Roman Family

Introduction

The history of the Roman family was “reinvented” in the last half of the 20th century by Beryl Rawson, followed closely by scholars such as Keith Bradley, Suzanne Dixon, Brent Shaw, and Richard Saller and others. The 3rd and 4th generation of scholars are now creating views of the Roman family that are markedly different to those imagined even in the 1980s. This change in the way the Roman family is viewed is a reflection of the way classics and ancient history have evolved as disciplines. Students of the Roman family have always been aware of studies of the family in cognate disciplines but for a long time remained focused on classical literature and descriptions of the family in legal sources. More recent work has asked questions about groups outside the elite; the effects of demography; life course and marriage patterns; the tension between social ideals as represented in laws, literature and art, and social reality; the lives of those who do not write their own histories (women, children, slaves, and former slaves). The history of the family is inherently entwined with histories of women, of gender and sexuality, of the emotions. The history of childhood has become a discipline in itself. In the 21st century we are constantly aware of a multiplicity of family structures in any society but the notion, and ideology, of two parents and children as the core grouping remains strong, even in a world where single parents, same sex parents, and “blended families” with sets of step-parents and step siblings, are more and more common. In 2011 Beryl Rawson published what was to be her last book, A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. The use of the plural in the title is a sign of how far research has now reached into the diversity and complexity of family structures in antiquity. This article offers introductory, survey, and more individually focused studies under a series of relevant sections.

General Overviews

The publication of Beryl Rawson’s first Roman Family conference in 1986 (see Rawson 1992) created an impetus for new research. Since then a series of conferences (Roman Family II–V; Rawson 1991, Rawson and Weaver 1997, George 2005, and Dasen and Späth 2010) and volumes of collected articles that cover all aspects of family life, and exploit a huge range of ancient evidence, have been published. They demonstrate the range of methodological approaches to the subject and are excellent for research. Together with Rawson 2011, these volumes also provide a recent historiography of a fast evolving discipline moving from a very classics orientated subject, focused on Roman law and literature, to the much broader scope archaeology, material and visual culture; and explicit engagement with associated methodologies such as sociology and anthropology. They are listed here for economy of space, and some specific chapters will also be listed under relevant sections. Bradley 1991 and Dixon 1992 are key research monographs that can serve as textbooks.

Bradley, Keith. 1991. Discovering the Roman family: Studies in Roman social history. Rev. ed. New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Addresses the problem of terminology, and the idea of the “nuclear” Roman family; a collection of Bradley’s early influential work on wet-nursing, non-parent child care, child labor, effects of divorce and remarriage, and a case study of Cicero’s relationships with his family (see also The End of Marriage: Remarriage, Divorce, and Widowhood and Cicero and His Family).
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Dasen, Véronique, and Thomas Späth, eds. 2010. Children, memory and family identity. Selection of the papers delivered at the Fifth Roman Family Conference, “Secret Families, Family Secrets,” which took place in June 2007 in Fribourg (Switzerland). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582570.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Roman Family V. Chapters by various scholars on family identity and traditions: the creation of family memory through ancestors, inheritance and material culture; the problems of maintaining tradition in non-traditional families; children on the margins: vernae (slaves born in the household), deliciae (children as “pets”) and expositi (exposed or abandoned infants) (see also Children and Childhood).
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Dixon, Suzanne. 1992. The Roman family. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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All aspects of family life: definitions, legal, marriage, parenting and attitudes to children, family rituals. Dixon also addresses the emotional side of family life, as far as the sources allow. Excellent all round introduction.
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George, Michele, ed. 2005. The Roman family in the empire: Rome, Italy and beyond. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268412.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Roman Family IV. Chapters on imagery and the family, conflict in the family, the sick child. The first volume to examine family structures in the wider empire outside direct Roman influence (Gaul, Egypt, Pannonia, Judea, Spain, and North Africa) (see also Families in the Wider Roman Empire).
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Rawson, Beryl, ed. 1991. Marriage, divorce and children in ancient Rome. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Roman Family II. Focuses on the tension between ideals and social realities: adult-child relationships, effects of divorce, remarriage and adoption in elite families, sentimental ideals, relationships between fathers and sons and issues of authority and obedience, children of freedmen, the impact of domestic architecture on social dynamics of the family.
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Rawson, Beryl, ed. 1992. The family in ancient Rome: New perspectives. Papers from a three-day seminar held at the Australian National University, Canberra, in July 1981. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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The first volume in the Roman Family Conference series (originally published in 1986), which set the tone for the discipline in 20th century. Chapters on the law, on family finances, on patria potestas, on children and childcare, including children outside the elite family.
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Rawson, Beryl, ed. 2011. A companion to families in the Greek and Roman worlds. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
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The section headings reflect change in the focus of research: Houses and Households; Kinship, Marriage, Parents and Children; The Legal Side; City and Country; Ritual, Commemoration, Values.
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Rawson, Beryl, and P. Weaver, eds. 1997. The Roman family in Italy: Status, sentiment and space. Canberra, Australia, and Oxford: Clarendon.
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Roman Family III. Chapters on kinship structure, lower class and slave families, growing old, family conflict, iconography of childhood, regional variation of family structure, the value and problems of inscriptions, and three chapters on domestic space and use domestic artifacts.
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Sourcebooks and English Translations

The sourcebooks here cover many aspects of Roman family life. All Latin and Greek is translated into English. They give excellent overviews of particular aspects of the subject and any one of them will enhance a reader’s experience of the subject. They have their own individual focus: Evans Grubbs 2002 and Rowlandson 1998 on women; Gardner and Weidemann 1991 on the household in the widest sense; Parkin and Pomeroy 2007 and Shelton 1997 on social life more generally; Pomeroy 1999 on Plutarch is the most specific, but not in any sense narrow. Sourcebooks can often be frustrating: one may disagree with translations, or feel the obvious example for a subject is missing––that is perhaps true of all of these, but they also all offer little gems of sources that might not seem immediately relevant.

