The Roman Household

The domus (household) was the basic unit of Roman society. This sourcebook illustrates the activities associated with the household and Roman perceptions of its role and position within the wider social and economic fabric. A particularly important aspect is the different and frequently conflicting [...]
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The domus (household) was the basic unit of Roman society. This sourcebook illustrates the activities associated with the household and Roman perceptions of its role and position within the wider social and economic fabric. A particularly important aspect is the different and frequently conflicting roles and moral values expected from male and female, old and young, free and slave members of the Roman household, and from freedmen and amici ( friends', including patrons and clients) associated with it. Prominence is also given to legal texts discussing issues which demonstrate Roman concepts of family and household, such as power of a head of a household, rules of inheritance, amd relations between patron and freedman. The 217 newly translated excerpts are taken from a wide range of Latin (and in a few cases Greek) prose and verse literature, ethical and agricultural handbooks and codes, legal texts, inscriptions, and other epigraphical material from the second century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. Some of them - including an inscription from Puteoli on the treatment of slaves and the so-called will of Dasumius' - are made available for the first time in English.