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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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 as historians, naturally, believe emotions are cultural constructions and thus vary across time and culture.16 Yet, social constructivism holds a dilemma for Reddy as it does not allow ethical judgements to be passed on other cultures due to its intrinsic belief that everything is socially constructed including our values, meaning value judgements cannot be made about other groups. Reddy’s solution was to develop the concept of “emotives” which reconciled constructivism and universalism. Emotives are in essence emotional statements such as “I feel sad”. According to Reddy, emotives have both a constative function and a performative function. Constatives are descriptive statements about the world such as “the sky is blue”, whereas performatives are

12 Rosenwein, 2002, 824. 13 Reddy, 2004, 128. 14 Reddy, 2004, 126 – 128. 15 Reddy, 2004, 129. 16 Historians would have to be social constructivists as there would be no point in researching the history of emotions if all emotions were indeed universal and transhistorical.

6 statements that change the world such as when a bride says “I do” at a registry office. Reddy argues that emotives have both these functions as “I am sad” describes what a person is feeling, yet it also enables that person to decide whether he/she is indeed feeling sad or perhaps feeling something else. In this sense, emotives also have a self-exploratory function, allowing the speaker to potentially change or confirm what he/she is feeling. Reddy has, thus, managed to integrate social constructivism and universalism in such a way that emotions remain a valid category of historical analysis, whilst simultaneously allowing different regimes to be researched from an evaluative position.

Rosenwein applauds Reddy for his innovative use of the concept of emotives, but criticizes him for presenting such a bipartite view of society in which there is just one emotional regime and one emotional refuge.17 She postulates pre-modern societies were much more diverse and complex than Reddy’s theory suggests and, therefore, proposes using the term “emotional communities” (deliberately plural). Emotional communities are:

precisely the same as social communities – families, neighbourhoods, parliaments, guilds, monasteries, parish church memberships – but the researcher seeks above all to uncover systems of feeling; what these communities… define and assess as valuable or harmful to them; the evaluations that they make about other’s emotions; the nature of the affective bonds between people that they recognise; and the modes of emotional expression that they expect, encourage, tolerate, and deplore18

Rosenwein argues any society will generally have several emotional communities co-existing with one another. It may be possible for a person to move from one emotional community to another, provided the new emotional community’s conventions are not radically different from those of the original emotional community. It is also possible that some emotional communities may be more dominant than others at certain points in time, but that this may change as new or existing emotional communities come to the fore.19

Rosenwein and Reddy have, thus, both provided innovative and practical paradigms for analysing a wide range of sources in order to discover more about the emotional lives of past societies. This is why both these theories will be used for the purposes of this thesis –

17 Rosenwein, 2006, 23. 18 Plamper, 2015, 68. 19 Rosenwein, 2006, 2.

7 though it may transpire that one model may prove more suited to Roman society than the other.

The prime focus of this thesis will be the emotional reactions of Roman parents when their infants20 died, as this has generated the most debate and confusion among scholars of the ancient world. The parents examined in this thesis all come from the elite community or the freedman community at Rome as these two groups have produced the most evidence on this subject matter. This unfortunately means that the parents for which we have no evidence, such as the urban poor at Rome, will have to be overlooked. The time period covered in this thesis comprises a broad one: the last century of the Republic and the first three centuries of the Principate, although the main focus will be on the first two centuries of the Principate. The dangers of such a methodology are clear: in treating these four centuries as one homogenous whole, little scope is left for change and development. Nevertheless, the limited evidence on infant death and on parental reactions to such a death, demands such an approach. Moreover, such a study can be justified if seen as an attempt to gain an introductory overview of parental reactions to infant death at Rome in general. What’s more, should any obvious developments or changes have been noted during the course of research, then these will be duly discussed in the main body of this thesis.

The sources that will be used for this thesis will be varied and plentiful in order to gain as complete a picture as possible of both the emotional conventions at Rome as well as of individual parental reactions to the death of an infant. In this sense, the consolatory literature on parental grief will form the starting point of this thesis such as Seneca’s Ad Marciam and Epistle XCIX and Plutarch’s Ad Uxorem and Ad Apollonium. It could be argued that using Plutarch as a source on Roman parental grief is risky as Plutarch lived most of his life in Greece and wrote in Greek. Yet, he was also a Roman citizen who visited Rome and had considerable knowledge of Roman institutions and history. Most importantly of all, he shared the same cultural outlook as the educated upper class at Rome and therefore, in my opinion, forms a reliable source for Roman parental attitudes towards infants and their deaths. In addition, Cicero’s Tusculanae Disputationes will be consulted in order to gain a greater understanding of how the different philosophical schools at Rome viewed grief and emotions in general. The personal letters of elite Roman men such as Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, Fronto and

20 It should be noted that for the purposes of this thesis, I am defining an infant as belonging to the 0-3 age category although on occasion, some evidence for older children may be looked at.

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Marcus Aurelius will also be used in order to gain insight into individual expressions of parental grief and the reactions of friends and family to such grief. Finally, Tacitus’ Annales will be consulted for descriptions of grieving notable Romans which will provide much information on the Roman ideal in terms of mourning. The literary sources will, thus, be used for gaining a deeper understanding of the emotional conventions of the elite regarding parental grief and for gaining more insight into elite individual expressions of emotion surrounding the death of an infant. For similar information on the middle classes, the epigraphic and material evidence at Rome will be examined, in particular verse and prose inscriptions and the portraits on reliefs and funerary altars. Finally, the sarcophagi of infants will be discussed as these provide a great deal of insight into Roman attitudes (both middle class and elite) towards infants in general.

This thesis will attempt to answer two main research questions: namely, 1) what where the emotional conventions at Rome with regard to the mourning of infants? and 2) how did individual parents react to the death of an infant? The first question is of crucial value when attempting to uncover emotions of the past as emotional conventions heavily influence how individuals express their emotions as well as determining to a large extent how individuals actually feel.21 Chapter two will, therefore, focus on the emotional conventions at Rome with regard to the proper mourning etiquette when an infant died. A variety of sources will be taken into account in answering this question ranging from literary sources to legal texts to epigraphic evidence to portraits on reliefs and funerary altars. In addition, each group will be examined separately in order to determine whether the emotional conventions at Rome differed slightly depending on whether you were an elite male, an elite women or a freedman or –woman. This approach owes much to Rosenwein’s model of emotional communities and allows for a more in-depth analysis of the groups being studied, potentially revealing new results and insights. In addition, Reddy’s model will be used to determine whether Rome was a strict regime, ensuring individuals followed the prescribed conventions or whether Rome was a looser regime, allowing for some emotional liberty. The third chapter of this thesis will focus more on the attitudes and reactions of individual parents when their infants died. Again, both literary and archeological sources will be examined for this purpose for both the elite and freedman community. In particular, any recurring emotion words will be noted to determine what this can tell us about the feelings Roman parents were trying to

21 Rosenwein, 2002, 824.

9 express. Cicero’s list of emotion words will prove invaluable in this regard. The reactions of individual parents will also be compared to the emotional conventions at Rome and of each community in order to determine whether these parents were largely following convention in their behavior or whether they were going against the grain. Finally, a great deal of this chapter will be devoted to upending old theories and assumptions: for example, can it simply be assumed that high infant mortality always leads to parental indifference? Does the under- representation of infants in funerary inscriptions necessarily mean infants were not valued in Roman society? Do such practices as wet-nursing, the puer senex motif and exposure prove Roman parents avoided emotionally investing in the very youngest members of their society?

The importance of this research lies in gaining a better understanding of family dynamics at Rome. It is hoped that the innovative approach taken in this thesis will demonstrate the validity of using emotion as a serious category of historical analysis and that by doing so, new perspectives will be gained on existing evidence. Perhaps, the new insights garnered in the course of this research may encourage other historians to use the models of Rosenwein and Reddy to reexamine both the archeological and literary evidence of ancient Rome.

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Chapter two: The Emotional Conventions at Rome Regarding the Mourning of Infants.

Now, at this time, am I advising you to be hard-hearted, desiring you to keep your countenance unmoved at the very funeral ceremony, and not allowing your soul even to feel the pinch of pain? By no means. That would mean lack of feeling rather than virtue22

Any scholar attempting to unearth emotions of the past, must examine the emotional conventions/standards of the period being studied. This includes determining which emotions were considered acceptable or unacceptable as well as determining which modes of emotional expression were deemed most appropriate. Emotional conventions also frequently play an instrumental role in shaping how people actually feel23 and, thus, provide crucial information for any scholar hoping to learn more about the types of emotions experienced in a particular society. The main purpose of this chapter, then, is to uncover Roman emotional conventions regarding the mourning of infants. In this sense, Rome can be said to be rather different to present-day society as Rome had very specific regulations regarding mourning that were actually written down in law. Thus a legal text from the late second to early third century stipulates:

Parents and children over six years of age can be mourned for a year, children under six for a month.24

Similarly, a text by the late third century jurist, Ulpian, claims:

Parents are to be mourned for a year, as are children older than 10 years. Younger children are mourned for as many months as they have lived down to the age of three; a child younger than three years does not receive formal mourning but a marginal form; a child less than a year old receives neither formal mourning nor a marginal form25

22 Seneca, Ep.XCIX.15. 23 Rosenwein, 2002, 824. Rosenwein here reiterates the theories of Carol and Peter Stearns and of Arlie Hochschild. 24 Paulus, Opinions 1.21 in Hope, 2007, 174. 25 Frag. Vat. 3.21 in Rawson, 2003, 346.

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Finally, Plutarch offers yet another set of conventions that were supposedly established by the legendary king Numa:

For … a child of less than three years there was to be no mourning at all; over one older than that, the mourning was not to last more months than it had lived years, up to ten26

All of these texts, despite their slightly differing details, signify mourning for infants was expected to be briefer than for older children and adults. The implication is that losing an infant was not considered to be something worth grieving over. Presumably such rules applied to all Roman citizens living in Rome. To the modern historian such conventions may appear callous and unfeeling. Yet, the aim of this chapter is not to take a moral stance on such issues but rather to uncover whether these regulations were strictly enforced or whether other regulations also existed. In other words, can these three texts tell us all there is to know about the emotional conventions at Rome? And if so, did Rome subscribe to Reddy’s bipartite model of “emotional regimes”27 and emotional refuges? Or was Rome largely constructed along the lines of Rosenwein’s “emotional communities”,28 in which each community had slightly differing emotional conventions, ensuring the formal mourning regulations mentioned above were largely ignored? Unfortunately, the evidence at our disposal is rather limited, as large sections of Rome’s population, such as the urban poor, have left us no trace of their existence. We are therefore left only with the literary texts of the elite and the epigraphic evidence of the freedman community, which is why these two groups will provide the main focus of this chapter.

The Elite Roman Male

Of all the peoples in the world, the Roman nation is unquestionably the one most outstanding in virtue 29

26 Plutarch, Lives “Numa”, 12. 27 Reddy, 2004. 28 Rosenwein, 2006. 29 Pliny, Nat. Hist, 7.130 Found and translated in Edwards, 1993, 21.

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Pliny’s pride in the superiority of Roman virtue is a sentiment that is widely echoed by many elite moralists and historians in Roman society.30 Roman moral pre-eminence was not merely a source of glory, but was believed to have secured divine favour and thus accounted for Roman military success as well as its ever increasing empire.31 Moral virtue can thus be seen to be one of the distinguishing features of elite Roman identity. The elite Roman male was especially exalted for virtues that were needed in politics and on the battle field such as virtus (courage), fortitudo (fortitude), and continentia (self- control).32 In particular, continentia seems to have gained a great deal of emphasis in the elite male world due to the widespread belief that a lack of self-control signified an inability to control or govern others.33 Continentia can, thus, be viewed as a vital precondition for entry into any of the occupations available to elite men, whether in the military or political sphere.34 Needless to say, such virtue was not expected of the lower classes who seem to have distinctly lacked such qualities.35 In fact, the ability of the elite to demonstrate such mastery over themselves justified and legitimised their rule over the non-elite and other foreign peoples who were considered to be incapable of such self-control.36 Continentia thus marked the elite Roman man from inferior groups37 and determined to a large extent how elite males were expected to express emotion. In terms of mourning, continentia meant elite males had to display restraint in their grief, exhibiting only minimal and controlled displays of emotion. An example of this can be seen in Tacitus’ description of Agricola after he had just lost his infant son:

In the beginning of the summer Agricola suffered a domestic blow: he lost the son born a year before. He took the loss neither with bravado, like most strong men, nor yet with the lamentations and mournings of a woman. Among other things, he turned for comfort to the war.38

30 Edwards, 1993, 21.Edwards gives such examples as Livy and Nespos. 31 Edwards, 1993, 21. 32 Hemelrijk, 2004. 33 Edwards, 1993, 26; Hemelrijk, 2004, 189. 34 Hemelrijk, 2004, 189. 35 Edwards, 1993, 24; Hemelrijk, 2004, 188-189. 36 Edwards, 1993, 25. 37 Inferior groups would include such categories as women, plebians, slaves and barbarians. 38 Tacitus, Agric. 29.1 (All translations, unless otherwise stated, are those of the Loeb).

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Tacitus greatly admired Agricola and thus his description of Agricola’s grief can be seen as the “Roman ideal” in terms of the proper way to mourn. Particularly praiseworthy would have been the fact that he did not ignore his public duty (the war) and that he even used it as a source of comfort to heal from his loss. Yet, what is particularly enlightening about this passage is the fact that it clarifies ostentatious displays of false fortitude were not correct interpretations of continentia. The ideal was to be restrained and dignified, not indifferent or callous. In fact, over-zealous continentia could backfire, as revealed in Tacitus’ description of Tiberius’ behaviour upon the death of Germanicus:

He39 and Augusta abstained from any appearance in public, either holding it below their majesty to sorrow in the sight of men, or apprehending that, if all eyes perused their looks, they might find hypocrisy legible.40

It is important to note Tacitus is being sarcastic in this extract and that he is ridiculing Tiberius and his mother for failing to make an appearance in public. Clearly, such behaviour was not appropriate. In fact, a little further on in the passage Tacitus accuses Tiberius and his mother of keeping Germanicus’ mother, Antonia, in the palace on purpose so as to make their own behaviour seem less unusual.41 It is clear that Tacitus believes Tiberius and his mother absented themselves from this occasion to avoid having the insincerity of their grief uncovered in public. The fact that Tacitus mocks such behaviour would suggest Roman conventions deemed moderate sorrow to be both normal and acceptable when a family member died and that the conduct of Tiberius and his mother verged on heartlessness. Thus, elite codes of conduct regarding mourning were a great deal more complex than the term continentia would first seem to imply. The ideal was obviously not as simple as “just not showing any emotion”, rather it required a delicate balancing act of being able to master ones emotions without appearing callous. A letter by Pliny, in which he speaks of his friend Minicius Fundanus who had just lost his daughter, offers further insight into Roman emotional conventions regarding mourning:

39 “He” refers to Tiberius. 40 Tacitus, Ann. III.3 41 Tacitus, Ann. III.3

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He is indeed a cultivated man and a philosopher … but at the moment he rejects everything he has so often heard and professed himself: he has cast off all his other virtues and is wholly absorbed by his love for his child. You will forgive and even admire him if you think of what he has lost …42

It is interesting that there appear to be two underlying messages in this text. On the one hand, Pliny asks the reader to “forgive” Fundanus for the intense nature of his grief, which would seem to imply this kind of grief was not considered ideal. Yet, at the same time, it seems to be expected that the reader will indeed “forgive and even admire” Fundanus, which suggests Pliny was fairly confident his reader would feel sympathy for Fundanus’ plight. That Pliny was so sure of his reader’s ability to feel empathy for Fundanus, makes it seem likely that Roman emotional conventions regarding continentia were less stringent than may first appear to be the case. There may well have been some understanding and tolerance for elite men who were not able to demonstrate mastery over their emotions in the most difficult moments of grief. Certainly it seems to be the case that emotional conventions were slightly loosened for men in the initial stages of mourning. For example, a little further on Pliny writes:

If then you write anything to him in his very natural sorrow … be gentle and sympathetic. Passage of time will make him readier to accept this: a raw wound shrinks from a healing hand but later permits and even seeks help…43

That Pliny can prevail on his reader to be gentle and sympathetic in the early stages of grief indicates men were probably not expected to exhibit perfect continentia when first bereaved. In fact, Pliny talks about Fundanus’ natural sorrow – implying such sorrow was both commonplace and understandable, at least in the initial stages of grief. Indeed, even Seneca, who is known for his severe and harsh attitude to excessive grief,44 acknowledges:

When a man is stricken and is finding it most difficult to endure a grievous wound, one must humour him for a while; let him satisfy his grief or at any

42 Pliny, Ep. V.16 43 Pliny, Ep. V.16 44 Think of his (fictitious) letter to Marullus in Seneca, Ep, XCIX.

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rate work off the first shock; but those who have assumed an indulgence in grief should be rebuked forthwith…45

Thus, even though the ability to control ones grief, without appearing callous, was an important part of elite Greco-Roman tradition, there did appear to be some leeway for men who were struggling to uphold these standards, particularly in the initial stages of grief. Interestingly enough, these emotional conventions do not seem to have changed significantly from the republican to the imperial period as Cicero subscribed to a similar view of appropriate male grief to Seneca and Pliny.46 In this sense, Rome, as an emotional regime, could be argued to be at the looser end of the spectrum as there seems to have been some understanding for the emotions of the bereaved, signifying mourning regulations were not that vigorously enforced. On the other hand, in a society as diverse and stratified as Rome, it seems unlikely that one emotional style will have applied to everyone residing there. It therefore seems more appropriate to analyse Roman society through the lens of Rosenwein’s “emotional communities”. From this perspective, the concept of continentia would have applied to the entire class of elite Greco-Roman males. Yet, even here nuances must be made, as elite males did not form one homogenous whole. On the contrary, within this group, a variety of philosophical allegiances existed, including Stoicism, Epicureanism, and middle Platonism as well as eclecticism and those who professed no philosophical allegiance at all.47 Naturally, such an array of belief systems will have led to disparate views on emotional conventions and styles, meaning the emotional community of the elite male must have been further divided into sub-emotional communities. In fact, this is exactly the scenario sketched by Rosenwein: she proposes each emotional community be viewed as a large circle which then contains a number of smaller circles. The large circle should be viewed as the overarching emotional community which encompasses shared emotional conventions, values, and accepted forms of emotional expression. “The smaller circles represent subordinate emotional communities, partaking in the larger one and revealing its possibilities and its limitations.”48 Thus for Rome, this means the entire male elite class will have complied with

45 Seneca, Ep, XCIX.1. 46 Thus, for example in At Att.XII.10 Cicero tells Atticus: “Your grief does credit to your heart, but you must try your best to keep it in bounds” - implying the ideal was to exhibit continentia without appearing indifferent or heartless. 47 For example, Marcus Cornelius Fronto seems to have had no philosophical allegiance at all. 48 Rosenwein, 2006, 24.