Evans Grubbs, Judith. 2002. Women and the law in the Roman Empire: A sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood. London and New York: Routledge.
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Covers the imperial period from Augustus to 476 CE, looking at the legal position of women, particularly their rights in events that impacted on their own lives and those of their families. Very detailed explanatory commentary given alongside the extracts.
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Gardner, Jane, and Thomas Weidemann, eds. 1991. The Roman household: A sourcebook. London: Routledge.
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Sources ranges from across the whole spectrum and which cover the familia (household): parents, children, kin group, slaves, and retainers. Of all the sourcebooks cited here, this one is most to the subject, however the length of commentary varies. It uses few images and picture quality is not great.
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Parkin, Tim, and Arthur Pomeroy, eds. 2007. Roman social history: A sourcebook. London: Routledge.
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Provides an excellent background to Roman social life with chapter 2 (“Demography,” pp. 43–71) and chapter 3 (“Family and Household,” pp. 72–135). Each chapter has an introduction and each extract a short annotation. Appendix A (“Life Expectancy,” pp. 354–357), provides brief but essential information on demographic patterns.
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Pomeroy, Sarah. 1999. Plutarch’s Advice to the bride and groom, and a consolation to his wife. New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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More specific than the others in this section, as it is a translation and commentary on two works by Plutarch, but its scope is far wider, dealing with ideas of marriage, husband and wife relations, child rearing, and grief in 2nd century CE Greece and Rome.
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Rowlandson, Jane, ed. 1998. Women’s society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A sourcebook. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Essential accompaniment to any study of Greco-Roman Egypt. The majority of entries are relevant to family studies. Includes translations of letters, official documents, contracts, and archives. Provides an excellent overview to a society that is often considered “different” to other social systems in the Roman world (see Families in Roman Egypt).
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Shelton, Jo Ann. 1997. As the Romans did: A sourcebook in Roman social history. New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Wide ranging in selection of material that provides a broad introduction to Roman culture, very much an “everyday” life volume. Sections on family life, education, housing, slavery, death. Extracts are briefly annotated, the bibliography extensive.
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Defining the Family

Roman families cannot be neatly encompassed by simple definitions. There is a consensus that a form of the nuclear family (a conjugal couple and children) was at the core of the idea of family and that a sense of obligation and duty defined this core group, but this model may not hold good for the whole empire (see Families in the Wider Roman Empire). Certain factors need to be recognized in order to understand the model picture of the legal family which is then nuanced by social behavior. Saller 1984 gives a succinct account of the language used by Romans to describe their family group. The power (patria potestas) of the Roman father (paterfamilias which legally defined the family, in the modern sense of the word, and household (familia in Latin) group is discussed by Crook 1967, Harris 1986, and Saller 1994, in which the reader can see the development of research over the past half-century; High mortality rates which disrupted family continuity are the focus of articles in Hübner and Ratzan 2009, Saller 1994, Saller and Shaw 1984. Martin 1996 is cited here as it presents a critique of the evidence used by Saller and Shaw, and Osgood 2011 offers a short but relevant chapter on moving beyond legal definitions. Wider kin and non-kin groups (particularly slaves and freed slaves) played a role in the building of relationships and loyalties throughout the life course of an individual and the variety of family structures that existed within a Roman household, where slaves might have families of their own and/or play a central role in the lives of the children of their owners is fundamental to all these citations (see Slave and Freed Families). See also the section on Demography and the Life Course.

Crook, John. 1967. Patria Potestas. Classical Quarterly 17:113–122.
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Seminal article on the legal position of the head of household (eldest male, paterfamilias), now nuanced by the work of Saller and Shaw 1984; ideals of patria potestas are key to understanding dynamics of elite family behavior (see also Lacey in Rawson 1992, cited under General Overviews).
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Harris, W. V. 1986. The Roman father’s power of life and death. In Studies in Roman law in memory of A. Arthur Schiller. Edited by Roger Bagnall and W. V. Harris, 81–95. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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Similar to Crook, looking at one particular aspect of paternal power, which the Romans considered defined them among other ancient societies, and occasions when it was used, and avoided.
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Hübner, S., and David Ratzan, eds. 2009. Growing up fatherless in antiquity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511575594Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important volume dealing with the social reality of demographic patterns which predict large numbers of children being fatherless by the time they were in their mid-teens. Chapters deal with single parents, role of wider kin, surrogate and step parents, and attitudes toward widows and orphans, absence of male role models.
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Martin, Dale B. 1996. The construction of the ancient family: Methodological considerations. Journal of Roman Studies 86:41–60.
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A perceptive review which questions the methodology and results of Saller and Shaw 1984, debating the problem of eliding family structure and family relationships.
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Osgood, Josiah. 2011. Making Romans in the family. In The Oxford handbook of social relations in the Roman world. Edited by Michael Peachin, 69–83. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A discussion of how to get beyond the constraining legal view of Roman family relationships.
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Saller, Richard P. 1984. Familia, domus and the Roman conception of family. Phoenix 38:336–355.
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An important article looking at the language that Romans themselves used to describe their family and household groups.
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Saller, Richard P. 1994. Patriarchy, property and death in the Roman family. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511582998Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first half of the volume presents demographic statistics and computer simulations for considering the structure of the Roman family. A series of essays follow which examine the roles and relationships of fathers and children through themes of potestas, corporal punishment, pietas, dowry, and inheritance. (See also Demography and the Life Course.)
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Saller, Richard P., and Brent Shaw. 1984. Tombstones and Roman family relations in the Principate: Civilians, soldiers and slaves. Journal of Roman Studies 74:124–156.
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A seminal article. A survey of epitaphs found that most commemorators came from the group that could be defined as the nuclear family, and that in the absence of parents, spouses, or children, individuals were more likely to be commemorated by patrons or clients than by wider kin.
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Demography and the Life Course

To understand the social dynamics of the Roman family and the possibility of inter and cross-generational relationships, it is essential to understand the demographic patterns of the Roman period. Several studies have considered these in direct relationship to the family (see Saller 1994 cited under Defining the Family). As Parkin 1992 and Scheidel 2001 point out, an individual living in the Roman Empire would have had experience of the early death of relatives; at the same time, he or she may have had the expectation of living into old age. Alongside this ideas of the social and psychological behavior of individuals at each stage of life developed into ideas of normative behavior which can be seen to underlie many of the assumptions surrounding the roles of children and adults in society––this is the concept that lies behind life course studies like that undertaken by Harlow and Laurence 2002. Parkin 2010 stresses the age stages that lie behind ideas of the life course. Certain age stages have been of interest to historians and archaeologists alike, and these all have direct impact on thinking about family structures, ideals, loyalties, and behavior. Children and Childhood have a discrete section of their own in this bibliography. Here, Eyben 1993 is included for youth while Parkin 2003, Cokayne 2011, and Wagner-Hasel 2012 deal with the elderly and problems (and advantages) of growing older.

