The Private Life of the Romans. Harold Whetstone Johnston

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СКАЧАТЬ rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_15649aea-11da-5234-abad-a1fe3101da59">§§31, 32). It has been shown that in the eyes of the law they were little better than the chattels of the Head of the House. It rested with him to grant them the right to live; all that they earned was his; they married at his bidding, and either remained under his potestās or passed under another no less severe. It has also been suggested that custom (§32) and pietās (§73) had made this condition less rigorous than it seems to us.

95 Susceptio.—The power of the pater familiās was displayed immediately after the birth of the child. By invariable custom it was laid upon the ground at his feet. If he raised (tollere, suscipere) it in his arms, he acknowledged it as his own by the act (susceptiō) and admitted it to all the rights and privileges that membership in a Roman family implied. If he refused to do so, the child became an outcast, without family, without the protection of the spirits of the dead (§27), utterly friendless and forsaken. The disposal of the child did not ordinarily call for any act of downright murder, such as was contemplated in the case of Romulus and Remus and was afterwards forbidden by Romulus the King (§32). The child was simply "exposed" (expōnere), that is, taken by a slave from the house and left on the highway to live or to die. When we consider the slender chance for life that the newborn child has with even the tenderest care, the result of this exposure will not seem doubtful.

96 But there was a chance for life, and the mother, powerless to interpose in her infant's behalf, often sent with it some trinkets or trifling articles of jewelry that would serve perhaps to identify it, if it should live. Even if the child was found in time by persons disposed to save its life, its fate might be worse than death. Slavery was the least of the evils to which it was exposed. Such foundlings often fell into the hands of those whose trade was beggary and who trained children for the same profession. In the time of the Empire, at least, they cruelly maimed and deformed their victims, in order to excite more readily the compassion of those to whom they appealed for alms. Such things are still done in southern Europe.

      97 Dies Lustricus.—The first eight days of the life of the acknowledged child were called prīmordia, and were the occasion of various religious ceremonies. During this time the child was called pūpus (§55), although to weak and puny children the individual name might be given soon after birth. On the ninth day in the case of a boy, on the eighth in the case of a girl, the praenōmen (§43) was given with due solemnity. A sacrifice was offered and the ceremony of purification was performed, which gave the day its name, diēs lūstricus, although it was also called the diēs nōminum and nōminālia. These ceremonies seem to have been private; that is, it can not be shown that there was any taking of the child to a templum, as there was among the Jews, or any enrollment of the name upon an official list. In the case of the boy the registering of the name on the list of citizens may have occurred at the time of putting on the toga virīlis (§127).

FIGURE 17. CREPUNDIA

98 The diēs lūstricus was, however, a time of rejoicing and congratulation among the relatives and friends, and these together with the household slaves presented the child with little metal toys or ornaments in the form of flowers, miniature axes and swords, and especially figures shaped like a half-moon (lūnulae), etc. These, called collectively crepundia, were strung together and worn around the neck and over the breast (Fig. 17). They served in the first place as playthings to keep the child amused, hence the name "rattles," from crepō. Besides, they were a protection against witchcraft or the evil eye (fascinātiō), especially the lūnulae. More than this, they were a means of identification in the case of lost or stolen children, and for this reason Terence calls them monumenta. Such were the trinkets sometimes left with an abandoned child (§96), their value depending, of course, upon the material of which they were made.

FIGURE 18. THE BULLA	FIGURE 19. GIRL'S NECKLACE

99 The Bulla.—But of more significance than these was the bulla aurea, which the father hung around the child's neck on this day, if he had not done so at the time of the susceptiō. It consisted of two concave pieces of gold, like a watch case (Fig. 18), fastened together by a wide spring of the same metal and containing an amulet as a protection against fascinātiō. It was hung around the neck by a chain or cord and worn upon the breast. The bulla came originally from Etruria,¹ and for a long time the children of patricians only were allowed to wear those of gold, the plebeians contenting themselves with an imitation made of leather, hung on a leathern thong. In the course of time the distinction ceased to be observed, as we have seen such distinctions die out in the use of names and in the marriage ceremonies, and by Cicero's time the bulla aurea might be worn by the child of any freeborn citizen. The choice of material depended rather upon the wealth and generosity of the father than upon his social position. The girl wore her bulla (Fig. 19) until the eve of her wedding day, laying it aside with other childish things, as we have seen (§76); the boy wore his until he assumed the toga virīlis, when it was dedicated to the Larēs of the house and carefully preserved. If the boy became a successful general and won the coveted honor of a triumph, he always wore his bulla in the triumphal procession as a protection against envy.

      ¹ The influence of Etruria upon Rome faded before that of Greece (§5), but from Etruria the Romans got the art of divination, certain forms of architecture, the insignia of royalty, and the games of the circus and the amphitheater.

FIGURE 20. CHILD IN LITTER

      100 Nurses.—The mother was the child's nurse (§90) not only in the days of the Republic but even into the Empire, the Romans having heeded the teachings of nature in this respect longer than any other civilized nation of the old world. Of course it was not always possible then, as it is not always possible now, for the mother to nurse her children, and then her place was taken by a slave (nūtrīx), to whom the name māter seems to have been given out of affection. In the ordinary care of the children, too, the mother was assisted, but only assisted, by slaves. Under the eye of the mother, slaves washed and dressed the child, told it stories, sang it lullabies, and rocked it to sleep on the arm or in a cradle. None of these nursery stories have come down to us, but Quintilian tells us that Aesop's fables resembled them. For a picture СКАЧАТЬ