16 the general notion of continentia, while simultaneously following the conventions and modes of expression of their own smaller emotional communities. One such smaller emotional community would be the Stoics, a school of philosophy that enjoyed a great deal of popularity in Rome. The Stoic take on emotions was very cognitive in nature.49 They believed emotions arose because of a judgement that a situation was either good or bad, which in turn generated the belief that it was “appropriate to react in a certain way to a given situation”.50 For the Stoics, however, good and bad existed only in the state of the soul with regards to whether a man was virtuous or not (virtue being defined first and foremost as being in accordance with nature through accepting divine will).51 All other things, such as bereavement, wealth, poverty, death, sickness, health etc., were considered to be “externals” - neither good nor bad, but merely matters of indifference.52 The Stoics, therefore, considered conventional emotions (such as grief, anger, fear etc) to be the product of a “defective, irrational, or diseased state of mind”53 as they were based on the mistaken belief that “externals” were indeed good or bad. As a result, conventional emotions had to be extirpated. Only the emotions of the wise person were considered to be “good” emotions as these were limited to a joyous attitude towards virtue and a cautious attitude towards possible ethical wrongdoing in the future.54 Given this stance, it is hardly surprising that Stoic philosophers such as Seneca took a fairly severe approach when dealing with the bereaved. A good example of this is Seneca’s letter to Marullus,55 who was mourning the death of his infant son. Seneca severely chastised Marullus for his excessive grief as can be seen from the opening line of the letter:

“Is it solace that you look for? Let me give you a scolding instead!”56

Seneca continues in this rather abusive and unsympathetic tone as a little further on in the letter he states:

49Gill, 2012, 143. 50 Gill, 2012, 146. 51 Starr, 1949. Accepting divine will meant accepting whichever circumstance befell you and not resisting the situation you were in. 52 Starr, 1949. 53 Gill, 2012, 150. 54 Gill, 2012, 151. 55 Marullus may well have been a fictive character. In any case, whether this is true or not, it seems certain that Seneca intended to publish this letter. 56 Seneca, Ep, XCIX.2.

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Yours is not pain; it is a mere sting—and it is you yourself who are turning it into pain. Of a surety philosophy has done you much service if you can bear courageously the loss of a boy who was as yet better known to his nurse than to his father!57

To the modern scholar such words appear shockingly harsh. Yet, a closer reading of this letter indicates Seneca’s ruthless words should not be taken as representative of the Stoic consolatory tradition nor of Roman attitudes towards infants.58 For, Seneca himself, in the introduction of this letter59 says:

I enclose a copy of the letter which I wrote to Marullus at the time when he had lost his little son and was reported to be rather womanish in his grief… a letter in which I have not observed the usual form of condolence: for I did not believe that he should be handled gently, since in my opinion he deserved criticism rather than consolation60

Seneca, thus, admits that the style used in this letter did not conform to the accepted manner of how the bereaved should be addressed. This is corroborated by the fact that Seneca felt the need to justify his decision to use such a style, which implies he knew his readers would have found his letter too harsh and too severe. Perhaps Seneca chose such an approach because he felt Marullus’ grief had gone on for too long (ie. it was no longer limited to the initial stages of grief) or perhaps Marullus’ grief was so excessive that it went beyond what other Roman males could accept and understand. In any case, it is interesting that though Marullus was grieving the death of his infant son, Seneca still felt the need to defend the unsympathetic tone of his letter. This implies emotional conventions required parents of recently deceased infants to be treated

57 Seneca, Ep. XCIX.14-15. 58 Wilson, 1997. Wilson argues the hostility of Seneca’s letter can be explained by the fact that Seneca did not want to actually heal Marullus as was the case with most consolatory letters; rather he wanted to stir Marullus up and empower him so that he would be ready to fight his grief. To strengthen his argument, Wilson draws attention to all the battle imagery Seneca uses in this letter, which admittedly is copious. Wilson may have a point in that Seneca may have thought this approach may be more successful in helping Marullus; but even if this is not case, Wilson is correct in emphasising Seneca’s letter forms an anomaly to the rest of the consolatory tradition which was usually much softer and more sympathetic in tone. 59 Seneca had written this letter to his friend Lucilius in which he included a copy of the letter he had written to Marullus. It is this version of the letter that has survived to this day. 60 Seneca, Ep. XCIX.1

18 with compassion; which would seem to suggest the deaths of infant children were considered to be a sad and painful event. In any case, it is clear that Seneca’s overtly severe tone was not typical of the Stoic approach. Indeed, a little further on in the same letter, he writes:

Now, at this time, am I advising you to be hard-hearted, desiring you to keep your countenance unmoved at the very funeral ceremony, and not allowing your soul even to feel the pinch of pain? By no means. That would mean lack of feeling rather than virtue …61

That Seneca, one of the more strident voices in the consolatory tradition, can write such words, makes it seem fairly evident even the Stoics realised a complete extirpation of emotions was not realistic or possible for most men. Rather, it seems the main message of the Stoics was that it was important to accept, not resist, whatever befell one, as everything happened in accordance with divine will. Marcus Aurelius expresses this rather eloquently in the Meditations:

To feel grief, anger or fear is to try to escape from something decreed by the ruler of all things, now in the past or in the future. And that ruler is law, which governs what happens to each of us. To feel grief or anger or fear is to become a fugitive – a fugitive from justice.62

Another recurring theme in Stoic consolatory literature is the concept that (excessive) grief is not actually caused by the death of a loved one, but rather by the false belief that death is a bad thing and that therefore grief and mourning are justified.63 Seneca touches on this issue several times:

But false opinion has added something more to our grief than Nature has prescribed.64

61 Seneca, Ep.XCIX.15. 62 Marcus Aurelius, Med, 10.25 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003). 63 For as mentioned earlier, the Stoics did not believe that “externals” were good or bad, they were merely matters of indifference. 64 Seneca, Ad. Marc., VII.1

19

What tortures us, therefore, is an opinion, and every evil is only as great as we have reckoned it to be. In our own hands we have the remedy65

It is worth noting that in the first passage, Seneca does acknowledge it is natural to feel something (what the Stoics might call a pre-emotion or a “bite”66) at the death of a loved one. Indeed, the Stoics did not advocate indifference when having lost a loved one, rather they drew a distinction between actual grief and what they called “biting”. “Biting” entailed a sort of pre-emotion or a non-culpable response (such as weeping or a contraction of the chest) which signalled an emotion was imminent. “Bitings” were, however, not actual emotions and the wise man could use reason to circumvent giving in to actual emotions and grief. Indeed, Cicero explains just this concept in book three of the Tusculan Disputations when he states:

Distress of any kind is far removed from the wise person … because it has its origin not in nature, but in judgment and opinion … that grief is appropriate. Once this entirely voluntary belief is removed, distress will be eliminated—the real, unhappy distress, that is; but the mind will still feel a bite, still be contracted a little from time to time. This last they may indeed call “natural,” provided they do not use the name “distress.” For that is a grim and deadly name, which cannot by any means coexist or, as it were, dwell together with wisdom67

It seems likely that if even the elusive wise man of Stoic philosophy was susceptible to the odd “bite” from time to time, the Stoics would have recognised and understood the complete annihilation of conventional emotions were beyond the reach of the ordinary man. Cicero, himself, was of course not a Stoic, as he professed an allegiance to the New Academy.68 However, in book three of the Tusculan Disputations, which deals specifically with the topic of grief, Cicero took a Stoic line as can be seen in the passage just quoted. This formed quite a contrast to the Peripatetic position he usually took, in which he advocated the

65 Seneca, Ad. Marc. XIX.1 66 Gill, 2012, 155. The term “bite” will be explained shortly. 67 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. III.82-83. For book III of the Tusculan Disputations the following translation was used: Margaret Graver, Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4, Translated and with commentary by Margaret Graver, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 68 Graver, 2002, xii. The New Academy takes a slightly sceptical stance, denying the possibility of knowing truth and allowing its followers to study other schools of philosophy and to agree with which ever one seems most plausible.

20 necessity of moderate grief.69 The Peripatetics generally believed humans were rational, meaning their emotions (in moderation) were rational too.70 Why then did Cicero take such a different approach in the Tusculan Disputations? Graver believes the explanation may lie in the fact that, at this particular time, Cicero had been subject to quite a bit of criticism because of his long absence from Rome due the death of his daughter Tullia.71 The elite at Rome presumed his absence was due to the deep grief he felt at his daughter’s death and they disapproved of such behaviour as elite males at Rome were expected to put their public duty before private loss.72 Cicero’s failure to comply with these conventions led to reproof and reproach as can be seen in his correspondence with Atticus:

You urge me to disguise the intensity of my grief and say that others think I do not do so sufficiently.73

You say you think it time that my strength of mind should be made clearly apparent, and that certain people are talking about me in more censorious terms than either you or Brutus use in your letters.74

You say you are afraid my influence and authority may suffer by my present mourning. I don’t know what people find to criticize or what they expect. Do they want me to stop grieving? How can I? Or not to be prostrate with grief? Was anyone ever less so?75

Graver argues Cicero took a Stoic outlook in the Tusculan Disputations because he believed this would convince his critics that he still had “strength of mind” and that he was still

69 Cicero, Ad Att. XII.10; Cicero, Ad. Brut.I.9.2. Or in De Oratore 2.196 Cicero shows why emotions are important and useful in oratory. 70 Knuuttilia, 2006, 25. 71 Graver, 2002, xii – xiii. 72 Hope, 2007, 175. Hope gives examples of elite men who were praised for prioritising the empire over their own sorrows. For example, when Marcus Aureliu lost his son Verus Caesar, he mourned him for no longer than five days and even during that period, gave time to people who needed to consult him on public affairs (Historia Augusta, “Marcus Aurelius” 21.4). To be sure, much of this evidence is anecdotal in nature but it does give great insight into what was considered ideal mourning behavior for elite men. 73 Cicero, Ad Att. XII.20.1 74 Cicero, Ad Att. XII.38a 75 Cicero, Ad Att. XII.40.2 I thank Hemelrijk for providing a more accurate translation of gratia and auctoritas than the Loeb edition.

21 devoted to the public good.76 For, in promoting Stoic thought, with its rigorous and courageous approach, as the most effective remedy to grief, Cicero demonstrated his own equanimity and conquest of grief.77 Graver is fairly convincing in her argument as Cicero’s letters to Atticus do reveal how troubled he was by the allegations made against him, and little else can explain why he would suddenly demonstrate such a preference for Stoicism. The criticism levelled at Cicero is also interesting in terms of emotions history as it offers us greater insight into the types of “penalties” that could be expected if emotional conventions at Rome were not followed. In Cicero’s case, it seems that such penalties did not amount to much more than gossip and disapproval. Yet, given the competitive nature of politics at Rome, it is conceivable that such gossip and disapproval could potentially damage a man’s reputation and thus even his career. Interestingly, the evidence does not seem to confirm such a theory: for, not a single example exists of a Roman being demoted or losing his post due to excessive grief. In fact, Romans who grieved excessively were not even penalised with social exclusion or isolation. For example, Cicero received a great deal of unwavering support from his friends Atticus, Brutus, and Lucceius despite the criticism being levelled at him. The same can be said of Apollonius whose grief had gone on for quite a while78 or for Marcia who had been grieving the death of her son for over three years and still received a relatively compassionate consolation letter from Seneca after all that time.79 Nor did the emperor issue penalties for deviant emotional behaviour as one would expect if Rome corresponded to Reddy’s top-down model of emotional regimes.80 Rather, it seems as if people within the emotional communities themselves mildly chastised a person if he/she did not adhere to the conventions of a particular community. This correlates closely to Rosenwein’s theory that power and decision-making regarding emotional conventions and penalties lay with the people of the emotional communities rather than with the political leader.81 Stoicism may have been one of the most influential schools of philosophy at Rome, but there were many other options available to elite Roman men such as Epicureanism and

76 Graver, 2002, .xiv 77 Graver, 2002, xiv. 78 Plutarch, Ad Apol, 122 A. 79 Seneca, Ad Marc. 1.7 80 Reddy, 2004, 125. For example, Reddy mentions violence, confinement, deprivation and exile as possible examples of penalties that could be expected in a strict emotional regime. 81 Rosenwein, Emotional Communities.

22 middle Platonism82. Epicureanism was slightly less popular in elite Roman society as it encouraged its followers to withdraw from political life.83 Nevertheless, it remained a respected movement and enjoyed considerable clout at Rome. In fact, Cicero’s closest friend, Atticus, was an Epicurean. The Epicureans had a completely different set of ethical values to the Stoics as they denied the idea of the universe having a divine structure or plan. Consequently, virtue was not the most important goal for an Epicurean, pleasure was.84 The Epicureans defined pleasure as the absence of all physical and mental pain, as this formed the basis for tranquillity. Epicurus believed most people were not able to achieve this state due to false beliefs about what was important in life. He argued that natural desires (those necessary to achieve the Epicurean goal of freedom from pain) were easily attainable. The problem was that people often held desires associated with false beliefs (that wealth, status, power etc were important). In general, Epicurus considered emotions to be a threat to the Epicurean goal of tranquillity. He did consider some emotions to be natural but thought that they should be moderated by reason. Unpleasant feelings such as grief could be cured by abandoning false beliefs about death. However, this was a slow process as many of these beliefs were deeply rooted in the human mind. Therefore, the immediate solution for pain (physical or mental) was avocatio, distracting the mind from pain by conjuring up pleasant thoughts or memories.85 It thus seems fairly safe to assume the Epicureans would not have encouraged excessive expressions of grief; as they would have reminded the bereaved that these feelings were based on false beliefs86 and should be overcome by using reason and avocatio. The middle Platonists had a slightly different concept of emotions. In keeping with the Platonic notion of a tripartite soul, they determined emotions arose in the passionate part of the soul (which was further subdivided into the spirited part and the appetitive part). Alcinous, the founder of middle Platonism, conceived of emotions as either “tame” or “wild”. “Tame” emotions were considered to be natural, moderate emotions, whereas “wild” emotions were seen as uncontrolled and unnatural. The middle Platonists argued natural emotions could not be eliminated from the human condition, and could even have a positive

82 or Peripateticism which was briefly mentioned earlier in this section when Cicero was being discussed. The Peripatetics were followers of Aristotle and to be very succinct, believed emotions were useful in moderation, provided the kind and level of emotion was ethically appropriate to the situation. 83 Gill, 2012, 159. 84 Graver, Cicero on Emotions, p.xxvi. 85 The information given on Epicureans in this paragraph is derived from Knuuttilia, 2006, 82 -87. 86 The Epicureans did not believe one should become too dependent or attached to people precisely because it could cause this kind of disturbance in the mind. Therefore, grief would have been seen as associated with the false belief that one “needed” the person that had just died. The Epicureans did place huge value on altruistic friendship, by which friends could help and guide one another to lead a true Epicurean life.

23 effect.87 The ideal for middle Platonists was thus metriopatheia (moderation of emotions) rather than the Stoic apatheia (freedom of emotions). In terms of grief, this meant the middle Platonists would have believed moderate grief to be both a natural and necessary response to the death of a loved one. Indeed, the quintessential middle Platonic view on grief is most aptly described by Plutarch in a passage in which he praises metriopatheia and criticises apatheia as a method for dealing with the death of a loved one:

The pain and pang felt at the death of a son has in itself good cause to awaken grief, which is only natural, and over it we have no control. For I, for my part, cannot concur with those who extol that harsh and callous indifference, which is both impossible and unprofitable. For this will rob us of the kindly feeling which comes from mutual affection and which above all else we must conserve. But to be carried beyond all bounds and to help in exaggerating our griefs I say is contrary to nature, and results from our depraved ideas.88

It is interesting that an analysis of the different male elite emotional communities at Rome uncovers a variety of disparate views on emotions and how to deal with them, whist simultaneously revealing a remarkable amount of similarities. For example, nearly all of the male elite emotional communities at Rome disapproved of strong emotions whilst either praising or, at least accepting, moderate emotions. Even the Stoics, famed for their notion of apatheia, seem to have conceded a complete extirpation of emotions was not attainable for the ordinary man. This idea of moderation ties in nicely with the overarching, shared elite value of continentia, confirming the idea that elite men at Rome really did form an emotional community, which, in turn, raises the question of how elite women fitted into this picture. Were they part of this emotional community or did they form a separate emotional community of their own with different conventions? This is what will be examined in the next section of this chapter.

Elite Women

87 The information given on middle Platonists in this paragraph is derived from Knuuttilia, 2006, 90. 88 Plutarch, Ad. Apol, 102 C-D.

24

A cursory reading of Greco-Roman consolatory literature reveals marked gender differences in terms of how men and women were expected to mourn. Seneca, for example, informs us:

Our fore-fathers have enacted that, in the case of women, a year should be the limit for mourning … In the case of men, no rules are laid down, because to mourn at all is not regarded as honourable.89

Naturally, some caution should be exercised in reading this statement as it is clearly written from a Stoic perspective which, as we have seen above, considered apatheia to be the ideal when it came to mourning. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that Seneca would stress gender differences in mourning conventions if these didn’t exist, particularly given how highly he praises those few females that did demonstrate restraint and composure in their grief.90 Moreover, all of the extant consolatory literature deems emotional, demonstrative mourning to be a distinctly feminine trait. For example, Seneca expresses his disapproval of Marullus’ excessive grief by telling him:

You are like a woman in the way you take your son’s death.91

And to Marcia he says:

though they suffer the same bereavement women are wounded more deeply than men92

Women were thus expected to grieve more extravagantly than men due to their so-called inferior and weaker nature. For example, when Plutarch’s wife demonstrated perfect composure and continentia at the death of her eldest child, strangers refused to believe the child had actually died, so remarkable was such behaviour from a woman.93 It was, of course,

89 Seneca, Ep, LXIII.13. 90 The two females he esteems most highly in this regard are Livia and Cornelia. Seneca, Ad Marc. This point will be discussed in more detail further on in this section. 91 Seneca, Ep. XCIX.2. 92 Seneca, Ad Marc, VII.3 93 Plutarch, Ad Uxor,VII.5 One should not discount the fact that Plutarch may have slightly exaggerated this story in order to compliment his wife.

25 highly advantageous for men to portray women as weak and immoderate in their emotions as this justified male superiority over them and kept the system of male dominance intact. Indeed, any group inferior to the elite Greco-Roman male was accused of “feminine grief” for precisely this reason, as can be seen in Plutarch’s consolatory letter to Apollonius:

mourning is verily feminine , and weak, and ignoble, since women are more given to it than men, and barbarians more than Greeks, and inferior men more than better men.94

It is clear that “female” grief was considered to be something weak and bad, not just for men but for women too. This raises the question as to whether elite men and women belonged to the same emotional community or not, as clearly different behaviour was expected of men than of women. A key feature of emotional communities is that members share the same emotional conventions and values. It therefore stands to reason that if Roman elite men and women had belonged to the same emotional community, both genders would have agreed continentia was a male virtue and that women were weaker and more demonstrative in their grief. Unfortunately, no recording of the female perspective on Roman emotional conventions exists as all our evidence on this subject comes from elite men. The best alternative, therefore, is to use a heuristic approach in the hopes that this may bring us closer to uncovering Roman female thoughts on this matter. A comparison with present-day Western society also reveals gender differences in terms of accepted emotional behaviour. Men in our society are expected to demonstrate their “manliness” by appearing mentally tough and emotionally reserved,95 whereas females are expected to be much more emotional.96 It also appears to be the case that certain emotions are associated with a specific gender: thus fear and sadness are typically associated with females whereas anger is affiliated with males.97 Nor do these stereotypes appear to be completely inaccurate as Vingerhoets and Scheirs looked at 14 studies in which the relationship between crying and gender was investigated and found that “women report a greater propensity to cry, a greater actual crying frequency and more intense crying than do men”.98 Yet, what is interesting in this study is that there was a cultural variation in these results: for, in non-Western countries there were

94 Plutarch, Ad Apol, 113 A 95 Shields, 2013, 427 - 428. 96 Brody and Hall, 2008, 396. 97 Brody, 1997, 369. 98 Vingerhoets and Scheirs, 2000, 145 – 149.

