ABSTRACT
It is something of a paradox that despite the silence regarding child mortality and childhood in early Greek art and literature, infants and small children were among the most carefully buried individuals in ancient Athens. Cemeteries devoted primarily to infants and small children extended over large areas at the most important and prestigious city gates. No less paradoxical is the fact that ancient Greek vocabulary is comparatively unconcerned with the growing child, although the age group to which a child belonged was often well defined in burial. The absence of detailed descriptions of childhood has often led scholars to conclude that Greek society took no interest in the small child until the fourth century and the Hellenistic period, when iconographic and textual references become plentiful and refined (Garland 1990: 106-11, 160-2; Golden 1990: 12-22). Debate on infancy and early childhood has frequently centred on the extent to which exposure of newborn children took place, adding to an impression of parental indifference towards young children in ancient Greece.
