ABSTRACT
Images of children first appear on extant monuments of Roman Italy in the latter half of the first century BCE (Rawson 1997a, 1997b).2
Even when allowance is made for the element of chance in what survives, the change in emphasis – or, better, the extension of range – in public and private art and commemoration is striking. What remains of Roman sculpture, coinage and inscriptions of the republican period is a record of public life, political and military, rather than private; and it records individual, élite, male Roman citizens rather than the families, women, children and members of lower classes whose representations become more frequent during the first two centuries CE. This increased representation must reflect a change in sentiment, a greater sensitivity to the presence and roles of wider sections of society. But it also reflects emperor’s recognition of the value of children as symbols of their concern and care for all their people, especially as pater patriae (‘father of his country’).