26 hardly any gender differences in crying whereas in Western countries there were huge gender differences in crying.99 Similarly, a study that compared the emotional reactions of Asians with the emotional reactions of Americans revealed a substantial difference between males and females in the American sample, but no gender differences in the Japanese sample.100 This would imply the gender differences observed in crying and emotions in the West were largely culturally determined rather than biologically. It would then seem that both Western men and women share the same emotional conventions: namely, that men should be more “emotionally reserved” whereas women should be “more emotional”. Indeed, one would expect, if Western men and women were truly bothered by these stereotypes of themselves they would change their behaviour. Thus, in the case of Western women, if they really did not want to be seen as “more emotional”, they would try to invalidate this notion by suppressing their emotions in the way that men do. It would seem this is possible if we consider that there were hardly any gender differences in terms of emotion and crying in non- Western countries. It, thus, appears to be the case that Western women adhere to an idea of themselves as more vulnerable and emotional. It is therefore not unthinkable that Roman women shared the same emotional conventions as Roman men, believing that they, as females, were more prone to excessive grief.101 In fact, there are fragments of evidence that seem to confirm this was the case. For Plutarch in his consolatory letter to his wife makes the following comments:

but she must hold that the tempest and tumult of her emotion in grief requires continence no less, a continence that does not resist maternal affection, as the multitude believe, but the licentiousness of the mind102

you must not dwell upon the present tears and lamentations of your visitors, a performance dictated by a pernicious custom and rehearsed to every sufferer103

The first extract suggests there were people (namely, the multitude) who equated female continentia in grief with a lack of maternal love. These people clearly thought women should

99 Fischer and Manstead, 2000, 73 -74. 100 Fischer and Manstead, 2000, 73. 101 It is also very likely that elite Roman women would have felt a great deal of disdain for an elite man incapable of demonstrating continentia. 102 Plutarch, Ad Uxorem, 609 A. 103 Plutarch, Ad Uxorem, 611 B.

27 demonstrate their grief. It seems unlikely that the term “multitude” refers to elite men as the term “hoi polloi” is usually used to denote the masses. It could well be then that the masses expected women to grieve, which would at least offer us some insight into their emotional community. On the other hand, if a philosopher uses the term “hoi polloi” it can also be taken to mean “laymen” (ie. anyone without the proper philosophical insights, not necessarily the masses)104. In this sense, Plutarch, as a middle Platonist, may be referring to the non- philosophical elite. Again, it seems unlikely that he is referring to elite males in this regard, as all elite men were expected to embrace continentia as a Roman ideal. It, therefore, seems implausible that they would openly denounce female continentia as signifying a lack of maternal love. It seems more tenable that Plutarch is referring to Roman women and in particular to the elite. Roman elite women may well have internalised emotional conventions to such an extent that they believed it was impossible for women, as the weaker sex, to show self-restraint in grief. Consequently, females that did display composure and restraint in their grief may have been accused of maternal indifference and a lack of feeling. This idea is supported by the second extract by Plutarch in which he cautions his wife to ignore the tears and laments of her visitors. The visitors mentioned here are most likely to have been elite women as it seems improbable that elite men, bound by notions of continentia, would have cried and lamented in such a manner. Nor does it seem plausible that these visitors would have been women of the lower classes as Rome was a highly stratified society, meaning it would have been inappropriate for a lower class woman to visit an elite matron at such an intimate, private moment.105 Rather, it appears to have been the custom for elite women to visit each other after a death and to openly grieve and lament together. This tells us elite women probably did endorse the same conventions as elite men, and considered demonstrative mourning to be the terrain of females. Naturally, the passage above could be citing a specifically Greek custom but even if this is the case, the uniformity of Greco-Roman values, would imply that if Greek elite women considered it appropriate for females to mourn openly, Roman elite woman would have done so too. The final piece of evidence that supports the idea that elite men and women belonged to the same emotional community is the fact that women could conquer these inferior female qualities by expressing their grief in similar ways to men, through continentia and virtus. Women who managed to display such admirable qualities were praised and respected by elite

104 I thank dr Flinterman for explaining the connotations of this Greek term to me. 105 Although it is possible that rich women of a slightly lower standing, such as freedwomen, may have visited grieving elite matrons.

28 men. Thus Plutarch, as we have already seen, expressed great pride in his wife’s composure at the death of their youngest daughter.106 and Seneca applauds the courage and self-control Livia and Cornelia displayed at the death of their children.107 In fact Seneca even quotes Cornelia in a particularly moving passage:

Twelve births did she recall by as many deaths … Yet to those who tried to comfort her and called her unfortunate she said: “Never shall I admit that I am not fortunate, I who have borne the Gracchi.108

The fact that these women were able to display such aptitude in qualities normally reserved for men, allowed them to transcend their gender and become ‘honorary men’.109 A phenomenon that seems quite curious in such a patriarchal society as Rome. Yet, such women never really represented a threat to the social order at Rome. For, such women were too few in number to really challenge the system. What’s more, the ideal Roman woman did not just possess male virtues such as continentia and virtus, she also possessed traditional female virtues such as pudicitia (chastity), modestia (modesty), and obsequium (obedience – particularly to her husband).110 In fact it was essential for her to retain these female virtues as well as more masculine attributes such as continentia and virtus. A woman that only displayed masculine qualities without exhibiting any of the female virtues was ridiculed and criticised to such an extent that her reputation was often damaged.111 In this sense, the social order at Rome was always kept intact because Roman female virtue ensured women remained subordinate to men. What’s more, women lacking these female virtues were ridiculed to such an extent that they too remained powerless. Wilcox raises an additional point that is of interest to the male-female dynamic in mourning.112 She argues that model Roman women such as Livia and Cornelia, though praised for their restraint and courage, also served another purpose in Seneca’s letters. For, most of Seneca’s consolatory writings would have been intended for a male audience, even those letters addressed to Marcia and his mother.113 Wilcox therefore postulates Seneca

106 Plutarch, Ad Uxor. 608 F. 107 On his praise of Livia: Seneca, Ad Marc. 3.1-2. On his praise of Cornelia: Ad Marc, 16.3-4. 108 Seneca, Ad Marc, 16.3-4. 109 Hemelrijk, 2004, 191. 110 Hemelrijk, 2004, 194. 111 Hemelrijk, 2004, 194. 112 Wilcox, 2006, 73-100. 113 Wilcox, 2006, 75.

29 included examples of female virtue in his work primarily to provide a corrective function for men, rather than to glorify women.114 In other words, Seneca’s message was mainly intended for those men incapable of demonstrating sufficient continentia.115 He was trying to goad such men into virtue by saying: if women such as Livia and Cornelia could excel in male virtue, what excuse was there for a man to not be able to? Wilcox makes a convincing argument, especially as this phenomenon can be observed in present day society as well. Imagine, for example, a scenario in which a group of friends, composed of both men and women, go on a rollercoaster ride. The women happily get in the rollercoaster without any fear, but one of the men refuses to get in as he is frightened. It would not be unusual for one of the men to then say something like “Don’t be such a sissy, even the girls are not afraid to go on this ride”. Female courage is thus often used as a device for shaming men into action. Thus, in terms of ancient Rome, this most likely implies a courageous or virtuous woman was still a woman and therefore inferior to a man: she was never solely praised for her qualities, as there was always an underlying message of “see, even she can do it”. Nevertheless, it seems highly probable that elite men and women did belong to the same emotional community as the evidence suggests both genders shared the same emotional conventions and values. What’s more, Roman society appears to have accepted some plasticity of gender in terms of emotional expression which further underlines the idea that both elite men and women belonged to the same emotional community. We thus have some insight into the emotional conventions of the elite, but what of the other groups in Roman society? Rome’s population was highly stratified and diverse and must have exhibited quite some differences in terms of emotional conventions. Unfortunately, most of these groups must remain largely unexplored as they have left us little trace of their existence, let alone of their emotional conventions. There is one group, however, that has left us with some evidence of their emotional behaviour and that is the freedman community. It is to this group that we turn in the final section of this chapter.

Freedmen and -women

114 Wilcox, 2006, 80 -81. 115 As well as stimulating those men who already excelled in continentia, to persist with their virtuous behavior.

30

Slavery was endemic to Roman society, as it was to all of the ancient world. Yet, in one vital aspect Rome distinguished itself from other slave-owning societies: namely, through the fact that freedom was a distinct possibility for many urban slaves living in Rome in both the late republic and imperial period. Indeed, Tacoma has guesstimated that approximately 60,000 –135,000 freedmen and -women lived in Rome at any given time.116 This group consisted primarily of highly educated or skilled people with a Hellenised background as, on the whole, these kinds of slaves had the highest chance of manumission.117 Freedmen and - women formed a separate legal category and were accorded certain privileges (e.g. the right to vote, marry and own property) as well as certain limitations (e.g. not allowed to hold magistracies or enter the senatorial order).118

Modern historians have tended to view freedmen and –women not just as a legal category but also as a social group.119 This partly has to do with the slave background that all freedmen and –women shared. In addition, Mouritsen points to the marriage patterns of freedmen and –women, who tended to marry partners of freed rather than freeborn status,120 further signifying they formed a distinct social group.121 Finally, the prominence of freedmen and –women in Roman funerary epigraphy is often interpreted as a further sign of this group’s collectivity as they were the only group to commemorate their family members in such large numbers.122 In the late republican and Augustan periods this commemoration took the form of group relief portraits, in which portraits of family members were arranged in a rectangular panel to face the viewer.123 After the death of Augustus, however, such group

116 Tacoma, e-book, 2016, 92. 117 Treggiari, 1969, 11. 118 Koops, 2014, 110. Mouritsen, 2011, 73. Petersen, 2006, 1. 119 All the scholars I have read subscribe to the idea of freedmen as a social group: Vermote (2014); Mouritsen (2011); Huskinson (2007); George (2005); Rawson (2003). 120 This argument leaves aside marriages between freedwomen and their patrons as such marriages cannot be considered to be representative of the freedman community as a whole. 121 Mouritsen, 2011, 297 – 298. Mouritsen argues the freedman’s decision to marry freedwomen must have been a conscious choice. For, a wealthy freedman could have easily found a freeborn spouse in Rome as many less well-off, freeborn women would have been willing to marry a freedman for financial security. 122 Kleiner 1976, 183 on reliefs: “Most important, the epitaphs prove that these funerary reliefs were commissioned exclusively by enfranchised slaves and their freeborn offspring”. Kleiner, 1987, 17 on funerary altars: “The epitaphs themselves are of special interest because they reveal that the families who commissioned these monuments were almost always recently enfranchised slaves or their immediate offspring”. George, 2005, 37. Huskinson, 2007, 324 and 328. Mouritsen, 2011, 281. 123 For examples, please see appendix B, figures 1,2 and 3. Please note that George (2005) makes clear that this horizontal arrangement of family members is typical of Rome and that in other regions, such as Cisalpine Gaul, family members were placed in a vertical format.

31 relief portraits became rarer and gradually made way for funerary altars which focused on memorialising the individual rather than groups.124

In the late republic and early imperial period freedmen and –women often explicitly identified themselves as libertini (freed persons) on their epitaphs. The editors of CIL have used such status indicators to calculate 75% of Republican epitaphs at Rome were erected by the freedman community.125 This means the overwhelming majority of funerary epigraphy in this period was the domain of freedmen and -women. However, from the late first century onwards, such status indicators tended to be omitted, which is why Petersen cautions against presuming a similar prominence of freedmen in inscriptions from the imperial period.126 Petersen is perhaps correct in reminding scholars to exercise vigilance in automatically identifying freedman in epitaphs where no explicit legal status is given. Nonetheless, her approach does seem rather rigid as epitaphs contain other indicators that would make freedman status very probable such as a Greek cognomen127 or a man and women possessing the same nomen128 despite not being blood relations.129 The fact that many inscriptions from the imperial period contain such clues as well as the fact that freedmen and –women account for three quarters of republican inscriptions at Rome, makes it seem highly likely that scholars are correct in presuming freedmen and –women dominated funerary epigraphy in the imperial period as well.

Most scholars concur funerary epigraphy was so popular among freedmen and – women as it provided them with an opportunity to advertise their Roman citizenship and status.130 This argument is based on the fact that on reliefs at Rome, freed individuals are frequently depicted in quintessentially Roman attire such as the toga (which was forbidden by law for non-citizens) and the palla and vittae (the mark of a Roman matrona), while male

124 Kleiner, 1977, 6: “… later group relief portraits are extremely rare. After the death of Augustus these monuments were no longer manufactured in quantity and are less representative of the typical taste of the wealthier freedmen”; For examples of funerary altars, please see appendix B, figures 4, 5 and 6. 125 Taylor, 1961, 128. 126 Petersen, 2006, 119. 127 A Roman citizen’s third name, often a nickname. For example, “Cicero” meaning “chickpea” was Cicero’s cognomen. His full Roman name was Marcus Tullius Cicero. 128 A Roman citizen’s second name. Thus in the example of Cicero, his nomen would be Tullius. Freedmen and -women would receive their former master’s nomen and praenomen (their first name) and keep their cognomen. 129 If a man and women have the same nomen and are not blood relations, it is likely that they came from the same slave family. Taylor, 1961, 123. 130 Huskinson, 2007, 327 – 330; Rawson, 2003, 31 and 51; McWilliam, 2001, 85; Taylor, 1961, 129 – 130.

32 children are usually represented with a bulla131 around their necks.132 In addition, the majority of funerary altars are dedicated to children,133 which is further seen as a proclamation of status as freeborn children could enter the upper echelons of society from which their freed parents were forever debarred.134 It is, therefore, often argued that freedmen and -women commemorated their children in such large numbers in order to display their family’s upward mobility.135

It would, of course, be foolish to argue status was irrelevant to freedmen and -women. Rome was, after all, a status conscious society, and the transformation from slave to freedman was an important change, not just legally but also in terms of rank and status. Moreover, as former slaves, freedmen still had a certain stigma attached to them and may, therefore, have been particularly susceptible to outward symbols of status and prestige. Indeed, this may explain why so many freedmen filled the ranks of the Augustales and why some freedmen erected such ostentatious funerary monuments.136 Nevertheless, it seems rather rash to assume status was the main motive behind the freedman’s decision to commemorate his family members. For, Mouritsen raises the very valid point that, while such items as the toga and bulla, did indicate citizenship and free status, they were also the only appropriate choice of attire for a funerary portrait. Indeed, what else should freedmen and - women have been depicted as wearing in these reliefs? They were after all Roman citizens and, thus, it would have been odd if they had not been depicted as such in their portraits.137 In this sense, it could be argued that the adoption of Roman attire and symbols represented conformism rather than status. Indeed, if we take a present-day example of an Indian women emigrating to the West, she will most likely abandon her sari or salwar kameez in favour of Western style dress. Yet, no one would interpret this act as a proclamation of status but rather it would be seen as a desire to conform to the habits of her new home.138 Such an argument does not deny that freedmen and –women would have been proud of their new status as Roman citizens, but rather that this may not have been the single motivating factor as to why

131 The bulla is an amulet worn around the neck of boys. 132 George 2005, pp.43-50. Please see appendix B, figure 1 for clear examples of Roman dress as well as of a boy wearing a bulla around his neck. 133 Huskinson, 2007, 328. Kleiner, 1987, 45. 134 Rawson, 2003, 51. 135 Taylor, 1961, 129 -130; Rawson, 2003, 31, Huskinson, 2007, 325. 136 Mouritsen, 2011, 283. 137 Mouritsen, 2011, p.282. 138 Many scholars may protest that this is not a valid argument as Roman citizenship carried “status” with it that other citizenships did not. But, it could be argued that “being Western” and having European citizenship also carries connotations of higher status than “being Indian”.

33 they chose to commemorate their family members in such large numbers. Indeed, it is worth noting that many of the inscriptions commemorating family members were not actually placed on family tombs for passers-by to read, but were used to mark the urns of family members in the niches of columbaria. These latter type of inscriptions could not possibly have been intended for social displays of status as “Anyone who wanted to see an inscription in a columbarium … had to be equipped with a lamp and know exactly where to look”.139 What’s more, with the advent of the imperial period, status indicators tended to be omitted on epitaphs, suggesting yet again status was not the sole reason funerary epigraphy was so popular in the freedman community. Finally, those showy, flamboyant monuments typically associated with freedmen have proven to be the exception rather than the rule, as most freedmen built fairly modest tombs for their family members, indicating status was perhaps not the deciding factor for commemoration.140 If status was not the primary motive for commemoration, what then was the reason that funerary epigraphy was so popular among freedmen and -women? I would argue the only way to truly uncover what motivated freedmen and –women to commemorate their relatives in such large numbers is to view this group as an emotional community rather than a social group. Indeed, common sense would dictate freedmen and –women were far too varied in terms of background and profession to form a true social group. Their ethnic origins were almost as diverse as the empire itself: educated and skilled slaves were brought to Rome from a whole host of places such as Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece and Judaea.141 What’s more, in terms of education and skills, freedmen and –women were extremely disparate, ranging from well-educated teachers and doctors to wealthy businessmen to craftsmen and domestic staff. In fact, the only characteristic freedmen and -women seem to have really shared was their slave background, which does not seem sufficient for qualifying them as a social group. It does seem sufficient, however, for categorising them as an emotional community as their slave background appears to have played an important role in shaping their values and modes of emotional expression. Indeed, both Mouritsen and George have convincingly argued freedmen and –women, as former slaves, would have particularly valued and appreciated family relationships.142 For, slave families were not recognised by Roman law, meaning such families could be permanently broken up on the whim of a slave owner. Even those slaves

139 Nielsen, 2001, 166. 140 Mouritsen, 2011, 281. 141 Noy, 2000, 212-267. 142 Mouritsen, 2011, 286 - 287; George, 2005, 40 - 41.

34 that had humane masters were not guaranteed any security, as their family could still be torn apart on the owner’s death (a distinct possibility given the high death rate in Rome). Manumission thus offered freedmen and –women the opportunity for a stable family for the first time in their lives.143 Those freedmen with existing slave families could thus try to secure the freedom of their family members whereas those who were still unmarried144 could start a family that would be recognised by law. The value of this to the freedman and - woman, who could finally form lasting attachments, should not be underestimated.145 In fact, it could even be argued that the death of a child might well have been more devastating to freed parents who had finally attained their long-held hopes of having a stable, legally recognised family. It therefore seems entirely logical that freedmen and –women would have valued and appreciated their family in a different way to ordinary Roman citizens, who took their legal family bonds for granted.146 This strong emphasis on family relationships would explain the popularity of funerary epigraphy among freedmen and –women, and most likely suggests they belonged to the same emotional community. The funerary epigraphy of this period was very homogenous in terms of style. Most simple prose inscriptions dedicated to deceased children followed a standard pattern: first the deities of the underworld were invoked (the Manes), then the name and age of the deceased was inscribed – often with an epithet such as dulcissimus (sweetest) or carissimus (dearest), and finally the dedicator was identified:

To the deities of the underworld; For Aurelia Laurentia, the sweetest daughter; Who lived 1 year, 3 months and 20 days; The parents Marcus Aurelius Iulianus and Budia Laurina erected this.147

143 At least for those that had been born as slaves, which in the imperial period accounted for a substantial majority of slaves. 144 Those who were still unmarried would have been a minority as the official age for manumission was 30 – see Mouritsen, 2011, 34. 145 George, 2005, 37 – 66; Mouritsen, 2011, 280-299. This entire section on why freedmen and –women would have attached a great deal of importance to their family members follows the arguments of George and Mourtisen. 146 Mouritsen, 2011, 286. 147 CIL VI, 13340. Rome, Assumed date: second – third CE due to the inscription starting with Dis minibus. Translated by Emilia Salerno

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To the deities of the underworld; For Sextus Rufius Achilleus who lived 7 months and 8 days; Sextus Rufius Decibalus made this for the sweetest son.148

Verse inscriptions also followed a certain pattern in that they all stressed recurring themes or motifs. For example, in inscriptions parents often lamented the fact that they had to bury their child instead of the other way around or, alternatively, the deceased child was presented as entreating his/her parents not to grieve. Other common motifs emphasised the cruelty of Fate, the pain of untimely deaths, and the precocity of the child (puer senex):149

For Lucius Sentus; who lived 1 year, 6 months; son of the freedman Lucius Cocceto; Do not grieve parents; This was as it should be..150

To the deities of the underworld; For Communis, who lived two years, five months. To Zosimus, who lived one year, three months. Soterichus and Tyche, their parents. What the sons were supposed to do for their parents, an untimely death forced the parents to do for their children.151

Naturally, this type of commemoration was not exclusive to the freedman community: freeborn Romans also commemorated their infants in this manner, using similar styles and themes. Nonetheless, freedmen and -women, as discussed earlier,152 were the only group to commemorate their family members in such large numbers. Thus, something about the emotional style of these epitaphs must have particularly resonated with the freedman community in a way that it did not with freeborn Romans. This must imply the freedman community was an emotional community as why else would such a uniform style of epigraphy hold such wide-spread appeal to what was in fact a quite disparate group?