Cokayne, Karen. 2011. Experiencing old age in ancient Rome. Reprint. London: Routledge.
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Focuses on the experience of being old, from the point of view of the individual, the family, and wider society. Uses both literary and visual sources.
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Eyben, Emiel. 1993. Restless youth in ancient Rome. London: Routledge.
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Authoritative and comprehensive study of ideas and ideologies which surrounded male youth. Discusses education, socialization, and attitudes toward young men by older adults
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Harlow, Mary, and Ray Laurence. 2002. Growing up and growing old at Rome: A life course approach. London: Routledge.
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The first life course approach to the Roman family, examines attitudes to age and aging by looking at particular life stages in both the male and female life courses.
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Parkin, Tim G. 1992. Demography and Roman society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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Using a range of sources (epigraphy, legal, census, skeletal) and methodologies, Parkin examines potential life cycles of Roman society. A good balance to Scheidel 2001.
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Parkin, Tim G. 2003. Old age in the Roman world: A cultural and social history. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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Far reaching examination into growing old. Starting from a demographic viewpoint but moving toward social ideas of aging, responses to senility, legal ramifications of failing capacities, loss of health and physical ability. All encompassing and fully referenced.
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Parkin, Tim. 2010. Life cycle. In A cultural history of childhood and the family. Vol. 1, Antiquity. Edited by Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence, 97–114. London and New York: Berg.
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A survey and analysis of ancient age-systems and how they impact on ideas of familial behavior
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Scheidel, Walter. 2001. Debating Roman demography. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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Essential reading alongside Saller 1994 cited under Defining the Family, and Parkin 1992 for demographic patterns of the Roman Empire. Scheidel lays out the main methodologies used and ensuing discussions. See also Scheidel 2001 cited under Families in Roman Egypt.
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Wagner-Hasel, Beate. 2012. Alter in der Antike: Eine Kulturgeschichte. Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag.
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In German. Covers both Greece and Roman with chapters on mythology, iconography, political authority, sexuality, intergenerational relationships, and making a good death.
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Roman Marriage

Marriage was central to the continuation of the family through the production of legitimate heirs, and played a central but different role in the life courses of men and women. Treggiari 1991 is comprehensive and covers all aspects from the choice of partner to the end of marriage. Although the legal minimum age for first marriage was twelve for girls and fourteen for boys, normally women married for the first time in their late teens to men eight to ten years their senior. The implication of this for family structure are discussed in Shaw 1987, for women, and Saller 1987, for men. Marriages were family affairs, planned by parents, relatives, and friends, but also had wider ritual, idealizing, and cultural roles (chapters in Larsson Lovén and Strömberg 2009, Hersch 2010). The marriage of soldiers studied in Phang 2001 is included here as this is a particular case.

Hersch, Karen. 2010. The Roman wedding: Ritual and meaning in antiquity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511762086Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Most recent study of the Roman wedding and the rituals that lead up to and surround it. The time frame is c. 200 BCE to 200 CE. The wedding is used as a vehicle to discuss wider issues of gender and attitudes to the female life course.
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Larsson Lovén, Lena, and Agneta Strömberg, eds. 2009. Ancient marriage in myth and reality: Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars.
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Contributions on exemplary marriages in literature, betrothal, marriage contracts, the iconography of marriage, wedding rituals.
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Phang, Sara Elise. 2001. The marriage of Roman soldiers (13 B.C.–A. D. 235): Law and family in the imperial army. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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Roman soldiers were not legally allowed to marry until the early 3rd century CE. However, they clearly made relationships and produced children, and in some areas lived in family groups. Phang discusses the evidence for this and for the sons of veterans.
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Saller, Richard. 1987. Men’s age at marriage and its consequences in the Roman family. Classical Philology 82:21–34.
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In the light of Shaw 1987, Saller examined the role of men’s age at marriage and the implications for family life examining the potential for intergenerational relationships, given early or late marriage. This article also feeds into the nuancing of the power of the father.
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Shaw, Brent. 1987. The age of Roman girls at marriage: Some reconsiderations. Journal of Roman Studies 77:30–46.
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Shaw’s article examines the age at first marriage debate, and its implications for fertility rates and hence the shape of a family: the age of the mother relative to the age of the father, ages of the children. Reassesses the difference between age at marriage among the elite and wider population.
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Treggiari, Susan. 1991. Roman marriage: Iusti conjuges from the time of Cicero to the time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon.
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The key text. Covers all aspects of marriage: arrangement, betrothal, dowry, wedding, relationship of husband and wife, division and maintenance of property, adultery, divorce and widowhood. Examines the position of both husband and wife through the Roman legal framework and the ways in which this was nuanced by social practice.
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Marriage, Adultery, and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage Laws

Between 18 BCE and 9 CE, a tranche of laws that are often collectively called “moral reforms” in modern scholarship, placed aspects of Roman family life, which had previously been part of private life, into the public domain. Both men and women were penalized for remaining unmarried, and for remaining childless. Punishments for actions that endangered the stability of the family, such as adultery, were increased. The sources here, especially Frank 1975, Galinsky 1981, Raditsa 1980, and Wallace-Hadrill 1981, address the purpose and consequences of these laws on various aspects of upper-class life. The full text of these laws has to be reconstructed from much later law codes; see the sources included here and Evans Grubbs 2002 (cited under Sourcebooks and English Translations) and their short and long-term impact variously interpreted. Severy 2003 is an in-depth study of the way the family of Augustus (including women and former slaves) became central to the running of the state, as well as for Severy’s take on his legislation. Corbier 1995 examines the role of women in the imperial marriages and the implication for the Augustan marriage laws on his own family. The section is included here as the articles outline and deconstruct Roman ideals and attitudes toward marriage, children and divorce.

