Rosenwein discusses the theory of Norbert Elias in Rosenwein, 2002, 826 – 827. 9 Plamper cites the Stearns directly in Plamper, 2015, 57. 10 Rosenwein discusses the Stearns’ methodology in Rosenwein, 2002, 825. 11 Stearns, 1986, 25. 5 Febvre, Elias and the Stearns, thus, all subscribed to what Rosenwein termed “the grand narrative”,12 which deemed that people showed increasing emotional restraint as they entered into the modern era. I concur with Rosenwein that “the grand narrative” is extremely unconvincing, particularly, as the ancient Romans demonstrated a great deal of restraint in their emotions as will be revealed in chapter two. Fortunately, more convincing theories now exist regarding the history of emotions. One such theory is that of William Reddy who believes that every political regime also has an “emotional regime”.13 The emotional regime prescribes which emotions and modes of emotional expression are considered to be normative and acceptable in a particular society. Reddy argues that there are different types of emotional regimes: at one end of the spectrum are the “stricter emotional regimes” which allow individuals to only express those emotions deemed acceptable and severely punishes individuals who show any deviant emotional behavior. At the other end of the spectrum, exist the looser emotional regimes which allow individuals to manoeuvre between different and conflicting emotional objectives, permitting emotional liberty and self-discovery.14 Most emotional regimes will also have an “emotional refuge” in which emotional conventions are relaxed and the effort to emotionally conform can be put aside.15 Reddy clearly believes certain emotional regimes are superior to others and this is where he came up against social constructivism. For, there are two schools of thought on emotions: universalism and social constructivism. Universalists (cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists) believe emotions are universal and transhistorical; whereas social constructivists, such

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