148 CIL VI, 25572. Rome, Date: 101 -150 CE. Translated by Emilia Salerno 149 Laes, 2004, pp.43-70. 150 CIL VI, 26203. Rome, Assumed date: Imperial period. Translated by Emilia Salerno 151 CIL VI, 16059. Rome, Assumed date: second – third CE due to the inscription starting with Dis minibus. Translated by Emilia Salerno. 152 See pp.30 – 31 and footnote 122.

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The question that remains is, of course, what this emotional community’s conventions actually were. Unfortunately, this group has left no literary trace of what they considered to be acceptable mourning behaviour. Therefore, we can only postulate what their emotional conventions may have been on the basis of what we know about this group and on the basis of the material evidence they left behind. It seems plausible that Mouritsen and George are correct in assuming freedmen and –women valued and appreciated their legally recognised family unit in a way that ordinary, freeborn citizens did not.153 It would not be unreasonable, therefore, to conjecture freedmen and -women may well have accepted more open expressions of grief simply because of the importance they attached to the family unit and family relationships. This idea can to some extent be tested by the available material evidence. It must be reiterated, however, that using material evidence to uncover emotional conventions is a flawed methodology as it only tells us about the behaviour patterns of the freedman community and tells us nothing about what the emotional conventions actually were. For, it cannot be assumed that people always follow emotional conventions in terms of their actions. It may well be the case that freedmen and –women largely ignored the conventions of their community when commemorating their relatives. Nonetheless, in the absence of any other extant evidence, this is the only methodology available to us. Moreover, the value of this evidence should not be completely disregarded as a substantial number of freedmen and –women commemorated their infants in this manner, making it seem likely that this form of commemoration was considered acceptable in the community and did not go against emotional conventions. It is, therefore, valid to use the epigraphic evidence of this community to learn more about the emotional conventions. What then, can the material evidence tell us about the emotional conventions of this group? A first glance at the group relief portraits of the late republican and early imperial period recall elite notions of continentia. For example, figure 1 of appendix B contains a relief of the Vetti family. The inscription tell us that the mother, Vettia Hospita,154 was still alive when the portrait was sculpted, and that her youngest daughter and husband (to the right of her) had died.155 No overt displays of emotion are portrayed on this relief and there is little emotional engagement between the portrait figures. The same can be said of the group relief portrait depicted in figure 2 of appendix B. In fact, the emotional reticence depicted on these

153 See p. 33 and footnote 142. 154 The second from the left. 155 Translation of inscription, Kleiner, 1977, 29 – 30.

37 two reliefs is characteristic of the majority of reliefs in this period156 and would seem to suggest continentia was something freedmen and –women aspired to as well. The inscriptions further corroborate this idea as they are similarly restrained in nature: often only identifying the individuals represented on the reliefs and how these individuals were related to one another. It is also worth noting all family members (both living and dead) were usually included in these group portraits, which most likely indicates the importance of family life to the freedman community and that they still felt very connected to their deceased family members.

From the first century CE onwards, funerary altars came into use and expressions of emotion and grief became less covert. The funerary altars commemorated individuals rather than groups, meaning more space was available for both the portrait of the deceased as well as for the inscription.157 This extra space meant more detail could be added to the portrait in terms of the characteristics and merits of the child being commemorated.158 Yet, it is the inscriptions on these altars that are most illuminating in terms of the emotions parents felt when their infants died. For, unlike the group relief inscriptions, the altar inscriptions specifically recorded the relationship between the deceased and the dedicator and included explicit expressions of emotion and grief. Indeed, emotion words such as infelicissimus (most wretched, unhappy), miser (miserable), dolor (sorrow), lacrima (tear) and luctum (grief) repeatedly occur on almost all altar inscriptions dedicated to infants.159 This makes it seem unlikely that open expressions of grief were frowned upon by the freedman community.

156 Kleiner 1977, p.90. 157 Huskinson, 2007, 328. 158 See figures 4,5 and 6 in appendix B. For example, in figure 5 the young Maximus’ skill as a budding orator is celebrated by the scroll he holds in his left hand. 159 A cursory search in the Clauss-Slaby database reveals the following results for inscriptions to children at Rome: infelicissimus appears on 285 inscriptions, miser appears on 127 inscriptions, dolor appears on 118 inscriptions, lacrima appears on 104 inscriptions and luctum (grief) appears on 69 inscriptions. (I should point out that these calculations are estimates as my Latin is still at an elementary stage and thus, I may not have used all possible variations of these words when conducting my search). These results may seem insignificant when considering CIL VI contains approximately twenty-two thousand tomb inscriptions for the city of Rome alone. However, it must be reiterated that these results represent only a small sample of all the possible emotion words signalling grief and pain as due to time and language constraints I was not able to conduct a comprehensive search of all Latin words indicating grief. It is therefore likely that a more comprehensive search would yield far more impressive results. Moreover, the ratio (the ratio of inscriptions containing a particular emotion word when compared to the total number of inscriptions) expressed in this sample only represents the ratio of extant inscriptions, and may not be an accurate reflection of the actual ratio as it was in the imperial period. Nevertheless, this small sample of emotion words appears frequently enough to signal they were part of the emotional lexicon of freedmen and –women.

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Indeed, many of the inscriptions dedicated to deceased infants, indicate freed parents did not feel a need to hide their grief:

For the son Tiberius Claudius Sotericho of the tribe Camilia, lived 2 years, 11 months, 10 days and 3 hours. Tiberius Claudious Soterichus, the most miserable father afflicted by never- ending grief erected this also for himself, and for his spouse Claudia Exoche and for his freedmen and -women and their descendants.160

The recurring themes and motifs on verse inscriptions also contain explicit expressions of grief. For, lamenting the cruelty of fate, or lamenting the pain of an untimely death, or having the deceased child entreat his parents not to grieve are hardly signs of continentia. Rather they seem to openly express the pain and grief many parents felt upon the death of their child:

For Marcus Attius son of Marcus Oufentina Agrippa. He lived 4 years and 37 days. Utia Crispina erected this for her dearest son. Stop crying for my death, mother, I beg you to stop tormenting yourself, [you are] miserable, every day in grief. I beg you wretched, for the deities of the underworld, cease this. These same last (days) of death happened to the greatest kings too. May the ground be kind to you.161

That such emotional utterances of pain and grief particularly appealed to the freedmen community would seem to indicate freedmen and –women had slightly different emotional conventions to the elite. Indeed, Rawson has aptly pointed out many sarcophagi include scenes in which elite parents attempted to exhibit continentia at the death of their child, whilst slave attendants were depicted as displaying a great deal of distress and emotion, using expressive hand gestures and attempting to touch the child’s face.162 This may not reflect reality, but it does indicate the elite thought different emotional conventions applied to

160 CIL VI, 15268. Rome, Assumed date: Imperial period. Translated by Emilia Salerno 161CECapitol 00054 = AE 1990, 00095. Rome, Date 1CE – 150 CE. Translated by Emilia Salerno. 162 Rawson 2003, p.348. See figures 7 and 8 in appendix B. Sarcophagi will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.

39 themselves than to slaves, and that they considered slaves to be unrestrained in their emotions. It is uncertain whether slaves would have shared this view of themselves, but it does seem likely that they would not have felt the same pressure to conform to the ideal of continentia as the elite did. Freedmen and –women were, of course, former slaves, and as such, may have felt more comfortable with public displays of emotion than the elite, which may explain much of the intense grief expressed on funerary altars in this period. Indeed, this open display of emotion as well as the elite portrayal of freedmen and slaves as emotionally unrestrained, makes it seem likely that freedmen were allowed greater emotional liberty than the elite. Certainly there was a great deal more pressure on the elite to exhibit continentia as this virtue was considered a vital prerequisite for entry into any leading political position, something from which freedmen were forever barred. It therefore seems unlikely that freedmen and –women will have attached the same importance to continentia that the elite did. Moreover, the family unit was particularly valued by the freedman community, which will most likely have affected emotional conventions as well, perhaps even ensuring grief for a deceased family member was deemed more acceptable than other forms of emotional pain. At the very least, it seems safe to assume public and open displays of grief were much more accepted in the freedmen community than they were in the elite community, particularly in the imperial period. It is interesting, though, that this increase in emotional expression seems to have developed over time as the earlier reliefs of the late republican and early imperial period hardly express any overt emotion.163 A tentative explanation for this might be that Roman emotional conventions164 were somewhat relaxed in the imperial period, ensuring people felt less obliged to conform to elite notions of continentia and to the mourning regulations discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Whether or not this is the case, it is clear that, at least for the imperial period, Rome cannot be viewed as a strict emotional regime as the emotions freedmen and –women expressed on funerary monuments were in direct opposition to the mourning regulations stipulating infants should not be mourned.165 Elite women similarly expressed grief when their infants died by visiting one another and lamenting together.166 Naturally, such behaviour occurred within the privacy of their own homes and

163 See p.36. 164 Thus, the conventions of the overarching community of the city of Rome to which all other emotional communities in Rome belonged. 165 See p. on mourning regulation 166 See the second extract by Plutarch on p. reveals that when Plutarch’s two year old daughter died, visitors came to the house to lament and grieve with his wife and that this was common custom.

40 thus cannot really be viewed as going against convention, but it is at least clear that infants were privately mourned. It is then, probably elite men that came closest to complying with the mourning regulations mentioned above, as convention demanded they exhibit continentia in their grief – although they too, were expected to be restrained in their grief and not appear callous or cold. It is evident then that the emotional conventions at Rome were not as clear-cut as the mourning regulations would first imply. Rather, the emotional conventions varied quite a bit per community, and in none of the communities were the emotional conventions as harsh and callous as the mourning regulations would first seem to suggest. It is also worth reiterating these emotional conventions can only tell us so much about an emotional community: they give us clues as to what the accepted feelings and modes of emotional expression were but they tell us nothing about the emotions parents actually experienced when their infants died. This is why the following chapter will examine the actual behaviour of parents when their infants died, in order to uncover what can be inferred about ancient attitudes towards babies and infants.

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Chapter Three: Individual Parental Reactions to the Death of an Infant.

The same grumblers think that if a small child dies, the loss must be borne calmly; if an infant in the cradle, there must not even be a lament.167

So many funerals pass our doors, yet we never think of death! So many deaths are untimely, yet we make plans for our own infants – how they will don the toga, serve in the army, and succeed to their father’s property!168

The question of whether Roman parents grieved for their infants and young children when they died has been the subject of fierce debate among scholars of the ancient world. The main difficulty lies in the fact that the extant evidence can be used to argue either position. For example, the quotations cited above, expose two fairly contrasting attitudes towards infants. Cicero is unequivocal in his claim that at least some Romans169 were largely indifferent to the death of their infants and did not consider them to be worth lamenting over; whereas Seneca reveals a certain attachment many parents must have felt to their infants by recording the hopes and wishes they had invested in their young babies. The topic of parental grief is very complex, not only because various ancient authors seem to contradict one another, but because the same author frequently presents conflicting information on parental emotions regarding infants. Thus the passage by Seneca, quoted above, would seem to advocate the idea that most parents grieved when their infants died as the use of “we” would seem to imply the majority of parents cherished numerous hopes and expectations for their infants. What’s more, Seneca tells us these parents never imagined their infants would die, despite the fact that death was an ever-present factor due to the high mortality rate. Yet, in a different consolatory text, Seneca takes a very contrary position, and asserts parents should remain largely unaffected by the death of their infants.170 This same contradiction can be seen in Cicero, who paints a very harsh picture of parental attitudes in the citation quoted above.

167 Cicero, Tusc, 1.39, 93. 168 Seneca, Ad Marc, 9.2. 169 The “grumblers” Cicero refers to are those people who mourn the untimely death of an older child or adult, whilst not even mourning an infant when it dies. Yet, Cicero gives no indication as to how large this group of grumblers is: whether it represents the attitude of a majority of Romans or a select group. Moreover, his accusation could be purely rhetorical to strengthen the point he is trying to make and therefore should not be taken as reliable evidence for the attitude of Roman parents. 170 Seneca, Ep. 99.14 Granted, he does not indicate whether the majority of Roman parents adhered to this point of view.

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Yet in a letter to Atticus, Cicero approves of his friend’s delight in his infant daughter, claiming, “affection for one’s children is part of nature”.171

The debate regarding parental attitudes towards infants has reached something of an impasse, with the majority of historians divided into opposing camps, using carefully selected evidence to bolster their particular arguments.172 The aim of this chapter is not to take a position in this debate, but rather to use the theory of the history of emotions to re-examine the evidence and arguments put forward, in order to uncover rather than prove, what we can infer about ancient attitudes towards infants.

Does High Infant Mortality Cause Parental Indifference?

High infant mortality was an everyday reality at Rome, affecting all classes that lived there. Demographic historians have estimated Romans had an average life expectancy at birth of twenty-five years, and have used comparative evidence to calculate that approximately 28% of all live-born Roman babies died within the first year of life.173 In addition, approximately 50% of Roman children died before the age of ten.174 Such shocking mortality rates were mainly due to poor hygiene, uncontrolled disease, and insufficient medical knowledge.

Bradley, following the theory of Stone,175 argues Roman parents avoided emotionally attaching to their infants and young children in order to protect themselves from the repeated pain of losing them. He writes:

… the prevalence of wet-nursing provided parents with a mechanism which operated against the over-investment of emotion in their children … By driving a wedge between parent and child, wet-nursing fulfilled for the parent

171 Cicero, Ad Att. &.2.4. 172 For ex, Laes (2007) and King (2000) firmly believe parents grieved deeply when their infants died and largely present information that supports this theory. On the other hand, historians such as Shaw (1991) and Bradley (1986) argue Roman parents were largely indifferent to the deaths of their infants and tend to somewhat ignore the evidence that suggest the contrary. 173 Hopkins, 1983, 225. 174 Garnsey, 1991, 52. 175 I have not read “The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500 – 1800” by Lawrence Stone but am aware that he was one of the first scholars to postulate parents in pre-industrial societies maintained emotional distance from their children because of the high child mortality rates.

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a self-protective function, diminishing the degree and impact of injury in the event of loss in society where such loss was commonly experienced176

According to Bradley, then, the effects of high infant mortality were that Roman parents employed certain tactics such as wet-nursing to help them maintain emotional distance from their infants, allowing them to be largely unaffected if they died. Other scholars point to additional factors such as the underrepresentation of infants in funerary inscriptions, the exposure of infants and the puer senex motif as further proof that Roman parents were largely indifferent to their infant children. All of these issues will be discussed in later sections of this chapter; for now, the aim of this section is to address the assumption that high infant mortality necessarily results in parental indifference. It seems rather remarkable that historians, of all scholars, should come to such a conclusion. For the theory of the history of emotions presumes emotions are subject to change177 - a rather logical premise given how futile the history of emotions would be if emotional reactions and expressions were indeed transhistorical. Even the most stringent universalist acknowledges the timing and expressions of emotion vary across time and space.178 It therefore seems rather rash to assume high mortality elicited the same emotional reaction across all cultures and eras.

Golden has convincingly used anthropological studies of present-day populations to argue high infant mortality does not inexorably result in parental indifference. For example, in the Kalahari Desert where infant death is extremely common, “infants are frequently held, looked at, smiled and spoken to, and their demands are generally indulged”.179 In fact, Golden observes that high infant mortality rates, far from leading to aloofness and disinterest, actually seem to increase parental concern and care, as caregivers “quickly see to them when they cry, and feed them whenever they suspect they are hungry – precisely because they know the danger that they will die if they are not attended to”.180 These findings are corroborated by parental attitudes in India, where infants are constantly held and attended to by their parents and deeply grieved for when they die, despite having the highest infant

176 Bradley, 1986, 220. Wiedemann (1989, 16 - 17) shares this view, claiming high infant mortality “makes it easier to understand why parents seem to have been less willing to invest emotionally in their children, and especially in babies, than in a modern industrial family where there are fewer children, but all of them are expected to survive” 177 Plamper, 2015, 71. 178 Plamper, 2015, 5. 179 Golden, 1988, 155. 180 Golden, 1988, 155.

44 mortality rates in the world.181 Such examples clearly illustrate one cannot assume a necessary connection between high infant mortality and parental indifference. Yet, as useful as this information is in ensuring such assumptions are not made for ancient Rome, it still does not tell us anything about actual Roman attitudes to infant children. In order to learn more about this, we need to examine parental behaviour – something that will be done in the remaining sections of this chapter.

Signs of Grief Among the Freedman Community?

The preceding chapter demonstrated group relief portraits and funerary altars were primarily commissioned by freedmen and –women or by their immediate offspring.182 The dominance of freedmen and -women in this type of epigraphy strongly suggests they formed an emotional community and that something about the emotional style of these monuments appealed to them. The previous chapter attempted to uncover the emotional conventions of this community by looking at these altars and reliefs, whereas this section will delve deeper into what these monuments can tell us about individual attitudes towards infants. The inherently flawed nature of this methodology in using the same material evidence for uncovering both emotional conventions as well as individual expressions of emotion has already been discussed. Yet, it should be reiterated that it is less problematic to assess individual attitudes and expressions of emotion on the basis of this evidence than to determine what the emotional conventions were. For, these monuments were actually erected by individual parents who chose to commemorate their deceased infants in this manner. It should therefore be relatively feasible to gain greater insight into what their attitudes towards their infants were.

181Oommen Mammen, “Women’s Reaction to Perinatal Loss in India: An Explorative Descriptive Study”, Infant Mental Health Journal, Vol. 16, (1995), pp.94 -100. This study interviewed nine Indian middle class women who had experienced perinatal death. The majority of women in this study exhibited severe psychological distress and grief as a consequence of their loss. Unfortunately, further studies on parental grief in India are currently unavailable as research into grief has mainly focused on other parts of the world. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that in my travels to India I have always been struck by the manner in which Indian parents interacted with their infants. Infants are almost constantly held, cradled and spoken to, no matter where the parents are – perhaps as a consequence of the fact that prams and buggies are not used in India. In any case, it does not seem likely that Indian parents maintain emotional distance from their children due to the high infant mortality rates. 182 Kleiner, 1976, 183; Kleiner, 1987, 17. Kleiner does not give specific figures but makes clear in the mentioned references that it was “almost exclusively” this group that erected such monuments. George (2005) and Huskinson (2007) confirm this picture.

