Growing Up Fatherless in Antiquity

by Hubner, Sabine R.; Ratzan, David M.

• ISBN13: 9781107404069
• ISBN10: 1107404061
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-15
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

As the changes in the traditional family accelerated toward the end of the twentieth century, a great deal of attention came to focus on fathers, both modern and ancient. While academics and politicians alike singled out the conspicuous and growing absence of the modern father as a crucial factor affecting contemporary family and social dynamics, ancient historians and classicists have rarely explored ancient father-absence, despite the likelihood that nearly a third of all children in the ancient Mediterranean world were fatherless before they turned fifteen. The proportion of children raised by single mothers, relatives, step-parents, or others was thus at least as high in antiquity as it is today. This book assesses the wide-ranging impact high levels of chronic father-absence had on the cultures, politics, and families of the ancient world.

Table of Contents

List of figures

List of tables

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

Note on abbreviations

Introduction

Fatherless antiquity? Perspectives on 'fatherlessness' in the ancient Mediterranean

Coping with Demographic Realities

The demographic background

Oedipal complexities

Callirhoe's dilemma: remarriage and stepfathers in the Graeco-Roman east

'Without father, without mother, without genealogy': fatherlessness in the Old and New Testaments

Virtual Fatherlessness

Bastardy and fatherlessness in ancient Greece

Fatherlessness and formal identification in Roman Egypt

Roles without Models

Diomedes, the fatherless hero of the Iliad

Sons (and daughters) without fathers: fatherlessness in the Homeric epics

Absent Roman fathers in the writings of their daughters: Cornelia and Sulpicia

Rhetoric of Loss

The disadvantages and advantages of being fatherless: the case of Sulla

An imperial family man: Augustus as surrogate father to Marcus Antonius' children

Cui parens non erat maximus quisque et uetustissimus pro parente: parental surrogates in imperial Roman literature

The education of orphans: a reassessment of the evidence of Libanius

'Woe to those making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless': Christian ideals and the obligations of stepfathers in late antiquity

Bibliography

Index

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