Corbier, Mireille. 1995. Male power and legitimacy through women and the domus Augusta under the Julio-Claudians. Papers presented at the First International Conference on Women in the Ancient World, held 1–4 September 1993 at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. In Women in antiquity: New assessments. Edited by Barbara Levick and Richard Hawley, 178–193. London: Routledge.
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A succinct article dealing the lines of legitimacy through women and the role of women in the marriage plans in the creation of the first imperial dynasty at Rome.
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Frank, Richard I. 1975. Augustus’s legislation on marriage and children. California Studies in Classical Antiquity 8:41–52.
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Relatively early discussion of the aims and outcomes of the legislation, emphasizing historical context. Many of the themes mentioned are developed further by Galinsky 1981, Raditsa 1980, and Wallace-Hadrill 1981.
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Galinsky, G. K. 1981. Augustus’ legislation on morals and marriage. Philologus 125:126–144.
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A good and comprehensive introductory survey of the material.
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Raditsa, L. 1980. Augustus’ legislation concerning marriage, procreation, love affairs and adultery. Aufsteig und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2.13: 278–339.
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One of the fullest surveys of the laws, and the ancient literature which surrounded them, including discussion of their effectiveness.
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Severy, Beth. 2003. Augustus and the family at the birth of the Roman Empire. London and New York: Routledge.
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Severy deals with Augustus’s legislation as part of a wider study of the Augustan period and the emerging role of an “imperial family.” Her analysis of the marriage and adultery laws argues that they set Augustus’s family apart from the elite, creating a model for the first imperial family.
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Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 1981. Family and inheritance in the Augustan marriage laws. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 27:58–80.
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A discussion of which social groups the laws were aimed at, and how effective the law was in the long term in changing social behavior.
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Family Life: Husbands and Wives, Parents and Children

Roman family relationships are hard to access. The source material privileges the role and opinions of the husband and father, so researchers use a range of approaches in attempting to access the interior workings of the family (see also Kampen 2012, cited under Family in Roman Art). To modern readers some aspects of married life are unexpected such as the separation of property between husband and wife addressed by Crook 1990 and Dixon 1992 (cited under Cicero and His Family). Getting beyond the legal and public rhetoric to imagine the emotional and affective side of family life is debated by Dixon 1991, and a key part of the discussion in Dixon 1988 of the Roman mother; the male view is shown by the case study of Pliny in Shelton 1990. The amount of control parents had over the lives of their children is tempered by demographic trends (see Saller 1994 cited under Defining the Family) but still central to the understanding of the idea of family in the upper classes and the focus of Dixon 1988 and Hallett 1984. As Harders 2008 demonstrates, sibling relationships could act as a counterpoint to child-parent dynamics.

Crook, John. 1990. What degree of financial responsibility did husband and wife have for the matrimonial home and their life in common in a Roman marriage? In Parenté et strategies familiales dans l’Antiquité romaine: Actes de la table rond des 2–4 octobre 1986. Edited by J. Andreau and H. Bruhns, 153–172. Paris: L’école française de Rome.
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The finances of husbands and wives were kept separate by law during Roman marriage, putting a particular slant on their relationship. The topic is also discussed in Treggiari 2007 and Dixon 1992 (both cited under Cicero and His Family).
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Dixon, Suzanne. 1988. The Roman mother. London: Croom Helm.
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Comprehensive study of the position and role of the Roman mother (materfamilias) and motherhood: her legal and social power, relationships with young and older children, mother as conduit of socialization. Discusses ideals of maternity and argues mother as more of an authority figure than the sentimental intercessor image of later historical periods.
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Dixon, Suzanne. 1991. The sentimental ideal of the Roman family. In Marriage, divorce and children in ancient Rome. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 99–113. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Dixon argues that from the late Republic we can see an increasing use of sentimental language to describe family relationships. These nuanced the purely legalistic view from other sources, and perhaps suggest changes in the ideals surrounding the notion of “family.”
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Hallett, J. P. 1984. Fathers and daughters in Roman society: Women and the elite family. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Included here partly as a balance to Dixon’s Roman Mother. Hallett discusses the relationships between elite daughters with their fathers, husbands, and brothers and questions where their loyalties might lie at times of crisis.
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Harders, Ann-Cathrin. 2008. Suavissima Soror: Untersuchungen zu den Bruder-Schwester-Beziehungen in der römischen Republik. Munich: C. H. Beck Verlag.
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In German. The only recent study of sibling relations in the Roman Republic, covering demographic, political, and social aspects. Like Hallett 1984 it raises questions of natal versus marital family loyalty. Harders argues for a positive role for wives and daughters in the family alliances of the late Republic.
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Shelton, Jo-Ann. 1990. Plinius the Younger and the ideal wife. Classica et Mediaevalia 41:163–186.
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This excellent case study highlights Pliny’s own view of his marriage (and himself). The voice of Calpurnia, his young wife, remains unheard but still we have some insights into the workings of a marriage of a much older man to a very young bride.
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Cicero and His Family

The letters of Cicero provide an almost unique insight into the workings of a Roman marriage, albeit from a rather one-sided point of view. They show his pride, anxiety and grief as a father; his behavior as a husband and his expectations of his wife, his brother, his freedmen and his friends. While we should be careful of over-generalizing from Cicero as Harlow and Parkin 2009 notes, many themes raised in their article are exemplified in his life: husband- wife relationships, further explored by Dixon 1992; family affections analyzed in Treggiari 2005; children and the problems of education and finding marriage partners, a central theme in Treggiari 2007; the end of marriage, discussed by Dixon 1992, Treggiari 2007 and Claassen 1997; and the grief at losing children which is the subject of Baltussen 2009 and Wilcox 2005. The overview in Bradley 1991 is an excellent introduction to the upper class family and its value system (see also General Overviews Defining the Family and End of Marriage: Remarriage, Divorce, and Widowhood).