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The epitaphs inscribed on such altars usually adhered to a standard pattern which included the name of the deceased - often with an epithet - as well as clarifying the relationship between the deceased and the dedicant(s). A few typical examples follow:

To the deities of the underworld; For Caius Aurunceius Primitivus, who lived 2 years, 5 days and 2 hours. The mother Aurunceia Threpte and the father Lucius Rusticanus Felix made this for the sweetest son.183

To the deities of the underworld. For Iunia Nicen who lived 10 months and 21 days. Marcus Iunius Diodorus made this for the sweetest daughter.184

To the deities of the underworld. The parents Pantacathus of Alexandria and Agathemeris (made this) for the sweetest daughter, who lived 2 months and 26 days. 185

A first glance at these quintessential epitaphs may not seem particularly telling in terms of emotions, but a closer reading of such texts offers certain clues as to what parents were trying to express when they chose to commemorate their infants in this manner. For example, the epithet “sweetest” (dulcissimus) appears most frequently in inscriptions dedicated to infants. This is important information as dulcissimus is an emotion word, signalling feelings of affection. It is also most frequently found in the superlative form, which would seem to suggest parents who used this epithet for their children had strong feelings of affection towards them. Naturally, this epithet was also used to commemorate other groups such as husbands and wives but it was used most frequently for infants. In fact, King conducted a survey of infant186 inscriptions in CIL VI and calculated dulcissimus accounted for 46.1% of all infant inscriptions containing epithets.187 The second most popular epitaph in this sample was bene merens (well deserving) which appeared in 23% of all inscriptions containing epitaphs. 188 This provides a sharp contrast to Nielsen’s study, which analysed every fifth

183 CIL VI, 13410, Rome, Date: 69 CE – 96 CE. Translated by Emilia Salerno 184 CIL VI, 05440, Rome, Date: 51 CE – 100 CE. Translated by Emilia Sakerno. 185 CIL VI, 11415, Rome, Date: 1CE – 100 CE. Translated by Emilia Salerno. 186 She defines “infant” as belonging to the 0-4 age category. 187 King, 2000, 141. It is worth noting that it was fairly common for an infant to be commemorated with an epithet as almost half of all inscriptions to infants contained one or more epithets (King, 2000, p.140). 188 King, 2000, 142.

46 readable epitaph in CIL VI189 and found dulcissimus accounted for only 12% of inscriptions, whereas bene merens accounted for 50% of all inscriptions.190 These discrepancies can be explained by the fact that Nielsen’s sample included adults, whereas King focused solely on infants.191 It would thus appear to be the case that adults and older children were much more frequently commemorated with the epithet bene merens whereas infants were usually commemorated with the epithet dulcissimus. This may be due to the fact that bene merens was primarily used by relatives who wished to show their gratitude to the deceased for fulfilling obligations.192 It is logical then that infants were less frequently commemorated with bene merens, as they would have been too young to oblige their relatives in such a manner.193 This suggests quite a few parents deliberately selected an age-appropriate epithet for their infants rather than relying on standard epithets that were used for everyone. Such behaviour could be interpreted as a sign of parental affection.194 Indeed, some of the very precise recordings of age found on many of these infant inscriptions have also been argued to be expressions of parental love and grief.195 It is certainly noteworthy how detailed these recordings are, with some inscriptions even specifying age down to the number of hours lived.196 Such precise recordings of age indicate extra time and expense went into erecting these commemorations. It is therefore plausible that these recordings of age provided a medium for parents through which to express their love, by stressing the value of each moment that such an infant was alive. To be sure, expressing affection through a detailed description of age or through an epithet are fairly subtle articulations of grief and love. It may well be the case then that, though freedmen were given greater license to express their emotions than the elite, it still may not have been appropriate for them to be overtly emotional in utterances of love or grief. On the other hand, there are inscriptions in which freedmen and –women were much more outspoken in their grief. It is true that such inscriptions do not constitute the majority of inscriptions,197 but they are, nevertheless, useful

189 Nielsen, 1997, 170. 190 Nielsen, 1997, 176. 191 King, 2000, 142. 192 Nielsen, 1997, 185. 193 King, 2000, 142. 194 King, 2000, 143. 195 Laes, 2007, 32; King, 2000, 139. 196 This can be seen in one of the inscriptions included above. 197 King, 2000, 146.

47 to historians in demonstrating quite a few parents publically and explicitly grieved for their deceased infants.198

The most common indicator of parental grief was the word infelicissimus (most miserable) which appears fairly frequently on standard prose inscriptions.199 A few commonplace examples would be:

To the deities of the underworld. The most miserable father, Titus Pinnius Corinthus, made this for Pinnia Poppaea, who lived 1 year, 6 months and 5 days.200

To the deities of the underworld. For Albinovana Threptes, the most pious daughter of Caius, who lived 3 years. The most miserable father Caius Albinovanus Threptus [made this].201

The clearest indicators of grief, however, are found on verse inscriptions. This is due to the poetic nature of these inscriptions which lend themselves to more passionate and elaborate manifestations of grief. Some typical examples follow:

Speratus lived 5 months. The house weeps [for him] and his dear parents endlessly grieve for him. After being stolen by destiny, I lie here covered by this gravestone. Who would not be sorrowful at the occurrence of [my] untimely death? If one saw me or my funeral, they would shed tears on my bones as a friendly guest. Speratus Attalus Politice.202

Vettia Mediste and Marcus Vettius Onesimus made this for the sweetest daughter Symphorusa. She lived 1 year, 11 months and 20 days. I was born, but then I was placed here in tears, still a baby, and [left] sorrow for everyone. I lived a short time with my [parents], for the first year of my life and then

198 It is worth noting that in present-day society, most inscriptions on modern tombstones also avoid referring explicitly to the grief of the commemorator. See for example: http://www.achildofmine.org.uk/Inscriptions- for-Headstones-and-Memorial-Plaques/I112.htm 199 See ch.2, p.37, footnote 159. 200 CIL VI, 24209, Rome, Date: unknown, most likely 100 CE -200 CE. Translated by Emilia Salerno The italics in the inscription are my emphasis. 201 This inscription is from Rome and can be found in the Clauss/Slaby database by searching for “Albinovanae” but it does not have a normal CIL number, its publication number is instead: StudRom-1914-59. Rome, Date: (Date: 100 CE – 200 CE. The italics in the inscription are my emphasis. 202 CIL VI, 26680, Rome, Date: unknown. Translated by Emilia Salerno. The italics are my emphasis.

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immediately upon the threshold of my second one, Persephone took me with her.203

To the deities of the underworld. For Flavia Athenais. Apollonius, a slave with an allowance, belonging to the emperor Domitianus Augustus Germanicus, and Flavia Pallas, her parents, made this for their dearest daughter. She lived 8 months and 26 days. Snatched from her mother’s breast, the unhappy child lies here before she had lived through nine full circles of the moon. The sorrowful father and mother cried over her who lies here and enclosed her small body in a marble tomb.204

For the modern reader, these words would appear to indisputably demonstrate intense grief at the death of an infant. For the historian, however, the theory of the history of emotions serves as a reminder that caution must be exercised in presuming present-day emotion words have the same meaning as emotion words of the past.205 For, each society has its own emotional vocabulary and thus it is crucial to avoid imposing modern connotations of words onto societies from previous historical eras. This is perhaps best illustrated with a concrete example such as the word “weariness”, which is not considered to be an emotion in present- day society; but for Cicero, writing more than two-thousand years ago, aerumna (weariness) most definitely was an emotion.206 It is therefore essential to have at least partly deciphered the emotional lexicon of ancient Rome, before assuming grief meant to the Romans what it means to us. Fortunately, in the Tusculan Disputations,207 Cicero devotes a great deal of time to discussing the perturbationes (emotions). We thus have a substantial emotional lexicon for the late republican period. Moreover, Rosenwein indicates many of Cicero’s emotion words were still being used in the fourth and fifth century by Augustine when he was writing about emotions.208 It thus seems fairly safe to use Cicero’s emotional lexicon for the entire period

203 CIL VI, 27060, Rome, Date: unknown. Translated by Emilia Salerno. The italics are my emphasis. 204 CIL VI, 18290, Rome, Date: unknown. Translated by Emily Hemelrijk. The italics are my emphasis. The status of these parents are interesting in this inscription: the father was an imperial slave and the mother was either a freedwoman or freeborn – although I assume she was a freedwoman. However, this family can definitely be attributed to the middle class as the father, was an imperial slave, and will thus have had considerable wealth. 205 Matt and Stearns, 2014, 43. 206 Rosenwein, 2016, 7. 207 Particularly in book three and four 208 Rosenwein, 2016, 32 - 33.

49 being researched in this thesis.209 Indeed, it would be ludicrous not to, as no other Roman author has written so exhaustively about emotions.

If we then re-examine the verse inscriptions mentioned above, it becomes apparent that many of the emotion words used in these epitaphs appear on Cicero’s list of emotion words.210 Thus, the word “grieving” (lugunt) is used in CIL VI 26680 and also appears on Cicero’s list, as does the noun form “luctus”. This tells us the Romans considered grief to be an emotion, that they believed it was something one felt. What’s more, the verb “grieve” (lugunt) is not just used on its own in this inscription, but is used in conjunction with another emotion word: namely, the verb “to sorrow” (dolere) as well as with two bodily responses: “to weep” (flere) and tears (lacrimas). The other two inscriptions similarly use the emotion words “sorrow” or “sorrowful” (dolor and maesti) 211 along with the bodily responses “tears” (lacrima(s)) and weeping (flet or fleverunt). The fact that not just emotion words, but also bodily responses, are used in these inscriptions would seem to imply the Roman concept of grief was very similar to our concept of grief. To be sure, weeping and tears also accompany other emotions such as joy or empathy; but given the context of these inscriptions (the death of a family member) as well as the inclusion of emotion words such as “sorrow” and “grief”, makes it seem likely that the Roman notion of grief did not differ substantially from our own. It, therefore, seems fairly safe to assume both the prose inscriptions discussed above, as well as the verse inscriptions discussed here, demonstrate that those parents who chose to commemorate their infants in this way, did feel grief at their death and decided to verbalise this in the form of a funerary inscription.

Shaw would implicitly disagree with such a statement. He believes, “The preparation of a tombstone … was a cultural act – even more artificial than the relationships and sentiments it recorded.”212 To some extent, he makes a valid point: the recurrence of certain epithets (dulcissimus), phrases (to the deities of the underworld), and themes (laments over an untimely death or the reversal of the normal order) do seem to indicate Roman expressions of grief came from a limited stock of conventions and were thus, largely formulaic. Yet, to make

209 Rosenwein has compiled a very useful list of all the emotions Cicero mentions (please see table 1 in Appendix A) which can be consulted for easy reference. 210 See table 1 in Appendix A. 211 In CIL VI 26680 and CIL VI 27060 dolor (or the verb form doleatur) is used which both appear on Cicero’s list and are therefore emotions, whereas in CIL VI 18290 maesti (the adjective form of maeror) is used which is also included on Cicero’s list. Both words mean sorrow or sorrowful. 212 Shaw, 1991, 67.

50 a necessary connection between formulaic and “artificial” seems rather rash. For, we can never gain access to the “true” emotions of another individual, no matter how well we may know them. This primarily has to do with the fact that emotions are not words, even though we must rely on words to attempt to uncover what someone is feeling. The words that we rely on, however, have largely been shaped by cultural conventions, meaning “the very act of transforming feelings into words automatically channels them along conventional lines”.213 This is amply demonstrated when examining expressions of grief in our own society, in which modern tombstones reveal just as many conventions and clichéd phrases as the Roman example. After all, standard phrases such as “In memory of …”, “Forever in our Hearts” and “Rest in Peace” can hardly be considered to be unconventional. Nor can the longer epitaph verses used on modern tombstones be seen as particularly original as the majority of these tend to be chosen from standard catalogues provided by memorial companies.214 This is corroborated by King, who reviewed the results of a survey taken of four modern British cemeteries, and concluded, “it was clear from the wording of the tombstones that the use of standard and formulaic phrases is even more extensive than in the Roman epitaphs of CIL VI”.215 Yet, no one would deny that the grief expressed on these modern tombstones is real. It, therefore, seems rather hypocritical to credit the bereaved in our society with expressing genuine emotion when they use formulaic, clichéd phrases, but to accuse the Romans of “artificiality” when they do the same. Formulaic does not equate insincere. In fact, formulaic can actually tell us something about how an emotional community tried to deal with grief and what they considered to be appropriate expressions of grief. Thus, in the case of these inscriptions, the frequent references to oneself as “infelicissimus” , “lugere”, “dolere” and “flere” seem to indicate grief, tears and sadness were considered to be a normal and appropriate reaction to the loss of an infant – at least for some members of this emotional community.

It must be reiterated, however, that these tombstones, touching as they are, represent a bias in our source material. They only provide information about those parents who deeply mourned the loss of their infants and chose to express this on an epitaph. They tell us nothing about the emotional reactions of parents who did not commemorate their infants in this manner. And it is the parents that did not commemorate their infants that are in the majority.

213 Hopkins, 1983, 220. 214 http://www.everlifememorials.com/v/headstones/epitaphs-children.htm 215 King, 2000, 135.

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For infants are woefully under-represented in funerary inscriptions. We have approximately 29,250 extant epitaphs for the city of Rome,216 yet only 128 of these are dedicated to infants in the 0-1 age category.217 This accounts for a shocking 0.44% of all funerary inscriptions at Rome. Hopkins came to a slightly higher figure of 1.3% for the 0-1 age category in his sample analysis of 16, 106 tombstones,218 but either calculation is stupefying when considering the fact that 28% of all babies died within the first year of life. This level of under-recording does drop somewhat when the age group 1-4 is taken into account,219 but the under-representation remains. And it is this absence from the funerary record that has led the majority of historians to conclude Romans parents were less affected or even largely indifferent when their infants died. For example, Rawson postulates, “Under-representation in commemoration … must in some ways reflect an undervaluing of infants…”;220 whereas Dixon explains that under-representation does give “us some idea of the relatively low social value Romans placed on small children”221 and pronounces “there was a tendency to accept the deaths of the very young with impassivity”.222 Such conclusions seemed to be based on speculation rather than on any real evidence. The fact is that we do not have any evidence for what the majority of freedmen and –women felt for their infant children. We only know that most of them did not commemorate their infants when they died, but this does not tell us about their emotional responses to such deaths. Formal commemoration cannot, after all, be equated with feelings of grief. A point that is perhaps most aptly illustrated by taking a heuristic approach and looking at a society where we know babies were loved, but not

216 King (2000, p.119) came to this figure on the basis of Taylor’s (1961, p.113) estimation that there were approximately 22,000 tomb inscriptions in CIL VI (which is the region for Rome), but what Taylor had neglected to take into account was that there were also funerary inscriptions from other sections of CIL VI such as the columbaria. Therefore, King estimated that 25,250 was probably a more accurate indication of the total number of epitaphs in CIL VI. 217 King, 2000, 125. 218 Hopkins, 1983, 225. 219 It needs to be reiterated King’s calculation is based only on those inscriptions dedicated to the 0-1 age group. She also examined inscriptions dedicated to the 0-4 age category and determined that these inscriptions accounted for 4.6% of all funerary inscriptions. Yet, King never calculated the percentage of funerary inscriptions dedicated to the 1-4 age category. Fortunately, Hopkins did and calculated that inscriptions dedicated to the 1-4 age category accounted for 13% of all epitaphs. This is a fairly low level of under-recording as the expected percentage of inscriptions for the 1-4 age group would have been approximately 20%. It is, thus, likely that the level of under-recording did drop once a child passed the age of 1. Yet, it is worth noting Hopkins based his calculations on a small sample analysis which may not have been representative of the percentage if all epitaphs were taken into account. 220 Rawson, 2003, 346. Garnsey agrees stating, “Funerary monuments and epitaphs suggest in the first place that a lower evaluation was placed on neonates and young infants than on older children and adults”, 1991, 52. 221 Dixon, 1988, 104. 222 Dixon, 1992, 107.

52 commemorated. This description would accurately fit any Western society up to the 1970s. Thus, in the 1950s and 60s it was very common for still-born babies and very young babies (a month old or less) to be buried anonymously in the hospital grounds or sometimes even to be deposited of as waste.223 To be sure, these deaths were perinatal deaths whereas the Roman infants being discussed in this thesis are somewhat older, but this does not detract from the point being made: namely, that we may reasonably assume these parents were devastated by the death of their young babies, even though they chose not to commemorate them when they died. In fact, older babies were not usually commemorated pre-1970 either: King points to a study of SIDS224 which showed that, while most parents opted to have their infants buried or cremated, only 6% chose to commemorate them with a headstone or a memorial plaque.225 Such examples demonstrate commemoration is closely tied to the prevalent social customs of the time. An absence of commemoration, therefore, does not automatically imply a lack of grief. Indeed, the lack of infant commemoration at Rome may have its origins in the mourning regulations discussed in chapter two, which discouraged the formal mourning of infants under the age of three.226 This reference to “formal mourning” is in itself fairly vague: what did the Romans mean by this? Presumably, public displays of grief concerning the death of infants were disapproved of. Thus, wearing black, cropping one’s hair or even commemorating an infant with a tombstone and epitaph would most likely have been frowned upon.227 Bereaved parents were thus most likely following the customs and conventions of their overarching emotional community,228 rather than acting out of indifference, when they chose not to commemorate their infants. Indeed, the fact that such mourning rules needed to be established at all is significant and must imply infants were mourned, as why else would such rules have been implemented in the first place? It is also very possible that the authorities that established such rules, did not do so from a place of indifference towards infants, but rather from a place of concern for society at large. For, in the face of such high infant mortality, public displays of grief would have been prevalent and constant, which would have been detrimental to the well-being of the community. Imagine how dismal and dreary the atmosphere would have been at Rome if every parent openly

223 King, 2000, 137; Rawson, 2003, 343. 224 In 1985 Jean Golding conducted a study on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), King, 137. 225 King, 2000, 137. 226 For these rules, please see chapter two, pp.10 -11. 227 These are some of the public displays of mourning that Plutarch mentions. Plutarch, Ad Uxor, 609 C. 228 Thus not their own emotional community of freedmen and –women but the overarching emotional community of the city of Rome at large.

53 displayed the pain and loss that they were feeling: it would have made daily functioning very difficult and it would have had a domino effect on individual parents, either by reminding them of their own infant losses or by confronting them with the pain that they would most likely have to face in the near future. The rules regulating mourning were thus most likely established to protect the community rather than to marginalise infants, and ensured parents were not expected to, and perhaps even discouraged from commemorating their babies. That the majority of parents conformed to such rules does not mean they were indifferent to the deaths of their infants. Rather, the fact that a small percentage of parents chose to go against convention and commemorate their infants anyway, strongly suggests such epitaphs were anything but a “cultural act”229 or a “fulfilment of duty,”230 but were rather a true indication of parental love and grief. How the rest of the emotional community responded to such commemorations remains unclear, but the fact that the city of Rome produced 1357 extant infant inscriptions231 would seem to indicate reactions cannot have been overly negative, signifying members of the freedmen community enjoyed quite a bit of emotional liberty.232 This would seem to form a sharp contrast to the elite emotional community, where convention dictated continentia was valued above all else. Yet, how did this translate into daily practice? Were the elite really able to maintain perfect continentia when their infants died? Or did they break in the face of such loss? And if so, did they grieve openly? Such questions will be examined in the next section of this chapter.

