Analysis Of Roman Epitaphs Alters Concept Of 'Family'

University Of Calgary ^ | 2-11-2004 | Dr Hanne Sigismund

[Modernman]

You talk about the lifestyle of 0.1% of a civilization that was decadent on the verge of collapse as if it were the norm of the day, or any other day. And this article talks as if we could draw some generalizations from that.

To say the average Roman was any more decadent than the average American is ignorant. Orgies and uber-decadence were the province of the incredibly rich layabout class. For the average man on the street, life consisted of hard work and a fairly boring family life.

When was Roman society on the verge of collapse due to decadence? If anything, one of the main causes of collapse of the Western Empire was the spread of Christianity.

[marsh2]

(Reference: John Crook, Law and Life of Rome, Cornell University Press, c1967.)

In the agricultural society of the early Romans, the patriarchial farmer worked the land with his whole family, sons and slaves.

The Roman "familia" included free members, those under various forms of guardianship and slaves. The rules regarding "filias familias" and "servus" were very much alike. The patriarchial power over life and death applied to both and neither could own anything. Both had only "peculium"- property legally belonging to the patriach that the son or slave was given for his own use. Further, family members under guardianship, (all freedmen who were minors and freedwomen,) could only alienate property with their guardian's consent. If you were in potestate you owned nothing. Whatever you acquired accrued automatically to your paterfamilias. You could make no gifts and if you borrowed money, it was a charge on your paterfamilias.

The authority of the patriarch lasted not merely until those in the familia grew up and formed their own conjugal groups, but until the day he died. Every member of the familia was in the potestas of the oldest surviving male ascendant or paterfamilias. His household jurisdiction dealt with offences of its members that threatened the family's reputation. He could inflict chastisements and even death in judgment.

If the paterfamilias died, the familia would fall into the potestas of the next oldest ascendant in the male line. If there was none, those fee persons in the familia would become sui iuris.

[A.J.Armitage]

She spent ten years studying inscriptions to learn what any popular treatment already includes?

Is this woman stupid?

[null and void]

Part of the reason why one doesn't use BC and AD is because the monk who did the calculation made a mistake.

It's even worse than that. If it were important to know the exact date of Jesus' birth there would be some Biblical authority on it. There isn't any mention of the year or the day.

His birthday isn't important. That's a "So what?", everyone has a birthday.

He's different. He rose from the dead. That's unique. AND The Bible records the exact day and provides enough information to extract the year.

Our calendar is off by about 33 years and 4 months...

[null and void]

Does anyone else find this quite strange?

Living with an exwife? Yes. Very.

[null and void]

IF that were the real reason, then a 'neutral', but equally earth shattering, starting point would have been picked...say, August 6, 1945.

Too recent. We'd have to be dealing with all those pesky negative years.

It might make more sense to pick the earliest known date. IIRC, this was a battle interrupted by a solar eclipse wayyyy back when...

[tbpiper]

Christian Era doesn't begin with the death of Jesus

You're right. It began three days later with the resurrection, death having been conquered and the penalty of for our sin being fully paid. This was the pivotal moment in human history.

[Siamese Princess]

My wife's parents live a mile down the road from us -- my daughter stays there as much as she's at our house. My parents just retired and are five miles away. Not to mention that two of my wife's 3 sisters live in town. Not exactly the same thing, but pretty close.

I recall reading in one of my books (I have many) that as recently as the late '50s, people 75+ usually lived with or near one of their children. I assume that it was out of necessity -- Social Security didn't pay much (and many of the elderly at the time were ineligible to collect) and the supplemental services available to the elderly today didn't exist. Up until the 1960s, the family was the primary provider of health and welfare services.

In this country, it was also unacceptable for a young unmarried person to live by his or herself until the 19th century.

[Siamese Princess]

"Decadent"? Get over the Caligula movies and the lifestyles of the Emporers you see on the History Channel- the men who built the Roman Empire were not perfect but neither were they wine slushing hedonists.

The Empire wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if they were all a bunch "wine slushing hedonists."

It is our time in which we entertain this idiocy- not theirs.

You got that right.

[Siamese Princess]

faintly remember a scandalous story (and it may have been in Suetonius) about some extremely femme Roman young buck going through the form of marriage with his boy toy, but it wasn't valid and it was held up as an example of how low the morals of the upper class had sunk . . .

Didn't Nero "marry" one his boytoys -- I can't remember the if this is true or the details.

[ZULU]

So?? Is this news???

Anybody who has studied Roman History knows what this guy is stating is true. As a matter of fact, it was also true of the anti-bellum South. "Family" there included household slaves.

What's his point?

Is this some leftwing fruitcake trying to justify gay marriage??? Well, even inhedonistic Rome that didn't exist. Its a construct of today's degenerate Americans.

You'd have to go back further than Ancient Rome to find "gay marriages" - probably to Sodom and Gomorrha.

