Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In a schoolbook, plausibly assigned by its editor to fourth century ad Gaul, we are given, in Greek and in Latin, the textbook description of a Roman freeborn son greeting the members of his familia ( Dionisotti 1982 ): I go and greet my parents, my father and mother and grandfather and grandmother, my brother and sister and all my relations, my uncle and aunt, my nurse and my carer, the major domo, all the freedmen, the doorkeeper, the housekeeper, the neighbors, all our friends, the other residents and those who live in the apartment block, and the eunuch. The order of events preceding this passage is a little bizarre (the boy gets up twice, for example, and goes out to greet his friends before returning home to greet his family); part of the reason must be that, as with our passage, any opportunity of reciting vocabulary is not missed. It is highly unlikely that a Greek or Roman child typically greeted all these individuals as part of his or her morning ritual. On the other hand, we should not think of the ancient family as a static or unchanging institution. The family not only evolved in the course of history, but changed on a generational basis as family members came and went. At the same time, the family in both Greek and Roman societies was deemed absolutely fundamental and a reflection of the wider society, in effect a microcosm of the state, as both Aristotle ( Pol ... log in or subscribe to read full text