Signs of Grief among the Elite?

Chapter two demonstrated convention required elite males to be moderate in their emotions. In terms of grief, this meant they had to perform the challenging task of exhibiting restraint and control (continentia) without appearing indifferent. In doing so, elite males would have largely conformed to the mourning laws discussed above which deemed infants under the age of three should not be mourned publically. Yet, this tells us nothing about the emotions elite fathers actually felt when their infants died. Attempting to uncover such

229 Shaw, 1991, 67. 230 Dixon, 1992, p.13 231 This figure is based on an age category of 0-4 rather than the 0-3 age category that this thesis focuses on. Unfortunately, no calculations exist for the 0-3 age category, but it is known that once infants passed the age of 1, under-recording was less marked. 232 A term coined by Reddy which provides space for experimental emotional expression (emotives) which in turn may well lead to the changing of goals, allowing the individual “undergo or derail conversion experiences and life-course changes involving numerous contrasting incommensurable factors”. (Reddy, 2004, p.129).

54 emotions is not without its challenges, for the extant evidence at our disposal is largely contradictory in nature. Thus, on the one hand, we have examples of fathers who grieved so excessively and publically for their deceased infants, that they flouted all social norms and emotional conventions. Thus, for example, Tacitus notes disapprovingly of Nero:

Nero greeted a daughter, presented to him by Poppaea, with more than human joy … But all was transitory, as the infant died in less than four months. Then fresh forms of adulation made their appearance, and she was voted the honour of deification, a place in the pulvinar, a temple, and a priest. The emperor, too, showed himself as incontinent in sorrow as in joy.233

Similarly, Herodes Atticus was so public in his grief for his new-born son that Marcus Aurelius wrote to his teacher Fronto:

The son of Herodes, born today, is dead. Herodes is overwhelmed with grief at his loss. I wish you would write him quite a short letter appropriate to the occasion.234

On the other hand, the words of Cicero quoted at the beginning of this chapter conjure up a rather disquieting image of Roman parents being largely indifferent to the fate of their infants. A sentiment that seems to be echoed by Plutarch who claims:

If it be true that untimely death is an evil, the most untimely would be that of infants and children and still more that of the newly born. But such deaths we bear easily and cheerfully…235

We are thus confronted with two extremes: either fathers who broke all conventions in their inability to control their grief or cold, indifferent parents who did not seem to care whether their babies lived or died. It is likely that both presentations are atypical of how most elite males behaved. The very public sort of grief demonstrated by such men as Herodes and Nero were likely to be exceptional and not representative of most elite Roman men. Yet, at the same time, both Cicero and Plutarch’s assertions that infants were not grieved for when they died should not be taken too literally either. For, both Cicero and Plutarch were trying to

233 Tacitus, Ann. 15.23. 234 Fronto, Ep. Ad. M. Caes, I.6.7, p.13 – Trans. Haines I. 235 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Apol. 113 D.

55 counter the argument that grieving was justified if a person died young.236 Thus, in order to demonstrate the fallacy of such a belief, they argued that infants, who were the youngest of all, were not mourned for at all, but rather that their deaths were born “easily and cheerfully”. This cannot be anything other than rhetorical exaggeration: for even if parents did not emotionally invest in their infants, why would they be cheerful that they died? In fact, Plutarch and Cicero were able to make such an argument because most parents would have followed the mourning regulations stipulating infants under the age of three should not be mourned for publically. There would thus have been little indication in public that parents were grieving the death of their infants. However, most readers of Plutarch and Cicero would have experienced the death of an infant themselves, and would therefore have understood the distinction between public and private life and would have recognised the rhetorical purposes of such an argument. The majority of the evidence seems to support the view that elite parents loved their infants and thus would have grieved for them when they died. Indeed, there are numerous references to infants in the literary sources which reveal anything but an indifferent attitude. For example, Marcus Aurelius, despite advising parents on how they should prepare for their child’s death,237 demonstrates palpable concern and anxiety over the health of his infant daughter Faustina:

Thanks the Gods we seem to have some hopes of recovery. The diarrhoea is stopped, the feverish attacks got rid of; but the emaciation is extreme, and there is still some cough. You understand, of course, that I am telling you of our little Faustina who has kept us busy enough238

Even though Marcus Aurelius does not use emotion words in this passage, it is evident that his little daughter’s health affected him deeply. His expression “thanks the gods” makes clear the huge relief he felt at her tentative recovery. Such warmth and tenderness can also be found in many of the letters exchanged between elite males which contain numerous playful and affectionate references to infants. For example in one of Cicero’s many allusions to

236 The Romans referred to an untimely death (someone as dying too young) as mors immatura. This phrase is often seen on epitaphs for people of all ages regardless of how old they were when they died. 237 Marcus Aurelius, Med. 11.34. In this quote Marcus Aurelius is actually paraphrasing Epictetus: “As you kiss your son goodnight, says Epictetus, whisper to yourself, ‘he may be dead in the morning’. Yet, even here, the tone is not one of indifference: the fact that children are kissed shows care and affection and the fact that Marcus Aurelius advises parents to mentally prepare for their child’s death indicates this was a difficult task for parents and certainly not a matter of indifference. 238 Fronto, Ep, Ad M Caes. 4.11, p.72. Trans. Haines I. Faustina was probably about a year old here.

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Attica239, he plays an affectionate game in which he pretends she can actually send him her love even though she is just a baby:

I am much beholden to your little daughter for so carefully instructing you to give me her love, and to Pilia also … please give my love to both240

Yet, one of the most devoted passages to an infant child is perhaps Fronto’s description of his infant grandchild:

Daily tiffs indeed and disagreements I have with our little Victorinus or our little Fronto … your little Fronto prattles no word more readily or more constantly than this Da [Give]. I on my part do my best to supply him with scraps of paper and little tablets, things which I wish him to want. Some signs, however, even of his grandfather’s characteristics he does show. He is very fond of grapes … He is also devoted to little birds; he delights in chickens, young pigeons, and sparrows.241

This passage is interesting in that Fronto could almost be said to be favouring his infant grandson, Fronto, over his older grandson, Victorinus. For, Fronto’s loving description of “little Fronto” is long and detailed, chronicling all of his habits and quirks; whereas “little Victorinus” only gets a passing mention. Naturally, such conclusions cannot be drawn on the basis of one passage, but at the very least this extract raises the question of whether scholars are correct in assuming Roman parents always valued older children over infants. It is, in any case, evident that Fronto adored his grandchildren and did so from the minute they were born. Nowhere is this more clearly expressed than in his letter to Marcus Aurelius in which he discloses the grief and pain he felt at the death of his three-year old grandson:

But as my Victorinus242 weeps, I waste away, I melt away along with him243

239 Atticus’ daughter 240 Cicero, Ad. Att. 6.1.22 241 Fronto, Ep. Ad Amic. 1.12, p.181, Trans. Haines II. 242 Victorinus is Fronto’s son-in-law. 243 Fronto, Ep. De Nep. Ami. 2, p.232, Haines, II.

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I seem to see a copy of his face and fancy that I hear the very echo of his voice. This is the picture that my sorrow conjures up of itself244

My daughter … will rest upon her husband’s love … He will comfort her by mingling his tears and sighs with hers.245

The letter is poignant in its expression of pain, but it is also informative as it describes many of the symptoms that Fronto and his family experienced as a consequence of their bereavement. Thus, Fronto mentions the word “sorrow”, but he also reports physical symptoms such as “weeping”, “tears”, and “sighing”. Similar words and bodily responses were used in the verse inscriptions discussed in the preceding section, which would seem to yet again confirm the idea that the Romans had a similar concept of grief to us. In addition, Fronto mentions “seeing” his grandson’s face and “hearing” his voice – a phenomenon which modern psychologists consider to be a normal part of the grieving process.246 It is also worth noting that at the beginning of his letter, Fronto mentions he had already suffered a great many bereavements in his life due to five of his children having died, one after the other:

I have lost five children under the most distressing circumstances possible to myself. For I lost all five separately, in every case an only child, suffering this series of bereavements in such a way that I never had a child born to me except while bereaved of another. So I always lost children without any left to console me and with my grief fresh upon me I begat others.247

This passage is significant as it would seem to argue against the idea that repeated deaths inured parents from feeling grief when their infants died. For, Fronto explicitly states he felt grief at the death of every one of his children, regardless of how many children he had already lost. It also seems unlikely that Fronto was unusual in this regard, as much of the evidence presented in this chapter has demonstrated at least some parents genuinely grieved for their infants when they died. Ironically, one such example would be Plutarch,248 who actually wrote his wife a consolatory letter when their two year old daughter died. In the

244 Fronto, Ep. De Nep. Ami. 2, p.232, Haines, II. The word dolor is used in the Latin which Haines translated as “grief”. Yet, Cicero’s list of emotions translates dolor as “sorrow” and “grief” as luctus so I have amended this in the translation. 245 Fronto, Ep. De Nep. Ami. 2, p.232, Haines, II. 246 Sanders, 1992, 68 – 69. 247 Fronto, Ep. De Nep. Ami. 2, p.232, Trans. Haines. II. 248 This is of course ironic because, as discussed earlier, he claimed the deaths of new-borns and infants were born “easily and cheerfully”.

58 opening lines of this letter, Plutarch discretely alludes to the pain and grief both he and his wife felt in the face of this new loss.249 Yet, it is actually a different passage that best illustrates how he must have felt at her death:

She had herself, moreover, a surprising natural gift of mildness and good temper, and her way of responding to friendship and of bestowing favours gave us pleasure while it afforded an insight into her kindness. For she would invite the nurse to offer the breast and feed with it not only other infants, but even the inanimate objects and playthings she took pleasure in250

The historian, Claassen, points out how exceptionally well-behaved Timoxena seems for a two year old, as she displays none of the temper-tantrums and stubbornness one would normally associate with a toddler. Claassen attributes this “rose-tinted” portrayal of Timoxena to the grief of a devoted father rather than to objective fact.251 It seems likely that she is correct in this assumption for the tendency to idealise a deceased loved one is one of the most prevalent symptoms of grief. Indeed, George Bonanno, a clinical psychologist who conducted countless surveys on the bereaved, concludes, “if there is one constant, it is that most people idealise the lost loved one”.252 It may, therefore, very well be the case that one of Plutarch’s motives in writing this consolatory letter was to pay tribute to his much-loved daughter by glorifying her forever in written word.

So far, the discussion of this section has focused solely on instances of elite fatherly grief for infant children. Very little has been said about elite female responses to infant death. The explanation for this lies, of course, in the bias of our source material which reflects almost exclusively the voices of elite Roman males. Given such a bias, it would not be inaccurate to infer that, if elite fathers grieved for their infant children, elite mothers, who were given greater license to grieve, most likely did as well. Indeed, Plutarch provides us with some evidence that would seem to support such a notion. The first of which is, of course, Plutarch’s wife herself. In the first lines of Ad Uxorem, Plutarch refers twice to the grief his wife was feeling at the death of their two year old daughter:

249 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 B – D. In 608 B he refers only to his wife’s grief but then in 608 C he states: “Only, my dear wife, in your emotion, keep me as well as yourself within bounds … neither was I born “from oak or rock”, you know this yourself, you who have reared so many children in partnership with me” 250 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 C – D. 251 Claassen, 2004, 44. 252 Bonanno, 2009, 69.

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… but if you want something done … something that you believe will make your grief easier to bear253

Only, my dear wife, in your emotion keep me as well as yourself within bounds.254

Plutarch’s words are unambiguous: his wife was clearly suffering from grief as a consequence of losing her “longed-for daughter”.255 Moreover, Plutarch then says something that would make it seem as if his wife was not unusual in this regard:

Our affection for children so young has, furthermore, a poignancy all its own: the delight it gives is quite pure and free from all anger or reproach256

The impression given by this extract is that Plutarch is not just referring to himself and his wife, but rather to the elite community at large.257 He seems to be using the word “children” in a general sense as otherwise he would surely have said “our children”. What’s more, Plutarch is addressing his wife in this letter, meaning when he says “our affection” he is referring to both males and females in the elite community. This extract can therefore be interpreted as meaning both mothers and fathers felt a great deal of affection for their infants, which in turn implies they were grieved for when they died. Yet, perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence in this regard is when Plutarch refers to the burial of his two year old daughter, and comments:

This also those who were present report—with amazement—that you have not even put on mourning258

It is fairly significant that people at the burial expressed surprise at Timoxena’s259 failure to put on her mourning. For, Roman law forbade “formal” mourning of infants under the age of three and Timoxena’s daughter was only two. Yet in spite of this, people still expected her to put on mourning clothes for her daughter’s burial.260 This can only be interpreted as meaning it was common practice for elite mothers to put on mourning clothes when their infants died.

253 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 B. 254 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 C. 255 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 C. 256 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 C – D. 257 At least this is the impression I get from the English translation. 258 Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 F. 259 Timoxena was Plutarch’s wife. Their infant daughter was named after her. 260 I am assuming putting on mourning clothes would be viewed as formal mourning

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They did this despite what the mourning laws dictated. Such behaviour strongly suggests elite mothers were anything but indifferent to their infants, and that they did indeed mourn them when they died.

One final example needs to be mentioned in demonstrating elite grief at the death of an infant was not a rare occurrence: namely, Seneca’s letter to Marullus. For, Seneca wrote his letters with the explicit aim of publication. It is, therefore, telling that the addressee of this letter is a man overwhelmed with grief for his infant son. This must surely imply many elite parents were affected by the deaths of their infants as it seems unlikely that Seneca would publish on a topic that no one in his emotional community could relate to.261 It therefore seems probable that more than just a few individual parents grieved when their infants died. Indeed, this seems to be corroborated by many of the conclamatio scenes depicted on infant sarcophagi. These scenes clearly show the parents of the deceased infant as grieving: their heads are bowed down in grief and their facial expressions and body language exude sadness and pain (see figures 7 and 8 in Appendix B). To be sure, the parents in these scenes demonstrate more restraint in their emotion than the attendant slaves, but they do represent themselves as mourning nonetheless. The fact that they chose to represent themselves in this manner indicates the emotional community of the elite considered parental grief upon the death of an infant to be a normal reaction. For, the conclamatio scene was the most popular theme for the sarcophagi of infants and young children.262 It therefore seems reasonable to assume considerably fewer parents would have chosen to portray themselves in this manner if their emotional community had considered grief for an infant to be aberrant. Perhaps, these conclamatio scenes can then be considered to be the ancient equivalent of an emotive: by presenting themselves in this manner, elite parents were actually saying, “I am sad”.

The fact that consolatory letters were written at all signifies the elite grieved when their loved ones died. Consolatory letters will have provided comfort to the bereaved, but it may not only have been the recipient that benefited from such literature. The author, if recently bereaved, may have derived just as much solace in writing such a letter as the

261 As mentioned in the preceding chapter, there is some contention as to whether Marullus was actually a real person or not. If Marullus was indeed a fictive person it would only strengthen the argument being made here because then Seneca would have deliberately chosen to make the addressee of his letter a man grieving for his infant – something he would presumably not do if this was a very rare occurrence. 262 Huskinson’s research has led her to conclude the conclamatio scene is “virtually without parallel on adult’s sarcophagi. Furthermore, amongst children’s sarcophagi they are mainly used on the smaller pieces”, Huskinson, 1996, p.95

61 recipient did in reading it. For example, Cicero is known to have written a consolatio to himself when he was in the depths of despair over Tullia’s death.263 The mere act of reiterating well-known consolatory assurances and arguments will have had a healing effect on author and reader alike.264 Occasionally, however, an elite male may have felt the need to give vent to his grief and express it in a way that did not conform to elite notions of continentia. The question arises if this would have been possible. Was there an emotional refuge for the elite male where norms regarding self-control were temporarily relaxed? I would argue that there was and that for the elite Roman male this was within the privacy of his own home. The evidence for this lies in Seneca’s admiring account of Pulvilllus’ behaviour upon hearing his son had died:

Pulvillus, a Roman priest … was dedicating the temple on the Capitoline, and was still grasping the door-post when he received news of the death of his son. But he pretended not to hear it, and repeated the words of the pontifical ritual in the appointed manner; not a single moan interrupted the course of his prayer, and he entreated the favour of Jove with the name of his son ringing in his ears … Yet when he had returned to his home, this man’s eyes were flooded with tears and he indulged in a few tearful laments, then, having completed the rites that custom prescribed for the dead, he resumed the expression he had worn at the Capitol.265

263 Cicero, Ad Att. 12.14.3. 264 Wilcox (2005) sees a different purpose in the consolatory tradition: namely, that it was based more on aristocratic competition for prestige than on consoling the bereaved. She argues the consolatory tradition established a hierarchy: that of the consoler who is the “teacher” and that of the recipient who is the “pupil”. From within this hierarchy a competition was established as to who was the most virtuous. She illustrates this through the example of Servius Sulpicius Rufus and Cicero. Cicero had first written Sulpicius a consolatory letter in 46 BCE. Then in 45 BCE it was Sulpicius’ turn to write Cicero a consolatory letter as a result of Tullia’s death. In this letter, Sulpicius recalls how Cicero’s advice helped him gain control of himself when he was going through a difficult period. Wilcox argues that by recounting how he benefited from Cicero’s advice, Sulpicius was actually challenging Cicero: for, if Cicero refused to take Sulpicius’ advice and pull himself together, he would be admitting Sulpicius’ self-control exceeded his own. In this way, the consolatory tradition encouraged competition between elite males. Wilcox’s argument, though interesting, can only really have any validity for the consolatory letters exchanged between acquaintances but cannot possibly apply to the consolatory letters exchanged between very close friends. For, if such competition had formed the basis of the consolatory tradition, Cicero would not have felt comfortable being as open and honest about his grief as he was in his letters to Atticus (Ad Att. XXII.15). 265 Seneca, Ad Marc. 13.1 – 13.2.

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Pulvillus is presented as the ideal in terms of his response to bereavement. Seneca praises him for putting his duty to the state (by worshipping the gods) before his own personal loss.266 Interestingly, Seneca then goes on to describe how, after completing his public duties, Pulvillus went home and finally gave in to the tears he had been holding in all this time. It is significant that Seneca chose to include this last piece of information as he cannot really have known what Pulvillus did in the privacy of his home. The fact that he chose to include this detail anyway, strongly suggests it was public knowledge that elite males escaped to their homes when their emotions got the better of them. Evidently, there was nothing shameful about surrendering to grief in the solitude of one’s own home. This once again confirms the idea that the elite ideal was not to be callous upon the death of a loved one, but to control one’s grief in public. There was a time and a place for mourning. The home was thus the place for mourning and provided an emotional refuge from the conventions of public life. This may also partly explain why demonstrative grief was considered to be standard behaviour for the majority of females.267 For, Roman society maintained a separate spheres ideology, in which the public sphere belonged to elite males and the private sphere belonged to elite females.268 Therefore, if, as is argued here, greater emotional expression was permitted in the home, it stands to reason that women would have been less restrained in their emotions than men. Moreover, their lack of restraint would have been tolerated in the elite emotional community, as they were largely excluded from public life, meaning their more demonstrative modes of emotional expression could not impact public life in any way. In this sense, the elite emotional community can be seen as a miniature emotional regime269 in which home life provided a respite from the rigours of public emotional life. It seems unlikely that the same could be said of the freedman community as they most likely enjoyed greater emotional liberty than the elite270 and were perhaps less in need of an emotional

266 Seneca, Ad Marc. 13.2 “grief … failed to divert him, father though he was, from his duty at the public altar and from an auspicious delivery of his solemn proclamation? Worthy, in truth, was he of the notable dedication, worthy was he to hold the most exalted priesthood” 267 The other explanation, as already mentioned in the preceding chapter, is that women were considered to be of a weaker and inferior nature. 268 Hemelrijk, 2004, p.188. 269 Although still on the looser end of the spectrum for the reasons discussed in chapter two. 270 Largely due to the fact that they were barred from those leading political and military positions that required continentia as a pre-requisite.

