THE

PRIVATE LIFE OF THE ROMANS

HAROLD WHETSTONE JOHNSTON

PREFACE

In preparing this book I have had in mind the needs of three classes of students.

It is intended in the first place for seniors in high schools and freshmen in colleges, and is meant to give such an account of the Private Life of the Romans in the later Republic and earlier Empire as will enable them to understand the countless references to it in the Latin texts which they read in the class-room. It is hoped that the book contains all that they will need for this purpose and nothing that is beyond their comprehension.

It is intended in the second place for more advanced college students who may be taking lectures on the subjects of which it treats. The work of both teacher and student will be made less irksome and more effective if the student is aided in the taking of notes by even so general a knowledge of the subject (previously announced to the class) as is here given. This I know from actual experience with my own classes.

In the third place it is intended for readers and students of Roman history, who are engaged chiefly with important political and constitutional questions, and often feel the need of a simple and compact description of domestic life, to give more reality to the shadowy forms whose public careers they are following. Such students will find the Index especially useful.

The book is written as far as possible in English: that is, no great knowledge of Latin is presumed on the part of the reader. I have tried not to crowd the text with Latin words, even when they are immediately explained, and those given will usually be found worth remembering. Quotations from Latin authors are very few, and the references to their works, fewer still, are made to well-known passages only.

To every chapter are prefixed references to the standard secondary authorities in English and German. Primary sources are not indicated: they would be above the heads of the less advanced students, and to the more advanced the lecturer will prefer to indicate the sources on which his views are based. It is certain, however, that all these sources are indicated in the authorities named, and the teacher himself may occasionally find the references helpful.

The illustrations are numerous and are intended to illustrate. Many others are referred to in the text, which limited space kept me from using, and I hope that Schreiber's Atlas, at least, if not Baumeister's Denkmaeler, may be within the reach of students in class-room or library.

It goes without saying that there must be many errors in a book like this, although I have done my best to make it accurate. When these errors are due to relaxed attention or to ignorance, I shall be grateful to the person who will point them out. When they are due to mistaken judgment, the teacher will find in the references, I hope, sufficient authorities to convince his pupils that he is right and I am wrong.

    THE INDIANA UNIVERSITY,
            February, 1903.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.
    Scope of the Book §1
    Public and Private Antiquities §2
    Antiquities and History §4
    Antiquities and Philology §6
    Sources §9
    Reference Books §13
    Systematic Treatises §14
    Encyclopedic Works §15
    Other Books §16

I. THE FAMILY.
    The Household §17
    The Splitting Up of a House §19
    Other Meanings of Familia §21
    Agnātī and Cognātī §23
    Adfīnēs §26
    The Family Cult §27
    Adoption §30
    The Patria Potestās §31