[realpatriot71]

I've seen it once or twice before and suspect it's intentional- the agenda being to eliminate all Christian references from our daily lives.

The use of "C.E." - "common era" - has been used for some time, especially by the Europeans. Go figure :-)

[Siamese Princess]

But we do have every day records which paint a far more conservative picture of the average Roman Citizens life. Mr. Average Roman citizen was not having orgies with boys- far from it.

Even amongst the upper class, the men who spent their evenings quietly at home with their families were ignored by the writers -- the playboys attracted their attention.

[realpatriot71]

I thought everybody knew that a Roman of good family (senators and knights and any wealthy freedmen or merchants who could aspire) lived in an extended household where the father, wife and children simply formed the core.

This was true for aproximately the first 400 years of the empire. You can systematically document the decline and fall of the Pagan Roman Empire through (1) introduction of "new age" eastern religions, specifically the Isis - goddess cults, replacing the traditional roman religion of the "state" (2) feminisation of the society at large and (3) acceptance of "alternative lifestyles," including pedophillia. "Gay Marrige" is NOT a new concept. In fact by the third century AD so many people were enjoying their "alternative lifestyles" that birth rates had dropped off by as much as 30-50% throughout the empire.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

[realpatriot71]

You seem fixated on the Emporers and their truly decadent lifestyles. We know about these rather torrid stories of total depravity because that is what survives and what most people were writing about. They were not writing about the regualr Pedestrian citizen in the street. But we do have every day records which paint a far more conservative picture of the average Roman Citizens life. Mr. Average Roman citizen was not having orgies with boys- far from it. He most likely wasn't even aware (much less cared) what the emperor did. There was no CNN and no printing press even.

IMHO, I think you miss the bigger point. In a controlling society like Roman society was - a police state, albeit "fun" police state (bread and circuses?) - it didn't matter what the views of the "common man" were. Those who were in control were hedons - lovers of themselves and pleasures - this lead by and large to the decline of the Empire as a whole.

[SolutionsOnly]

So we have the Paleozoic Era, the Meozoic Era, the Cambrian Era, amongst others which I suppose are now rolled up into 'BCE' . And to that we add the 'Common Era'. I don't who came up with that 'Common Era' but I sure don't think I'd care to party with them. A house plant probably has more personality.

It still strikes me as a forced and phony contrivance in order to consciously break with tradition. Chinese and Jewish calendars are still abandoned in favor of this system so nothing's changed. BC/AD had become a defacto standard such that people don't give it a second thought.
It's no more different name for the same thing. What establishes the transition point? What differntiates BCE from CE then?

It's as hollow as people using the term 'the n-word' rather than the word itself. It's riduculous.

No, this is the work of paranoid secularists and perhaps England is a bit 'ahead' of the US in that department. Personally I don't really care what the academics choose to use. I'm just fed up with hypersensitive political correctness and the busy-bodies who go out of their way to find discrimination, racism, injustice where there really none exists, while ignoring the blantant examples of it in front of their very noses.

[LTCJ]

An awful lot of southern families have had widowed granny and a housekeeper and/or nanny living in - we certainly did.

"Historians" have been making a profession of misinterpreting the role of family structure for the past 30 or so years. Ditto your observation on the Southern family. Actually, the similarity to middle and planter class antebellum Southern families is striking.

[Modernman]

You're right. It began three days later with the resurrection, death having been conquered and the penalty of for our sin being fully paid. This was the pivotal moment in human history.

The event surrounding Jesus death did not become pivotal moments in human history until enough people were Christian. That is to say, Jesus only became historically important when enough people became Christians to make the sect relevant. That didn't happen in the Roman Empire until at least two centuries after Jesus' death.

[tbpiper]

That is to say, Jesus only became historically important when enough people became Christians to make the sect relevant.

The pivotal moment in history is the fact of the ressurection. It's relavance is neither enhanced nor deminished by the number of believers or lack thereof. The pivotal moment in an explosion is when it starts, not when it's noticed.

[Modernman]

In a controlling society like Roman society was - a police state, albeit "fun" police state (bread and circuses?) - it didn't matter what the views of the "common man" were.

Rome was not really a "police state." Certainly, it wasn't a representative democracy. However, the government did not really intrude into the daily lives of citizens to a great degree, probably less than in America today. Furthermore, the views of the common man were important to the authorities, especally in Rome itself, where fear of the Mob tempered the decisions of the Emperor himself.

Those who were in control were hedons - lovers of themselves and pleasures - this lead by and large to the decline of the Empire as a whole.

Again, this view of the ruling classes in Rome is based on the decadent excess of a very few. Scandalous behavior by a few at the top of a society is not an accurate gauge of the morals of a society. If you only judged the morality of American society by looking at rich NY socialites, corrupt DC politicians and libertine Hollywood celebrities, you'd conclude that America was rapidly sliding into moral collapse, too.

And, if anything, the two main causes of Roman decline were Christianity and lead pipes.