A sign that the study of childhood in the ancient world has reached a greater degree of maturity is the emergence of monographs that seek to deepen and synthesise themes previously appearing only marginally within broader discussions or in isolated articles. Gaia Gianni’s study, devoted to children’s roles in the construction of fictive kinship ties, is an exemplary contribution of this kind.
The volume opens by introducing its principal concepts, with fictive kinship defined as ‘a strong interpersonal affinity that is neither biological nor legally sanctioned through marriage or adoption’ (2). G. sets herself the task of examining how such bonds were forged through children. Her study combines Latin epigraphy with an anthropologically informed social and cultural history approach. To this end, she focuses on three distinct themes: first, the special bond between infants wet-nursed by the same woman, the collactanei (ch. 3); second, the figure of the male caretaker for young children, the tata (ch. 4); and third, the pseudo-parental relationship between enslaved child entertainers, the deliciae, and their masters (ch. 5). These themes are explored primarily through epigraphic material, supplemented by legal and — especially in the case of the deliciae — literary sources, from the early imperial period (first–third centuries c.e.).
Ch. 2 offers a lucid and methodologically transparent introduction to the epigraphic evidence, outlining its biases, limitations and possibilities. Ch. 3 on collactanei begins with a fascinating survey of ancient thought regarding the link between blood and milk, and theories on how nurses were believed to infuse newborns with their own essence. The literary and epigraphic material illustrate how loyalty and affection were thought to arise from shared nursing, with quasi-familial bonds sometimes assuming roles traditionally occupied by biological kin. G. argues convincingly that, especially in an urban context, people ‘relied on an extended network of individuals which came to be members of the family through care and repetition, rather than traditional familial ties’ (91).
Ch. 4, on the tatae, is the volume’s strongest section. The evidence G. has assembled is carefully presented and well argued, and the results are often striking. G.’s examination of the possible emotional dimensions of these relationships is balanced. An insightful example is her discussion of CIL 6.16926, a funerary inscription for a certain Silvia, in which a tata, a mamma and a tatula appear together as childminders of a toddler (130–2). Yet, although it is noteworthy that such male carers sometimes assumed roles commonly associated with maternal figures, the repeated characterisation of their roles as surprising or indeed ‘perhaps not as gendered as we might imagine’ (147) feels somewhat overstated. The assertion that modern gender bias ‘might lead scholars to misinterpret the evidence we possess’ (100) is not supported with references to any scholarly inputs in recent decades. A lighter rhetorical touch would have served the argument better.
Ch. 5 addresses the sensitive case of the deliciae. G. notes that many such children appear in inscriptions as full household members, commemorated not only by their masters, mistresses and parents, but also by unrelated couples acting as surrogate parents. The chapter devotes considerable space to clarifying the eroticised dynamics associated with the deliciae in Statius (esp. 180–90). Although this material is undoubtedly relevant, a more thorough analysis of the broader significance of deliciae as nodes of fictive kinship, with explicit attention to the emotional and social dimensions of these relationships as expressed and performed, would have been welcome.
While the study’s definitions and methodological limits are set out with clarity, its rhetoric occasionally risks being misleading. Although the volume announces its focus on ‘Roman society’, with e.g. material concerning collactanei from ‘all over the Mediterranean’ (92), the material is limited to the Latin-speaking western Empire — something that could have been stated explicitly in the Introduction. Likewise, G. accepts the practice of tollere liberum as historical (178), citing scholarship on Statius, rather than acknowledging the consensus of the family historians — following B. Shaw in Mnemosyne 54 (2001), 31–77 — regarding its fictionality. Furthermore, although the introduction rightly acknowledges the foundational contributions of scholars such as S. Dixon, K. Bradley, R. MacMullen and especially C. Laes, the study concludes without offering an overarching assessment of what G.’s argument contributes to our understanding of Roman fictive kinship. A synthesising conclusion linking the three case studies to larger questions of care, continuity and the construction of family in Roman epigraphic culture would have strengthened the volume considerably.
This absence is felt particularly because the field encompasses numerous additional categories of children involved in fictive kinship formation: foundlings and threptoi, alumnae, mammae and wet-nurses, and children cared for by more distant relatives such as uncles, aunts and grandparents. More intangible forms of fictive kinship — arising from education, apprenticeship, or shared religious participation — were also widespread in the ancient world. These are not merely prospects for future research (as suggested in the Epilogue), but already active areas of scholarly discussion that might have provided broader context for the study’s findings already here.
Despite these minor criticisms, the volume represents careful, methodologically sound and thought-provoking research, offering fruitful discussion of a central yet often overlooked phenomenon in Roman society. The argumentation is clear and well structured: the book is a pleasure to read. G. indeed succeeds in demonstrating the adaptability, flexibility and diversity of ‘the Roman family’, with children functioning as ‘connecting nodes or catalysts’ (14, 98) in the creation of new household networks through fictive kinship formation.
