Roman Parents Did Grieve for the Death of Their Children

How the death of a relative in ancient Rome was treated, by the surviving family varied over time and social status. However a common theme seems to be a perceived lack of grieving for their children. There were various social conventions and laws that seem to treat the death of children as less important than an adult. It is the intention of this essay to argue that Roman parents did grieve for the loss of their child but that it is impossible to tell by how much. There are examples of parents both grieving deeply and less so as their modern equivalents. In order to argue this, various primary sources such as epitaphs, letters and histories will be explored to show the hidden grief amongst parents. It will be suggested that although parents generally kept to the roman ideal in public, they grieved deeply in private. However certain economic and cultural factors mean Roman parents attitudes to children will not completely match up to their modern equivalents.

Historical opinion on how Romans treated the death of a child has steadily moved towards the belief that parents did indeed care about their child’s demise. The problem for most historians has been that surviving evidence mainly comes from the elites of roman society. As such generalisation about all of roman society is difficult to conclude since the elites made up a small proportion of whole. In a society that was overly concerned with other people’s perception of them it is understandable why so much of the surviving evidence relates the ideal regarding death rather than the reality. That is why it is important to seek out evidence that reveals genuine emotion rather than the public face which is often displayed.

As we go further back in time it b...

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...hers breaking from the ideal upon the death of their child. Even though these examples are small in number it indicates the true feelings that roman parents felt about their children but expressed in a more private fashion. Epitaphs and commemoration tombs tend to suggest that parents cared less about their children. Yet there was probably a wealth of evidence that is no lost to us and using the narrow focus of the elite to draw conclusion is inadequate. Cost and culture may have lead to less heartfelt commemoration that was actually felt by parents. In the end certain cultural differences mean that perhaps Romans did not grieve in the same way as their modern equivalents. Clearly roman parents tended to avoid expressions of deep grief in public. It does not mean however that in private roman parents did not grieve as deeply as their modern equivalents.