63 refuge, although they too undoubtedly reserved their deepest feelings for the sanctuary of their home, especially if those feelings clashed with the mourning laws.271

Uncovering the emotions of people from another era is always challenging, particularly if the evidence is as scanty and contradictory as it is for the Roman period. Nevertheless, the majority of the evidence presented in this chapter would seem to indicate Roman parents did love their infant children and grieved for them when they died. This is still quite a controversial point of view as many scholars believe Roman practices such as wet-nursing, puer senex and exposure prove Roman parents were indifferent to their infants. The final section of this chapter will therefore briefly272 examine such practices in order to determine whether this is a fair assessment and whether any new light can be cast on such behaviours.

Wet-nursing, Puer Senex and Exposure

The first section of this chapter discussed the premise of scholars such as Bradley and Wiedemann who claimed high infant mortality led parents to maintain emotional distance from their infants in order to inure themselves from the repeated pain of losing them. These scholars believe the ubiquity of wet-nursing in Roman society proves Roman parents were largely indifferent to their infants as such practices prevented them from emotionally bonding with their babies.273 In postulating such a hypothesis, Bradley and Wiedemann seem to be drawing on comments by Favorinus and Plutarch, who claimed wet-nursing diverted a child's affection from its parents to a stranger.274 Yet, the origins of this theory can really be found in the work of early modern historians275 who first made a connection between wet-nursing and parent-child relations when investigating seventeenth century Paris, where parents habitually sent new-borns to a wet-nurse in the countryside.276 Such studies revealed many infants were

271 To some extent it could be argued that the home is always an emotional refuge whichever society one studies, but I would argue that for the elite Roman male this was particularly the case as the emotional standards they had to live up to were exceptionally exacting. 272 These topics have received ample attention from other scholars and therefore will only be dealt with briefly. 273 Bradley, 1991, 29, Wiedemann, 1989, 17. 274 Dixon, 1988, 124, Sparreboom, 2009, 51 -52. 275 Dixon, 1988, 125, cites examples of such historians as Badinter and Sussman, whereas Golden, 1988, cites historians such as Shorter and Stone. 276 Bradley, 1986,219.

64 nursed under conditions that were detrimental to their health, jeopardising their very survival; whilst those that did survive, returned to parents they did not know. That parents subjected their infants to such misery and neglect led historians to infer these parents were largely indifferent to their infants’ welfare.277

Yet, it is questionable whether scholars such as Bradley and Wiedemann are justified in drawing the same conclusions for Rome. For there is one crucial difference between the early modern European example and Rome: Roman parents did not send their infants away to wet-nurses outside of the home, rather the wet-nurse cared for the infant inside the family home.278 Parents were thus given plenty of opportunity to interact and bond with their infants as well as to monitor the care that was given to them. That parents did indeed supervise the care given to their infants is supported by some of the scenes on biographical sarcophagi which depict parents overseeing simple daily activities of their infants such as bath time (see figure 9 and 10 in appendix B). What’s more, the literary sources provide several examples of elite parents caring for their sick infants,279 tucking their infants into bed,280 and being directly involved in their infant’s education from birth onwards.281 Roman parents were, thus, most likely engaged with their infants on a daily basis and will have closely monitored the care given to them. Their wet-nurses will, therefore, have felt compelled to take good care of their charges. It seems unlikely then that Roman infants will have suffered the same cruel fate at the hands of a nurse that early modern European babies did.

But what then of the words of Favorinus and Plutarch mentioned above: namely, that wet-nursing transferred a child’s love from its parents to a stranger? The answer is that some caution should be exercised in trusting the reliability of such accounts as these arguments were most likely produced for moralising purposes, to demonstrate the decay of Roman society at large.282 For, philosophers believed the increasing Roman reliance on slaves symbolised the decadence that had entered Roman society from the Greek East.283 They, therefore, argued wet-nursing demonstrated the moral decline of Roman society, as parents turned away from traditional family values and left the task of child-rearing to a foreign

277 Balbus, 1998, 118 – 119. Balbus cites Stone and Shorter as the greatest proponents of such a thesis. 278 Bradley, 1986, 219; Dixon, 1988, 125. This thesis focuses exclusively on middle-class and elite parents as lower-class and slave parents are outside the scope of this work. 279 Fronto, Ep, Ad. M. Caes. 4.11 280 Marcus Aurelius, Med., 11.34 281 Quintilian, Inst. Or. 1.6-7; Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att., Praefatio, 23. 282 Sparreboom, 2009, 54. 283 Sparreboom, 2009, 54.

65 nurse.284 Such rhetorical exhortations should not be taken seriously, however, particularly as the available evidence rejects the notion that Roman parents maintained emotional distance from their children.

But, why then did Romans rely on wet nurses? In Roman society, breast-feeding was viewed as a physically, demanding task and was therefore considered to be inappropriate for women of high status, particularly because of its association with barbarian and lower class women.285 The ability to employ a wet-nurse, thus, signified wealth and status.286 This view point actually parallels several present-day societies. For, many modern wealthy families in the Anglo-Saxon and Asian world hire nannies to help them care for their children, despite the fact that most of these mothers are not employed in a professional capacity.287 Yet, none of these parents are accused of being indifferent to their children. Rather, it is accepted that this is the “thing one does” in wealthy circles. Hiring help for the care of one’s children is, thus seen as a sign of wealth rather than a lack of love. In fact, many modern mothers show anything but indifference in terms of the time and effort they expend into finding the best possible care for their child. This too is mirrored in Roman society. The medical writer Soranus devoted an entire chapter to the care of new-born infants and gave extensive advice on the criteria parents should look for when selecting a wet-nurse.288 Surely he only did this because he saw parents were concerned for their infants and wanted them to be well looked after. Why else would he have written such a chapter? Indeed, the Roman epigraphic evidence reveals wet-nurses were frequently commemorated by their former nurslings and owners,289 which would seem to suggest they often had long-lasting and affectionate bonds with their former charges and were greatly appreciated by their elite families. Naturally, such inscriptions present a bias in our source material as they only record those relationships that were intimate and affectionate; but they do demonstrate how flawed the notion is that Roman wet-nursed children were routinely neglected and abused. In fact, the words of Cicero confirm the idea that the wet-nurse – nursling relationship was a largely positive one:

284 Joshel, 1986, 7. 285For inappropriateness for elite women: Sparreboom, 2014, 153. For association with barbarians and lower classes: 149. 286 Sparreboom, 2014, 149. 287 Davidson, 2012. 288 Sparreboom, 2009, 21 – 22; Dixon, 1988, 123. 289 Dixon, 2001, 115.

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For on that principle nurses and the slaves who attended us to and from school, will, by right of priority of acquaintance, claim the largest share of our goodwill290

It appears to be the case, then, that the majority of wet-nurses took good care of their charges and that this process was closely supervised by Roman parents themselves. The conditions under which Roman infants were wet-nursed were thus decidedly different to the early modern example. In fact, the literary and material sources largely reject the hypothesis that Roman children were wet-nursed so their parents could avoid emotionally investing in them. Rather, we are presented with copious examples of Roman parents interacting with their babies on a daily basis and carefully supervising the care given to them. Elite reliance on wet-nurses should, therefore, not be explained away as parental indifference; but should instead be viewed as what it was: a symbol of wealth and status.

Scholars favouring the indifference thesis, however, point to other supposed signs of parental indifference to infants and young children. They argue, for example, that the puer senex (old child) motif sometimes found on funerary altars and in literary sources proves infants and young children were not valued in Roman society.291 For, the puer senex motif depicted infants and children as older than they were and described them as possessing adult qualities, which some scholars have interpreted as a lack of interest in childhood. For example, the eleven year old Q. Sulpicius Maximus was praised for intellectual achievements that far outstripped his age.292 He was also represented as an adult orator rather than a child, wearing a toga and carrying a scroll (see figure 2, appendix B). Similarly, the two year old Titus Flavius Hermes was complimented for his sensitivity which made him seem more like a sixteen old:

and yet he lived two years almost like he lived sixteen, so sensitive was he293

Examples such as these have led some scholars to conclude the very idea of childhood as a separate stage of life was unknown to the Romans and that Roman children were therefore

290 Cicero, De Amicitia, 183. 291Kleijwegt, 1991, 124; Eyben, 1977, 65. 292 “…He performed at the third celebration of the Competition, amongst 52 Greek poets, and the favour which he attracted through his young age was turned to admiration by his talent: he acquitted himself with honour…” Translation by Rawson, 2003, 17. 293 CIL VI, 18086. Rome, Date:200 CE – 300 CE. Translated by Emilia Salerno.

67 seen as miniature adults.294 These scholars largely follow the work of Ariès, who purportedly claimed childhood was a modern invention. In fact, this is not what Ariès asserted. He actually argued it was the medieval world that did not have a concept of childhood, but that the ancient world most certainly did as the Greek notion of paideia295 pre-supposed “a difference and a transition between the world of children and that of adults”.296 Ariès, thus, believed the separateness of childhood as a stage of life was very much in evidence in the ancient world. This idea would seem to be confirmed by the available evidence which reveals the puer senex motif was not the only concept of childhood in Roman society. Rather, there were copious examples of Roman infants’ childish qualities being celebrated and valued by adults. In fact, it is this notion of childhood that appears to actually have been dominant at Rome.297 For example, the funerary relief of five year old Aulus Egrilius Magnus shows an appreciation of childish features as well as a recognition of the special relationship children had with their pets (see figure 11, appendix B). Similarly, many of the biographical sarcophagi of infants and children show an awareness of the stages of child development by depicting the different stages of a child’s life.298 Thus, the first two scenes on the sarcophagus of Cornelius Statius portray him as a baby being nursed by his mother and then being held in his father’s arms. The next scene depicts him as a young child playing with a chariot and the final scene portrays him as a schoolchild, practicing his oratory in front of his father (see figure 12, appendix B). In addition, numerous infant and children’s sarcophagi contain scenes of children engaged in play or games (see figures 13 and 14, appendix B) which further proves infants and children were seen as different and distinct from adults. Yet, it is the funerary epitaphs that best illustrate how charmed parents were by their infants and how much they valued their childish qualities:

For Anthis Chrysostoma, a sweet chattering and babbling small bird, who lived 3 years, 5 months and 3 days. Her most unhappy parents, Faenomenus and Helpis, made this inscription for their dearest daughter with her honey- sweet little voice, who deserved good. Porcius Maximus, Porcia Charita,

294 Kleijwegt, 1991, 124: “The ideal child in the ancient world was actually no child at all”. 295 Roughly equivalent to the Roman concept of humanitas. 296 Ariès, 1962, p.411 – 412. 297 Carp, 1980, p. 738 - 739. 298 Huskinson, 1996, pp.10 – 11.

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Porcia Helias, Sardonux and Menophilus, who nursed her until the day of her death, (set this up).299

Similarly, the parents of two-year old Iulius Maximus were delighted by how happily and merrily he used to sit on his mother’s lap,300 and the parents of six-month old Aelius Pius were astounded by his ability to recognise them.301 Infants were thus valued in Roman society for their unique qualities that set them apart from adults. That parents occasionally portrayed them as older than they were does not detract from this. In fact, the puer senex motif could be argued to exist in our society as well. For, it is not uncommon for parents in present-day society to refer to their infants and young children as “wise beyond their years” or even to talk of their babies as having an “old soul”.302 Or what of the child beauty pageants which portray infants and toddlers as miniature adult women?303 Yet, our society is never accused of undervaluing infants and young children, quite the opposite in fact. Why then are the Romans accused of doing so, particularly when there is so much evidence proving Roman parents valued and appreciated the childish qualities of their infants?

It could even be argued that the puer senex motif was a sign of grief and love: for, by representing their infants and young children as orators or mothers, parents gave expression to the hopes and dreams they had had for their young children, which were now shattered. Equally, that Roman parents praised the precocity of their infants should not necessarily be interpreted as a lack of interest in childhood, but could be viewed as a sign of pride and love. For, many parents in present-day society also boast about their child’s achievements, frequently claiming their child is advanced beyond its years in reading or writing or something similar. The puer senex motif, thus, exists in present-day society as it did in ancient society and cannot be convincingly used to argue Roman parents were indifferent to their infants and young children. Rather, too much evidence exists to the contrary, with numerous epitaphs, altars and literary sources illustrating Roman parents appreciated and celebrated the childish qualities of their infants and small children.

299 CIL VI, 34421. Translated by Emily Hemelrijk. Date: unknown, most likely imperial period. The italics are my emphasis. 300 CLE, 1065, Rome, Date: unknown. Translation found in Laes, 2004, 59. 301 CLE, 1535A, Rome, Date: unknown. Translation found in Laes, 2004, 59. 302 I have heard many mothers refer to their babies and infants in this manner. 303 To be sure, these child beauty pageants are often criticised for sexualizing young girls and encouraging them to act older than their years, but equally many parents believe entering their daughters into these pageants is beneficial as it gives their daughters confidence and poise (see for example, Cromie, 2000).

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Yet, alongside this largely positive picture, there also existed a darker side: namely, the exposure and killing of infants in Roman society. Several scholars assume Romans were largely indifferent towards their very young precisely because such practices existed.304 Even scholars such as Hopkins, who argue Roman parents most likely did love their children are troubled by this practice, stating “And yet nagging doubts remain. Even rich and educated Romans killed or exposed new-born babies”305 Exposure and infanticide are problematic topics – not least because they are impossible to quantify. For, while there is evidence of infanticide and exposure in the literary sources,306 no indication is given as to the scale of such practices. Scholars are thus deeply divided on whether such practices were widespread or not. For example, Engels argues a high level of female infanticide would have been a demographic impossibility in a stable population307 such as the Roman one as it would have resulted in a virtual extinction of the population.308 Other scholars such as Harris and Golden assert female infanticide was widespread and that Engels’ mistake lies in his assumption that the birth-rate and the non-infanticidal death rate were in equilibrium, when in actual fact the death rate only equalled the birth rate with infanticide already factored in.309 It seems likely that the most accurate point of view is “that we do not and cannot know how common the exposure of children was”310 as the demographic data from antiquity is far too scanty and unreliable to draw any proper conclusions.311 Nonetheless, if looking specifically at the city of Rome, I would argue it is unlikely that infanticide was practiced on any large scale there due to infant mortality already being high as a result of disease and inadequate hygiene.312 Yet, it probably did occur on occasion. What would have been the reasons that Roman parents practiced infanticide? One likely reason is severe physical or mental deformity.313 If we look at deformity as a motive, we see parallels with our own society. In present-day society mothers undergo various tests and examinations to uncover whether their child has any abnormalities, and if it does, parents are given the option of abortion. The fact that such tests exist show deformity is regarded as just as undesirable in our society as it was in Roman society. Perhaps, the Romans too would have preferred to abort a foetus rather than kill a

304 Bradley, 1991, 140. Wiedemann, 1989, 42. 305 Hopkins, 1983, p.225. 306 Plutarch. Mor. De Amore Prol., 497 E; Pliny, Ep. 10.66 307 A stable population means the birth rate more or less equaled the death rate. 308 Engels, 1980 and 1984. 309 Harris, 1982, 114; Golden, 1981, 320. 310 Garnsey, 1991, 50. 311 Oldenziel, 1987, 99. 312 Scheidel, 2003. 313 Grubbs, 2013, 88.

70 new-born, but the option of advanced technological testing was simply not available to them. Nor was there the kind of support available for handicapped children that exists nowadays,314 meaning raising a deformed child would have been near impossible, not to mention that such a child would have had no real future. Infanticide in such cases, then seems to be an act of survival rather than of indifference. Moreover, it is unlikely that infanticide at Rome was practiced on any large scale and for reasons other than deformity. It seems instead that exposure was more common than infanticide – a point also made by Harris.315 It is crucial that this distinction between infanticide and exposure be made, as parents who exposed their children most likely hoped their infant would survive and be taken in by another family.316 Indeed, this idea is confirmed by Harris who argues many exposed infants did survive and were taken in as slaves, thus, helping supply the labour market.317 Some parents even left tokens with their abandoned infants, hoping this may help them recognise their children later in life.318 Exposure should, thus, not be viewed as simply another form of infanticide. Yet, the question remains why parents chose to expose their new- borns?319 Most scholars concur the main motive was economic necessity as it was largely the poor that exposed their children.320 Presumably such choices were made ad hoc when there was not enough food to go around. In such circumstances, parents most likely rated their infant’s chance of survival as higher if it was taken in by another family, even if as a slave, than if it stayed with its family and starved to death. There, are, however, also cases of the elite exposing their new-borns. Musonius Rufus suggests elite parents exposed their new- born babies because they did not wish to divide their estates among too many heirs.321 Musonius is most likely exaggerating the extent of such practices because it suits his rhetoric about the decline of morals in Roman society, whereby the elite focused on wealth and decadence rather than on traditional Roman values.322 However, he may be correct that a small minority of the elite did expose their later-born babies because they wanted their older

314 Nowadays there specialised day centres and schools that severely handicapped children can attend, giving their parents a much needed break. 315 Harris, 1994, 1. 316 Grubbs, 2013, 93. 317 Harris, 1994, 9. 318 Harris, 1994, 9. 319 It should be noted that an infant could only be exposed before it had been accepted into the family by being fed by the breast. Corbier, 2001. 320 Harris, 1994, 4. 321 Grubbs, 2013, 89. “the wealthy were ‘so inhuman as to not rear later-born offspring in order that those earlier born may inherit greater wealth’” 322 Grubbs, 2013, 89.

71 children to have a successful life – which for the elite was only possible through a substantial amount of property. However, such cases should be seen as exceptional - the majority of Roman parents exposed their infants out of economic necessity323, and most likely hoped their infant would be taken in by another family. This is a very different phenomenon to infanticide which was relatively rare at Rome and only resorted to in cases of severe deformity. Therefore, neither exposure nor infanticide should be cited as evidence that Roman parents were indifferent towards infants. The last section of this chapter has attempted to demonstrate wet-nursing, the puer senex motif and exposure cannot be used as evidence that Roman parents did not care about their infants and small children. Scholars who, nonetheless, adhere to such a theory are primarily observing Roman society through a modern lens. They are judging an ancient society according to modern standards of what the ideal parent comprises; but the definition of the ideal parent changes across time, space and culture. The Romans will most likely have had a very different idea of how an ideal parent should behave than we do. We therefore cannot assume that certain behaviours and practices of theirs meant they did not love their infants. On the contrary, the majority of the evidence in this chapter would seem to indicate Roman parents cared deeply for their infants and small children and that they did everything in their power to ensure their infants grew up into healthy, well-adjusted Roman citizens.