Baltussen, Han. 2009. A grief observed: Cicero on remembering Tullia. Mortality 14.4: 355–369.
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An examination of Cicero’s reaction to the death of his adult daughter using modern analysis of the grieving process as a point of entry. Thought provoking on approaches to the history of the emotions.
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Bradley, Keith. 1991. A Roman family. In Discovering the Roman family: Studies in Roman social history. Edited by Keith Bradley, 111–203. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A case study of Cicero that is excellent in making the Roman family a living entity, giving vignettes of Cicero’s private life and loyalties. Discusses immediate family relationships and those of Cicero with his brother’s family and the shared care of the brothers for each other.
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Claassen, Jo-Marie. 1997. Documents of a crumbling marriage: the case of Cicero and Terentia. Phoenix 50.3–4: 208–232.
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Seeks to redress the influence of Plutarch’s biography of Cicero in modern interpretations of the end of his marriage with Terentia. Presents an intriguing insight into the position of both husband and wife after divorce in Rome.
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Dixon, Suzanne. 1992. Family finances: Terentia and Tullia. In The family in ancient Rome: New perspectives. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 93–120. Papers from a three-day seminar held at the Australian National University, Canberra, in July 1981. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Originally published in 1986. This examines dowry, Terentia’s control of her own and joint finances during Cicero’s exile, and the effects of their divorce. Demonstrates that married couples could share financial responsibility, but highlights the realities of legally separated property and wealth. Very useful case-study.
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Harlow, Mary, and Tim Parkin. 2009. The Greek and Roman family. In A companion to ancient history. Edited by Andrew Erskine, 329–341. Oxford: Blackwell.
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An introductory chapter that uses Demosthenes and Cicero as case studies for examining approaches to the family and current themes in family history.
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Treggiari, Susan. 2005. Putting the family across: Cicero on natural affection. In The Roman family in the empire: Rome, Italy and beyond. Edited by Michele George, 9–36. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Using Cicero’s speeches, rather than his letters, to assess his own view of a good family man. In so doing engages with ideals of family life.
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Treggiari, Susan. 2007. Terentia, Tullia and Publilia: The women of Cicero’s family. London: Routledge.
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Brings Terentia and Tullia to the forefront of Cicero’s story, recording a sometimes-turbulent marriage, a wife with a mind and money of her own, and an intriguing father-daughter relationship.
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Wilcox, A. 2005. Paternal grief in the public eye: Cicero Ad Familiares 4.6. Phoenix 59:267–287.
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A study of Cicero’s dilemma over the public and private expressions of his grief over the loss of his daughter and the anxiety his perceived overemotional state caused among his friends. An interesting balance to Baltussen.
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Children and Childhood

Children were an expected part of Roman marriage. Children’s lives could be anywhere on the spectrum between troubled, short and painful, or long, indulged, and full of affection (Laes 2011). The sources provide evidence for many childhoods, mediated primarily through adult eyes. The problem of dealing with a “muted group” is addressed by all authors. The historiography of Roman childhood has developed apace in the past decade, with growing research in particular aspects. Here Dasen 2004 is included for the study of infancy; Evans Grubbs 2011 on abandonment; papers in Dixon 2012 and Rawson 2003 explore the notion of children as cultural symbols as well as parent/carer–child relations which are also the concern of Garnsey 1991 and Wiedemann 1989. The iconography of childhood is covered in the section Family in Roman Art. Vuolanto 2010, an online bibliography, is included as a superb reference tool. For childhood in Roman Gaul see Coulon 2004 cited under Families in the Wider Roman Empire.

Dasen, Véronique, ed. 2004. Naissance et petite enfance dans l’Antiquité: Actes de colloque de Fribourg, 28 novembre-1 décembre 2001. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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A collection of twenty-four papers of which eleven deal with pregnancy, childbirth, and care of infants in the Roman world. Some take a medical view of gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics, others examine infant mortality, nurses and surrogate mothers, the iconography of swaddled infants. Articles in French and English.
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Dixon, Suzanne, ed. 2012. Childhood, class and kin in the Roman world. 2d ed. London and New York: Routledge.
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A collection of papers by renowned scholars, using a wide range of source material to approach groups who rarely leave any record of their own in the past. Chapters on child exposure and abandonment, children in imperial propaganda, lower-class families, gender, burial and status, adoption, and late parenthood.
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Evans Grubbs, Judith. 2011. The dynamics of infant abandonment: motives, attitudes and (unintended) consequences. In The dark side of childhood in late antiquity and the Middle Ages: Unwanted, disabled, and lost. Edited by Katariina Mustakallio and Christian Laes, 21–38. Oxford: Oxbow.
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In the 1970s studies of practices such as infant exposure and abandonment (not the same thing) were instrumental in creating a negative view of Roman parental behavior. Evans Grubbs offers an excellent, balanced survey of the problems surrounding the matter, and examines the problems of dealing with little and debatable evidence.
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Garnsey, Peter. 1991. Child rearing in ancient Italy. In The family in Italy from antiquity to the present. Edited by D. I. Kertzer and Richard Saller, 48–65. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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Garnsey stresses the need to understand Roman child-rearing practices (abandonment, use of wet nurses) in their cultural context, and not to impose Western urban cultural models on the past.
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Laes, Christian. 2011. Children in the Roman Empire: Outsiders within. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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First published in 2006 as Kinderen bij de Romeinen: Zes eeuwen dagelijks leven. Drawn from literary and epigraphic evidence, Laes present the elite male’s view of children and childhood. The volume is a good foil to Rawson 2003, and treats matters such as education, child labor, pedophilia, and pederasty.
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Rawson, Beryl. 2003. Children and childhood in Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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An essential read. Presented in two parts: Representations of Children, dealing with literary, epigraphic and visual records; The Life Course: welcoming the child, child rearing, ages and stages, education, relationships, public life, death, burial and commemoration.
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Vuolanto, Ville. 2010. Children in the Ancient World and the Early Middle Ages. A Bibliography (8th century BC–8th century AD).
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Last updated 2010 with additional inputs by Christian Laes and Kathleen Coleman. It has 1,573 entries. Entries are not annotated but this is still an invaluable resource for researchers.
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Wiedemann, Thomas. 1989. Adults and children in the Roman Empire. London: Routledge.
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A rather different, but equally significant, approach to other volumes cited here. Chapters on the child and the classical city; children in panegyric and imperial biographies; evidence of pagan and Christian letters; citizenship and office holding; learning for adult life; children being equal in the sight of God.
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The End of Marriage: Remarriage, Divorce, and Widowhood

Marriage could end through death or divorce. Among the upper classes marriages were arranged to the advantage of both families and could be ended if that advantage ceased to exist. Alongside this aspect, demographic trends meant a potentially high number of widows and widowers who were of marriageable age were in the market. The Augustan marriage laws also demanded that women should be married until the age of fifty, and men to the age of sixty or face certain penalties (see Marriage, Adultery, and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage Laws), so the incidence for second and even third remarriages was high. Humbert 1972 discusses legal implications of remarriage throughout the period. Women without families of their own might have needed the security of marriage to enable survival. At the end of marriage, children legally belonged to their father’s familia and would remain with the father, rather than the mother (see Defining the Family, and Harders 2010). Corbier 1991 discusses the alternative strategies of adoption to ensure legitimate heirs essential to the continuation of the family. Late Republican political history can look like a constantly changing series of marriage alliances, a picture which tends to hide other more social and emotional effects of the end of marriage but this is not always the case, as shown by Haley 1985 and Bradley 1991. Treggiari 1991, a comprehensive study of marriage, also includes chapters on divorce and adultery, as does Gardner 1987. Watson 1995 examines one of the effects of serial marriages: step-parents.

