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Children In The Roman Empire Chapter Summaries

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The book I chose to read for my book review was Children in the Roman Empire By Christian Laes. This book was published in 2006 and printed by MPG Books Group UK and is part of the Cambridge University Press. Children in the Roman Empire gives the reader a very in-depth perspective of what is was like growing up as a Roman child through all stages of life up until adulthood. Each chapter is broken up into different influential time periods staring at early childhood from age zero to seven, then moving onto Roman children at school, concludes with Roman children entering the workforce. Chapter two of Children in the Roman Empire pertains largely to the reality of the life for children within the Roman Empire. It goes into great depth pertaining the life expectancy of children within Rome. Laes discusses the difficulty not only children faced, but the struggle that parents had to contend with regarding frequent child death. Even with his death rates amongst newborns ranging between 30-35% Rome still prospered with population with the average Roman women having between four to six children individually. Mothers were a key factor in the upbringing of Roman children, with many children not seeing their fathers so expended periods of times due to war or …show more content…

Although chapter five is labeled as “Roman children at work” the overlying theme of this chapter explores the use of child labor rather than typical work as we think of today. Laes makes it a point to express how within this time era, and specifically within Roman, that the separation between childhood and adulthood was very vague. Children contributed to the economic starting at a very young age, even while being schooled, and children, women, men and even non-citizens were held the upholding the social hierarchy of Rome’s economic values throughout their

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