ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a chronological narrative of the ancient family over a period of more than a millennium and across vast geographical space. It represents the study of the family in antiquity is expanding all the time but it has much to offer in terms of the methodologies it has absorbed from other disciplines. The study of the history of the family in the Greek and Roman worlds has had a profound effect on all other areas of ancient history. The chapter presents two case studies: one case study from fourth-century BC Athens, and the other from first-century BC Rome. The two protagonists, Demosthenes and Cicero, are relevant, and unusual, because they wrote about themselves and their families. As familiar as so many aspects of the ancient family may appear in modern western societies, one should always be aware that the ancient framework for envisaging the family was fundamentally alien to their own.
