ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the relationship between parents and children in antiquity had a tenderness often missing in modern times, when families drift apart and their members lose touch with one another. The Frankfurt School's belief that historical events needed to be explained in terms of the traumatic childhoods suffered by historical figures such as Martin Luther or Adolf Hitler led from 'psychobiography' to the 'psychohistory' of which Lloyd de Mause's History of Childhood is an example. Philippe Aries suggested that a similar uniform picture could be drawn of the way in which small children were treated in many pre-industrial societies. For the city-states of the ancient Mediterranean, including republican Rome, the distinction between the free adult, who was at the centre of civic activity, and his children was basic to the proper ordering of civilisation.