323 Harris, 1994, 4.

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Conclusion

Whoever has plunged into ash a lad still adorned with the bloom of tender youth and seen the cruel flames creep over his first down as he lies, let him come and grow weary with me in alternate wail … Nature, shall be ashamed, so savage, so wild is my mourning324

The emotional conventions at Rome regarding the mourning of infants are often thought to be found in two extant legal texts which deem infants should not be mourned at all or should be mourned for a far briefer period than older children or adults.325 Scholars have, thus, largely followed the specifications of these texts and concluded that, at least in formal terms, infants were not supposed to be mourned.326 A closer examination of Roman society reveals a far more complex picture than these two texts would have us believe. For, Rome comprised a highly diverse and stratified society resulting in a variety of emotional conventions, none of which were as harsh and callous as these legal texts would first seem to suggest. From this perspective, it seems Rosenwein’s model of “emotional communities” is most suited to analysing Rome’s emotional conventions as Rome was too multifaceted to correspond to Reddy’s bipartite model of “emotional regimes”.

The emotional community for which we have the most evidence is that of the elite Roman male. Contrary to common belief, though elite Roman men were expected to be restrained in their emotions and demonstrate continentia in their grief, they were not supposed to be indifferent when an infant died. For example, Agricola’s grief at the death of his one year old son was seen as the ideal in terms of the proper way to mourn. It is interesting, then, that Tacitus emphasises Agricola did not put on an act of bravado when his son died, but rather showed restraint in his pain.327 Similarly, when Marullus was grieving the death of his infant son, Seneca wrote him a harsh and unsympathetic letter but felt the need to defend the tone of the letter, whilst also admitting he had “not observed the usual form of condolence”.328 This implies parents of deceased infants were expected to be treated with compassion, signifying the death of infants was a sad and painful event. In fact, many elite fathers were not able to demonstrate continentia in the initial stages of their grief, and this

324 Stat., Silv 5.5.16-20. 325 Paulus, Opinions 1.21 and Frag. Vat. 3.21. 326 Rawson, 2003, 146. 327 Tacitus, Agric, 29.1 328 Seneca, Ep, 99.1

73 appears to have been both accepted and understood.329 Indeed, even those fathers that succumbed to excessive and prolonged grief were not penalised with social exclusion or isolation, but continued to receive support from their friends and family.330 Emotional conventions, thus, required elite Roman males to demonstrate continentia, not impassivity, at the death of an infant. This was true for the entire class of elite Roman males, despite the various philosophical allegiances that existed within this community. Nearly all of the different schools of philosophy disapproved of excessive emotion, but accepted moderate emotion. Even the Stoics, who attached so much importance to the notion of apatheia, understood a complete extirpation of emotions was not achievable for the ordinary elite man. Thus. a more in-depth analysis of the elite male community reveals the emotional conventions of this group were quite different to what is stipulated in our two surviving legal texts. It was simply not the case that elite men were expected to remain indifferent to the death of their infants – rather, they were expected to show dignity and restraint in their grief.

Elite women belonged to the same emotional community as elite men as they shared the same emotional conventions. Both elite males and females believed continentia was a male virtue and that women were more susceptible to excessive and uncontrolled grief. This notion was, of course, highly convenient for elite men as it portrayed women as weak and unrestrained, thus, legitimising male dominance over females. Nonetheless, elite women seemed to subscribe to these same values, even accusing those women that were composed in their grief of maternal indifference and a lack of love.331 In fact, it was customary for elite women to visit one another when an infant died so they could grieve and lament together,332 indicating it was common for elite women to grieve for their infants when they died. Naturally, some women, such as Timoxena, Livia and Cornelia, formed an exception to this rule and demonstrated perfect continentia in their grief – but such women were unusual. In fact the philosophers praised such women precisely because they formed an anomaly to the majority of females and because they provided a useful shaming device for those men that were incapable of demonstrating continentia in their grief. It, thus seems, that once again the mourning etiquette specified in the legal texts do not accurately reflect the emotional conventions of this community.

329 Pliny, Ep. 5.16; Seneca, Ep, 99.1 330 Plutarch, Ad Apol, 122 A, Fronto, Ep, Ad Verum Imp. 2.10, p.235, Trans. Haines II., Cicero, Ad Att. 12,14. 331 Plutarch, Ad Uxor. 609 A. 332 Plutarch, Ad Uxor, 611 B.

74

The final community for which we have some evidence is the freedman community. This group is particularly interesting as they dominated the funerary epigraphy of the republican and imperial period.333 In other words, they were the only group to commemorate their family members in such large numbers. Modern historians have tended to view this community as a social group,334 arguing the main motive behind their commemoration habits was the advertisement of their newly gained Roman citizenship.335 This thesis has challenged such a notion, arguing freedmen and –women were far too diverse in terms of background and profession to form a true social group, and that status, while not irrelevant, was not the primary reason funerary epigraphy enjoyed such popularity among this community. Instead, this thesis proposes this group be categorised as an emotional community as doing so, provides greater insight into why it was almost exclusively freedmen and –women that commemorated their family members in such large numbers. For, freedmen and –women as former slaves would have placed extra value on family relationships as slave families could be torn apart on the whim of a slave owner. Manumission, thus, offered freedmen and – women the opportunity for a stable family for the first time in their lives – the value of which should not be underestimated. Freedmen and –women thus, most likely, valued and appreciated their family relationships in a way that ordinary Roman citizens did not and this most likely explains why the funerary reliefs and altars were almost exclusively commissioned by them. Indeed, the material remains left behind by this group would seem to indicate the emotional conventions of this community were very accepting of public and open expressions of grief, as the emotion words infelicissimus, miser, dolor, lacrima, and luctum repeatedly occur on funerary inscriptions dedicated to infants. Similarly, the recurring motifs on verse inscriptions contain explicit expressions of grief in which parents repeatedly emphasise the torment and misery they felt at losing their infant. Of course, these epigraphic remains only tell us about the behaviour of freed parents and do not tell us if this behaviour was in accordance with the emotional conventions of this community, but it seems unlikely that so many parents would have commemorated their infants in this manner if convention considered such behaviour unacceptable. Moreover, it seems likely that the strong emphasis this community placed on family relationships will have affected conventions as well, perhaps even ensuring grief for a deceased family member was deemed more acceptable than other forms of emotional pain. In any case, it is clear that the emotional conventions of this

333 Kleiner, 1976, 183; Kleiner, 1987, 17; Huskinson, 2007, 324 and 328; Mouritsen, 2001, 281. 334 Vermote, 2014; Mouritsen, 2011; George 2005; Rawson 2003. 335 Huskinson, 2007; Rawson, 2003; MCWilliam, 2001, Taylor, 1961.

75 community did not at all correspond to the conventions stipulated in the legal texts, as infants in this community were mourned both publically and explicitly.

The findings discussed above illustrate the validity of using emotion as a serious category of historical analysis in providing new insights on existing evidence. For, scholars have always taken the legal texts at face value and assumed that at least in formal terms, emotional conventions demanded the mourning of infants be either non-existent or marginal. Yet, by using Rosenwein’s theory of emotional communities, a more detailed analysis was possible of each community, revealing new results: namely, that the emotional conventions of the communities being studied were nowhere near as harsh and callous as the Roman legal texts would first imply.

The actual reactions of individual parents to the death of their infants has garnered a great deal of debate: some historians argue Roman parents did grieve when their infants died,336 whilst others believe they were largely indifferent to such deaths.337 Scholars, favouring the latter theory, follow the work of Stone, and assume high infant mortality encouraged parents to avoid emotionally bonding with their infants so they would feel no distress when they died. It seems rather obtuse, however, to assume high infant mortality rates elicited the same emotional reaction in parents of all cultures and eras. Indeed, anthropological studies of present-day populations have demonstrated that in those areas where infant mortality was highest,338 parents frequently devoted the most attention and love to their infants and were devastated when they died. It, thus, cannot be simply presumed that just because Rome experienced high infant mortality, this automatically meant parents were indifferent to their infants.

In fact, the majority of the evidence suggests Roman parents did grieve for their infants when they died. For, if we look at the freedman community, the funerary inscriptions reveal a great deal of emotion surrounding the death of an infant. Parents frequently selected age-appropriate epithets for their infants that denoted strong feelings of affection such as the epithet dulcissimus, or they gave very precise recordings of an infant’s age, even specifying the number of hours an infant had lived. Such behaviour suggest parents deeply loved their infants and valued each moment that such an infant was alive. Even more importantly,

336 Laes, 2007; King 2000. 337 Bradley, 1986; Shaw 1991. 338 For example, the Kalahari Desert and India.

76 bereaved parents were very open about their grief on funerary inscriptions to infants and frequently referred to themselves as infelicissimus (most miserable). The verbs lugere (to grieve) and dolere (to sorrow) also regularly appear on verse inscriptions to infants, and are included on Cicero’s list of emotion words, signifying the Romans considered these words to be emotions. Parents were, thus, describing their emotional state when they used these words – clearly indicating they were mourning the death of their infant. What’s more, lugere and dolere frequently appear in conjunction with bodily responses such as lacrimas (tears) and flere (to weep), signifying the Romans had a very similar concept of grief to us. Some historians339 question the sincerity of these emotions, arguing they are formulaic in nature and thus, not genuine. This seems a rather peculiar conclusion – after all, formulaic does not necessarily mean insincere. In fact, many of the tombstones in present-day society also contain formulaic expressions of grief – yet, no one questions the sincerity of the emotions expressed on these tombstones. It, therefore, seems only fair that if we credit the bereaved in our society with expressing genuine emotion when they use clichéd and formulaic phrases, that we extend the same courtesy to the Romans.

It is, of course, worth reiterating these tombstones represent a bias in our source material as they only provide evidence of those parents that chose to commemorate their infants when they died. The majority of parents, however, did not commemorate their infants when they died as illustrated by the fact that infants are woefully under-represented in funerary inscriptions. Most historians assume this under-representation proves infants were undervalued in Roman society.340 This thesis challenges such a notion, arguing there is no evidence for such a conclusion, as formal commemoration cannot be equated with feelings of grief. Indeed, many parents in Western society up to the 1970s did not commemorate deceased new-born babies either, yet they did grieve for them when they died. Commemoration is usually influenced by social custom rather than by feelings of grief. The Roman mourning regulations stipulated in the legal texts discouraged public displays of mourning and so it is likely that many Roman parents were following emotional conventions, rather than acting out of indifference, when they chose not to commemorate their infants. That the majority of parents conformed to such rules does not mean they did not feel grief when their infants died. Rather, that some freed parents chose to go against convention and

339 Such as Shaw, 1991. 340 Rawson, 2003; Dixon 1992 and 1988; Garnsey, 1991.

77 commemorate their infants anyway, strongly suggests such behaviour was anything a but a “cultural act” and was, instead, a true sign of parental grief and love.

Comparable signs of parental grief and love towards infants can be found in the elite community. Many of the personal letters exchanged between elite male friends contain numerous and affectionate references to infants.341 Indeed, Marcus Aurelius’ love for his infant daughter is revealed in just such a letter when he expresses great concern and anxiety over her illness.342 Yet, perhaps the most devoted passage to an infant is Fronto’s description of his grandson, which lovingly chronicles all of his grandson’s habits and quirks.343 It is, therefore, all the more poignant to read of Fronto’s subsequent grief at losing this grandson, particularly as he provides excruciating detail of the tears, sorrow and pain he went through in this period.344 It is also interesting that he mentions losing five children of his own and that he felt grief and distress at the death of every one of these children. This would seem to further argue against the idea that high infant mortality inured Roman parents to the death of their infants. Rather, many elite fathers such as Nero, Herodes Atticus, Fronto and Plutarch felt a great deal of sorrow and grief when their infants died.345 The same can be said of elite mothers, who, on such occasions, would visit one another and lament together346 and even put on their mourning clothes despite the fact that this was discouraged in the legal texts.347 Such behaviour strongly suggests elite mothers were distressed and sad when their infants died. Finally, the material evidence, itself, reveals elite parents grieved for their infants when they died, as parents frequently portrayed themselves as sad and mournful on the sarcophagi of their infants. Perhaps such scenes were the equivalent of what Reddy would call an emotive: by presenting themselves in this manner, elite parents were actually communicating the message “I am sad”. There is, thus, substantial evidence that the elite did feel distress and pain at the death of their infants. The elite male, bound by standards of continentia, will have only expressed this pain in the privacy of his own home. In this sense, the emotional community of the elite could be viewed as a mini emotional regime, from which the home provided an emotional refuge. This may also explain why elite females were given greater

341 Cicero, At Att. 6.1.22; Fronto, Ep, Ad M Caes. 4, p.230, Trans. Haines II; Fronto, Ep, Ad M Caes. 19, p.81, Trans. Haines I. 342 Fronto, Ep, Ad MCaes, 4.11, p.72 Trans. Haines. 343 Fronto, Ep. Ad Amic. 1.12, p.181, Trans. Haines I. 344 Fronto, Ep. De Nep. Ami 2, p.232, Haines II. 345 On Nero: Tacitus, Ann. 15.23; On Herodes Atticus: Fronto, Ep, Ad. M. Caes, 1.6.7., 13, Trans. Haines I; On Plutarch: Plutarch, Mor. Ad Uxor. 608 C. 346 Plutarch, Mor, Ad Uxor, 611 B. 347 Plutarch, Mor, Ad Uxor, 608 F.

78 license to grieve than males as they were largely excluded from public life and thus, operated within the confines of the home. In a sense, this is not so different from present-day society where we also reserve our deepest feelings for the sanctuary of our home.

Nevertheless, many scholars dismiss these signs of grief found in the elite and freedmen community, claiming such reactions were aberrant rather than the norm.348 The assumption behind such a theory is that any society that resorts to wet-nursing, puer senex and exposure/infanticide could not be anything other than indifferent to infants. This thesis opposes such a notion on a number of grounds. For, while wet-nursing was indeed widespread among the elite, this was mainly due to the fact that breast-feeding was viewed as a physical task and thus, inappropriate for upper class women. In addition, wet-nurses cared for infants inside the family home, giving parents plenty of opportunity to bond with their infant and to monitor the care given to them. That Roman parents did indeed bond with their infants and supervise the care given to them is supported by both the literary and material sources. Roman parents were very careful in their selection of a wet-nurse as demonstrated by Soranus’ extensive advice on this subject. Finally, the epigraphic evidence suggests the majority of wet-nurses felt a great deal of affection for their charges and took good care of them. Elite reliance on wet-nurses should, thus, not be seen as a sign of parental indifference, but rather as a symbol of wealth and status.

Nor should the puer senex motif, which represented infants and young children as older than they were, be interpreted as a sign that infants were not valued in Roman society. The fact of the matter is that the puer senex motif was not the dominant concept of childhood at Rome. 349 Rather, the majority of funerary reliefs and epitaphs at Rome reveal parents frequently valued and appreciated the childish qualities of their infants. What’s more, the Romans saw childhood as a separate stage of life as confirmed by the biographical sarcophagi which portray infants as engaging in play and games and other child-related activities. It is also worth emphasising the puer senex motif, in itself, does not necessarily reveal a disinterest in childhood. In fact it could be argued that that the puer senex motif provided parents with a means by which they could articulate their grief and love. For, by representing their young children as orators or mothers, Roman parents were actually giving expression to the hopes and dreams they had had for their infants, which were now shattered. Similarly,

348 Bradley, 1991, 29. 349 Carp, 1980.

79 that some parents praised the precocity of their infants should not be interpreted as an indifference to infants, but rather as the proud boastings of a loving and devoted parent.

Exposure and infanticide are, of course, far more controversial topics. However, it is likely that infanticide was a relatively rare phenomenon, particularly at Rome where infant mortality was already incredibly high as a result of disease and poor hygiene. Parents that resorted to infanticide most likely did so because their baby suffered from a severe physical or mental deformity as Roman parents did not have the luxury of advanced technological testing for fetal abnormalities. Thus, in such cases, infanticide was an act of survival rather than indifference. Exposure was much more common than infanticide.350 This is of crucial importance as exposure is not simply another form of infanticide, but rather, betrays the hope that the exposed infant will survive and be taken in by another family.351 That this did indeed happen is confirmed by the evidence which illustrates many exposed infants were taken in as slaves and helped supply the labour market.352 The main reason Roman parents exposed their infants was out of economic necessity and thus, the decision was most likely made ad hoc when there was not enough food to go around. Parents most likely rated their infant’s chance of survival as higher if they were taken in by another family, even if this was as a slave. In addition, they most likely wanted to ensure the children they did decide to raise had a good life, which may have only been achievable if the last-born infant was exposed. Exposure can, thus, not be used as evidence that Roman parents were not emotionally invested in their infants and young children or that they did not grieve for them when they died.

The conclusion of this thesis is two-fold: namely, that the Roman emotional conventions regarding the mourning of infants were not as harsh as previously thought; and that the majority of Roman parents did love their infants and grieved for them when they died. Such a conclusion owes much to the theory of the history of emotions which has allowed new light to be shed on what had previously become a dead-end debate. The application of Rosenwein’s model of emotional communities to Roman society, allowed for a more thorough and in-depth analysis of each community, revealing new perspectives with regard to the literary and material evidence. Perhaps, not all scholars will agree with the conclusions of this thesis, but hopefully they will agree that the theory of the history of emotions has provided an alternative methodology for analysing the extant evidence -

350 Harris, 1994. 351 Grubbs, 2013. 352 Harris, 1994.

80 yielding new ideas and results. In this sense, the inclusion of emotion as a category of historical analysis is not only useful, but indispensable for the ancient world.

81

Appendix A

Table 1: Cicero’s List of Emotion Words (taken from Rosenwein, 2006, 40):

82

Appendix B:

Figure 1: Group relief portrait of the Vettii family, Date: 13 BCE – 5 CE, Rome. Found in Huskinson, 2007, p. 325

Figure 2: Group relief portrait of the Livius Figure 2: Group relief portrait of the Livius Figure 3: Group relief portrait, Date: 13 Family, Date: 13 BCE – 5 CE, Rome. (Found Family, Date: 13 BCE – 5 CE, Rome. (Found BCE – 5 CE, Rome. (Found in Kleiner, in Kleiner, 1977, catalogue, fig. 67) in Kleiner, 1977, catalogue, fig. 67) 1977, catalogue, fig, 70.

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Figure 4: Funerary altar of Succesus (age 4 years, 10 months and 18 days). Date: 135 CE – 150 CE, Rome. Found in Kleiner , 1987, catalogue fig. 108.

Figure 5: Funerary Altar to Q. Sulpicius Maximus (age eleven). Date: 94 – 95 CE, Rome. Found in Huskinson 2007, p. 329.

84

Figure 6: Funerary Altar of P. Albius Memor (age five). Date: early second century CE, Rome. Found in Rawson, 2003, p.52.

85

Figure 7: Conclamatio scene over an infant. Found in Roman cemetery outside Porta Aurea, Agrigento, 2nd Century CE. Agrigento, Museo Archeologico Regionale

Figure 8: Conclamatio Scene over a small dead girl. Date: 200 -220 CE. Place: Rome. Found in Catalogue British Museum inv. No. GR 1805. 0703. 144.

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Figure 9: A wet-nurse is bathing an infant while the mother supervises. Found in Sparreboom, 2009, p.16.

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Figure 10: Nurse bathing a new-born infant as his seated mother looks on; a relief panel from the side of the biographical sarcophagus of an unidentified prominent citizen. Rome, 160-180 CE. Los Angeles, County Museum of Art.

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Figure 11: Funerary Altar of Aulus Egrilius Magnus. Found in Dixon, 1992, p. 179.

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Figure 12: Biographical sarcophagus of life course of Roman childhood. Ostia, Hadrianic period, Cornelius Statius. Found in Rawson, 2003, p. 107.

Figure 13: Children playing a Game with nuts, Rome, mid-third century, Vatican Museum.

90

Figure 14: Children playing a game with nuts, Ostia, mid-third century, London British Museum.

91

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