Bradley, Keith. 1991. Dislocation in the family. In Discovering the Roman family: Studies in Roman social history. By Keith Bradley, 125–155. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Along with the chapter “Remarriage and the Structure of the Upper Class Family at Rome” (pp. 156–176) useful in discussing the effects of divorce, widowhood and remarriage among elite families the late Republic. Examines issues of young and adult children, arranged marriages and the creation of extended networks for political and social advancement.
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Corbier, Mireille. 1991. Divorce and adoption as Roman familial strategies. In Marriage, divorce and children in ancient Rome. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 47–78. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Discussion of the legal gymnastics of making links which would continue the family name into the future and secure the patrimony.
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Gardner, Jane. 1987. Women in Roman law and society. Rev. ed. London: Routledge.
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Gardner presents detailed chapters on marriage, divorce, and widowhood.
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Haley, Shelley P. 1985. The five wives of Pompey the Great. Greece and Rome 32:49–59.
DOI: 10.1017/S0017383500030138Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Excellent case study of the implications and effects for families and politics of remarriage in the late Republic.
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Harders, Ann-Cathrin. 2010. Roman patchwork families. Surrogate parenting, socialisation and the shaping of tradition. In Children, memory and family identity. Edited by Véronique Dasen and Thomas Späth, 49–72. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582570.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An analysis of how families were reshaped in the face of divorce and death.
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Humbert, M. 1972. Le Remariage à Rome: Étude d’histoire juridique et sociale. Milan: Pubblicazioni dell’Instituto di Diritto romano, Università di Roma 44.
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Remarriage due to divorce or widowhood was not uncommon in the Roman world. Humbert deals with the legal implications of this for all parties involved. In French. Very comprehensive coverage.
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Treggiari, Susan. 1991. Divorce Roman style: How easy and how frequent was it? In Marriage, divorce and children in ancient Rome. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 31–46. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Questions the notion that divorce was very common in the late Republic and analyzes the legal processes.
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Watson, Patricia, A. 1995. Ancient stepmothers: Myth, misogyny and reality. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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The malevolent stepmother has foundations in myth, and in Roman history, based on the notion that a mother would privilege her own children over those of her husband’s other marriages. Watson looks at the way this stereotype played out in Roman literature and life.
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Households and Domestic Space

The study of the social use of public and private space has offered new insights into the internal workings of family life. In examining the practical realities of living in atrium houses as found at Pompeii and Herculaneum or Ostian insulae, Wallace-Hadrill 1994, Allison 2004, and Dickman 2011 have debated a number of issues: how and where family members might meet; how the more private aspects of life might work; how living with slaves might control social behavior; how domestic art and architecture impacted on social movement around the space and behavior inside it. Wallace-Hadrill 1994 and Wallace-Hadrill 1996 focuses particularly on the use of social space in the house. This is an area in which the modern reader might grasp the realities of Roman family relations, as in George 1997 (see also Slave and Freed Families). The role of the house as a backdrop to the social persona of the paterfamilias is taken up in Treggiari 1999 for Cicero and more generally in Wallace-Hadrill 1994.

Allison, P. M. 2004. Pompeian households: An analysis of material Culture. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Univ. of California.
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Presentation of data from a number of Pompeian houses which challenges traditional idea of room function. Essentially an archaeological text with much to offer in terms of thinking about the use of domestic space by the family.
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Dickman, Jens-Arne. 2011. Space and social relations in the Roman west. In A companion to families in the Greek and Roman worlds. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 53–72. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
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Excellent brief summary of the state of the subject at the moment, reconsiders methodologies and presents a series of case studies. Examines relationship between work and living space.
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George, Michele. 1997. Repopulating the Roman house. In The Roman family in Italy: Status, sentiment and space. Edited by Beryl Rawson and P. Weaver, 299–319. Canberra, Australia, and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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An early and provoking attempt to people the Roman household using the methodology of Wallace-Hadrill 1994. Makes the domestic situation of the family come alive.
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Treggiari, Susan. 1999. The upper-class house as a symbol of focus and emotion in Cicero. Journal of Roman Archaeology 12:33–56.
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Considers Cicero’s attitude to his home and the use he makes of the idea of the Roman house in his speeches, particularly De Domo Sua.
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Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 1994. Houses and society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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A key text. An analysis of the use of domestic architecture and how it impacted on the social dynamics of the household. Discussions of social power possessed by insiders (including slaves) versus outsiders, and the controlling nature of internal architecture and decoration on occupants and visitors.
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Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 1996. Engendering the Roman house. In I Claudia: Women in ancient Rome. Edited by Diane Kleiner and Susan Matheson, 104–114. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Art Gallery.
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Examines how far the role of women can be understood by analyzing public and private space in the Roman household.
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Slave and Freed Families

The Romans are rare among slave-owning societies in that freedom could be a real hope for many slaves, particularly those in urban households. Slaves could not legally marry, and slave children were the property of their master, but evidence suggests that in some households slaves formed real or substitute family groups. Schumacher 2011 gives a succinct overview of the position of slaves in the familia. Once freed, ex-slaves could legally marry and have legitimate children, but they also continued relationships with those still in servitude as discussed by Mouritsen 2011 and George 2005. There is also evidence that some slaves formed close bonds with the families who owned them and that these relationships could be long lasting: Bradley 1991 discusses slaves as carers of the master’s children while Treggiari 1975, Mouritsen 2011, and Penner 2012 examine the range of slave occupations in the household. The relationship between master and mistress and slave was a very personal matter, and the treatment of slaves essentially down to their owner’s whim so conditions of life were highly variable. Some slave children for instance could be brought up as surrogate sons and daughters of their owner’s while others became sexual playthings (see Children and Childhood). Hackworth Petersen 2006 and George 1997 both focus on the imagery chosen by freedmen and women to represent themselves in the public domain (see also Family in Roman Art).

Bradley, Keith. 1991. The social role of the nurse in the Roman world. In Discovering the Roman family: Studies in Roman Social History. By Keith Bradley, 13–102. New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This chapter––along with “Child Care at Rome: The Role of Men” (pp. 37–75) and “Tatae and Mammae in the Roman Family” (pp. 76–102)––consider the role of slave and other non-parent carers in the lives of upper class children, from the point of view of the slave and the owner family. Bradley points up the exploitation of wet nurses and also the potential for affective relationships between carer and charge.
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George, Michele. 1997. Servus and domus: The slave in the Roman house. Paper presented at a conference held at the University of Reading in March 1994, sponsored by the British Academy, the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, and the Centre for Roman Studies at the University of Reading. In Domestic space in the Roman world: Pompeii and beyond. Edited by Ray Laurence and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, 15–24. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 23. Portsmouth, RI: JRA.
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Identifying living quarters for slaves in the atrium house is difficult and begs many question about how and where slaves spent their lives, let alone built family relationships. George engages with this issue using a number of case studies from Pompeii. See also Households and Domestic Space.
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George, Michele. 2005. Family values and family imagery in Roman Italy. Papers presented at the Fourth E. T. Salmon Conference in Roman Studies held at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, in September 2001. In The Roman family in the Empire: Rome, Italy and beyond. Edited by Michelle George, 37–66. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268412.003.02Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A discussion of the imagery chosen by freedmen and women in Italy that creates the illusion of family relationships and reproduces the imagery of monuments of the free upper classes. The chosen imagery presents both emulation and difference. (See Family in Roman Art.)
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Hackworth Petersen, Lauren. 2006. The freedman in Roman art and art history. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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The primary approach of this volume is art historical but as freedmen created family-like groups in their monuments, there is much here to interest the historian of the family. (See also Family in Roman Art.)
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Mouritsen, Henrik. 2011. The families of Roman slaves and freedmen. In A companion to families in the Greek and Roman worlds. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 129–144. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
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An excellent succinct survey of the questions which surround this subject and the limitations of the evidence. As Penner 2012 and Treggiari 1975, Mouritsen assesses the evidence of columbaria.
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Penner, Lindsay. 2012. Gender, household structure and slavery: Re-interpreting the Aristocratic columbaria of early Imperial Rome. In Families in the Greco-Roman world. Edited by Ray Laurence and Agneta Strömberg, 143–158. London: Continuum.
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A reassessment of the evidence from epitaphs of slaves and freed members of large households in Rome. Presents statistical analysis which demonstrates the variety of slave experience of family or family-like relationships.
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Schumacher, Leonard. 2011. Slaves in Roman society. In Oxford handbook of social relations in the Roman world. Edited by Michael Peachin, 589–608. New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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An overview of the role of slaves both in the household and wider society, with dedicated section on the slave “family” (pp. 591–594). A good introduction to slaves and their social relations in general.
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Treggiari, Susan. 1975. Family life among the staff of the Volusii. Transactions of the American Philological Association 105:393–401.
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Early case study of a colombarium, using inscriptions to detect possible family or family-like relationships between the slave and freed members of a large wealthy household (c. 40–60 CE). See Penner 2012 in this section for discussion.
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Families in the Wider Roman Empire

Recent studies of families in different regions of the Roman Empire have allowed scholars to consider the variety of family structures and relations that occur within a single community, let alone across the expanse of empire. Those listed here are chosen both for their regional case studies and their critiques of various methodologies. Epigraphy is the key source material for Corbier 2005 and Edmondson 2005, while Boatwright 2005 and Mander 2012 use iconography (see also Family in Roman Art); Coulon 2004 uses archaeology, material culture, and literary sources in its study of Roman Gaul. The strength of the conjugal couple and children as a core group appears remarkably strong across the empire. A separate section is included on Families in Roman Egypt where family structures are arguably somewhat different.

Boatwright, Mary. 2005. Children and parents on the tombstones of Pannonia. In The Roman family in the Empire: Rome, Italy and beyond. Edited by Michele George, 287–318. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Focusing on a particular iconographic model of the nursing mother, Boatwright notes the attention paid to family groupings in funerary monuments. All social groups, Roman, local, civilian, and military, seem to share this preoccupation in Pannonia.
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Corbier, Mireille. 2005. Family and kinship in Roman North Africa. In The Roman family in the Empire: Rome, Italy and beyond. Edited by Michele George, 255–285. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Corbier takes a very specific approach, looking at marriage patterns, including cousin marriage and questions the influence of Christianity on North African choice of partner. Excellent deconstruction of the epitaph as biography, full of detail.
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Coulon, Gérard. L’enfant en Gaule romaine. Paris: Editions Errance, 2004.
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While the focus is on Roman Gaul, Coulon addresses many of the themes seen in the sources under the heading Children and Childhood as well as detailed chapters on toys and games, education, and the sick child. Well illustrated throughout.
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Edmondson, Jonathon. 2005. Family relations in Roman Lusitania: social change in a Roman province? In The Roman family in the Empire: Rome, Italy and beyond. Edited by Michelle George, 183–229. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A highly detailed study of Lusitania, following the methodology of Saller and Shaw. An excellent case study and assessment of the approach of Saller and Shaw 1984 (cited under Defining the Family).
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Mander, Jason. 2012. The representation of physical contact on Roman tombstones. In Families in the Roman and late antique world. Edited by Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén, 64–84. London: Continuum.
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An iconographic study of family embraces on tombstones from the Danube provinces which offers food for thought on the role of private funerary art in the history of the family, and problematizes the imagery of physical contact.
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Families in Roman Egypt

Roman Egypt is often cited as an exception to all other understandings of family structures and relations in the Roman world. Documentary evidence in the form of census returns, personal letters, household accounts, and dowry lists give a very different insight into the family in Roman Egypt. The most striking difference is the continued practice of endogamous marriage, and households in which close relatives cohabit and share children. Scheidel 2001 addresses the demographic patterns of Roman Egypt. The debate about brother-sister marriage is unlikely to be resolved: different points of view are expressed by Hübner 2007 and Remijsen and Clarysse 2008. The complex nature of family groupings, intergenerational relationships, and co-residence is studied by Alston 2005, Nevett 2011, Hübner 2011, and Pudsey 2012. All of the included citations address these central issues to a greater and lesser extent (for source material see Rowlandson 1998, cited under Sourcebooks and English Translations).

Alston, Richard. 2005. Searching for the Romano-Egyptian family. In The Roman family in the Empire: Rome, Italy and beyond. Edited by Michele George, 129–157. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Roman Egypt is often cited as an exception in terms of family structure as villages in Egypt maintained endogamous marriage and appeared to live in extended family groups. Alston argues that often a core of conjugal couples remained a focus and presents case studies which elucidate internal family relations.
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Hübner, Sabine. 2007. Brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt: A curiousity of humankind or a widespread family strategy? Journal of Roman Studies 97:21–49.
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Reviews and debates the current evidence for brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt, arguing that these are not usually incestuous, but rather marriages between adopted siblings.
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Hübner, Sabine. 2011. Family, household and intergenerational solidarity—Roman Egypt in cross-cultural perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A detailed examination of household relations, the effects of endogamous marriage, the arrival of children, and the problems of childlessness. It addresses internal family relations, the problems of daughters-in-law, widowed mothers, and changing obligations through the life course.
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Nevett, Lisa. 2011. Family and household, ancient history and archaeology. In A companion to families in the Greek and Roman worlds. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 15–31. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
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Methodological case study on using archaeological remains of dwellings together with surviving papyri to reconstruct possible living conditions and social dynamics in Romano-Egyptian households (see Households and Domestic Space).
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Pudsey, April. 2012. Death and the family: Widows and divorcées in Roman Egypt. In Families in the Roman and late antique world. Edited by Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén, 157–180. London: Continuum.
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Evidence for women outside marriage in the Roman society tends to be scarce, which makes Pudsey’s collection of data on the location of widows and divorcées all the more interesting. This research offers some insights into the choices available for women, once marriage has ended.
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Remijsen, S., and W. Clarysse. 2008. Incest or adoption? Brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt revisited. Journal of Roman Studies 98:53–61.
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A response to Hübner 2007, which takes the view that endogamous marriage did include natural brother-sister marriage. Both articles expose the complexity of some Roman-Egypt households, particularly in rural communities.
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Scheidel, Walter. 2001. Death on the Nile: Disease and the demography of Roman Egypt. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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Provides an essential background reading to understanding family dynamics in terms of survival strategies, potential inter-generational relationships and life expectancy (see also Demography and the Life Course).
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The Family in Roman Art

In the visual culture of the Roman world the family appears in many guises, but relatively rarely as a group. The Ara Pacis, dedicated in 13 BCE, was one of the first pieces of public sculpture in Rome to make women and children part of its design and message and as Kleiner 1987 argues, created a precedent. Huskinson 2011 notes that after this period in private funerary sculpture, at least, families (or substitute families) were more commonly presented as recognizable groups. Huskinson 1996 also notes the increase of images of children and Kleiner 2000 confirms a similar trend in the representation of married couples and particular groupings such as mothers and sons. Kleiner 1987 and Kampen 2009 stress the use of family imagery as propaganda in public art, and in more recent work, Kleiner 2000, Kampen 2009, and Kampen 2012 argue that a similar trend can be seen also in wall paintings in private homes. For imagery of families outside Rome and Italy see Boatwright 2005 cited under Families in the Wider Roman Empire and George 1997, George 2005 and Hackworth Petersen 2006, all cited under Slave and Freed Families, which add to Zanker 1975 on freedmen.

Huskinson, Janet. 1996. Roman children’s sarcophagi: Their decoration and its social significance. Oxford: Clarendon.
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One of the first discussions of the iconography of children. Discusses form, style and imagery, and implications for Roman ideas and ideals of childhood.
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Huskinson, Janet. 2011. Picturing the Roman family. In A companion to families in the Greek and Roman worlds. Edited by Beryl Rawson, 521–541. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
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A very useful and succinct discussion of family images using three case studies, examining how family imagery, in various guises, was shaped by social, cultural, and artistic influences.
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Kampen, Natalie B. 1981. Biographical narration and Roman funerary art. American Journal of Archaeology 85.1: 47–58.
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A study of a particular motif on Roman sarcophagi which depicted particular ideals of the life course over a number of centuries. The images portray parents, children, nurses, teachers, and scenes of death and grief and reflect the changing trends in literary biographies.
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Kampen, Natalie. 2009. Family fictions in Roman art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Here the focus is on the political use of family imagery by the elite in sculpture, plastic arts, wall painting. Chapters cover Livia as a widow, Trajan as father, fictive kinship expressed by the Tetrachs and later Roman imagery in the Stilicho diptych.
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Kampen, Natalie. 2012. Houses, painting and family emotion. In Families in the Greco-Roman world. Edited by Ray Laurence and Agneta Strömberg, 159–178. London: Continuum.
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Provocative discussion on the response of viewers to images of various family relations, particularly mythical ones, in Pompeian wall painting. Discusses emotional responses of different groups
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Kleiner, Diane E. E. 1987. Women and family life on Roman imperial funerary altars. Latomus 46:545–554.
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A study which extends Kleiner’s earlier work on the expression of relationships and gesture on the Ara Pacis, here examines how the ideals of family life are translated into visual imagery and reinforced traditional Roman mores.
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Kleiner, Diane E. E. 2000. Family ties: Mothers and sons in elite and non-elite Roman art. In I Claudia II: Women in Roman art and society. Edited by Diane Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson, 43–60. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
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A case study of the iconography of mothers and sons, discussing the elements which influence visual portrayal. A good set of images to use with Dixon 1988, cited under Family Life: Husbands and Wives, Parents and Children.
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Zanker, Paul. 1975. Grabreliefs römischer Freigelassener. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 89.90: 267–315.
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In German. An early, but still very influential, article on the representation of Roman freedmen and women.
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