IN Roman
Egypt, 14-year-old boys were enrolled in a youth organization in order
to learn to be good citizens, according to a new study into a field that
has never properly been studied until now … boyhood in Roman-ruled
Egypt.
The
researchers from the University of Oslo and Britain's University of
Newcastle, have unearthed papyrus documents from the 5th Century AD
from OXYRHYNCHUS Egypt.
(Image: Head of a 2nd Century AD Roman-era boy with Egyptian-style "Sidelock of Horus" in Oslo Museum of Cultural History)
The
documents shed new light into boyhood in Egypt in the heyday of
Antinoopolis, which was located only a short distance from Oxyrhynchus
(also spelled Oxyrhynchos).
Only
boys born to free-born citizens were entitled to be members of the
town's youth organization, which was called a "gymnasium." These boys
were the children of local Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.
Their
families would necessarily have been quite prosperous, and have had an
income that placed them in the "12 drachma tax class."
It
is uncertain how large a proportion of the population would have
qualified, probably somewhere between 10 and 25 per cent, says social
historian and historian of ideas Ville Vuolanto.
Girls
were not enrolled as members of the gymnasium, but are often mentioned
in the administrative documents as being the boys' siblings. This may
have had to do with family status or tax class. Both girls and women
could own property, but in principle they had to have a male guardian.
For
boys from well-off families of the free-born citizen class, the
transition to adult life started with enrollment in the 'gymnasium'.
Other boys started working before reaching their teens, and might serve an apprenticeship of two to four years.
(Illustration by Roger Payne)
The
researchers have found about 20 apprenticeship contracts in
Oxyrhynchus, most of them relating to the weaving industry since
Oxyrhynchus was a major weaving center in Egypt.
Males were not reckoned to be fully adults until they married in their early twenties.
Slave
children could also become apprentices, and their contracts were of the
same type as for the boys of free-born citizens. Slaves lived either
with their owners or in the same house as their master, while free-born
children generally lived with their parents.
But
life was different for slave children nonetheless. Vuolanto says they
have found documents to show that children as young as two were sold and
separated from their parents.
(Image: Boys learning to write)
In
one letter, a man encourages his brother to sell the youngest slave
children, and some wine ... whereas his nephews should be spoiled. He
writes "…I am sending you some melon seeds and two bundles of old
clothes, which you can share with your children."
Little
is known about the lives of children until they turn up in official
documents, which is usually not before they are in their early teens.
It
seems that children began doing light work between the ages of seven
and nine. Typically, they might have been set to work as goatherds or to
collect wood or dry animal dung for fuel.
There
were probably a good number of children who did not live with their
biological parents, because the mortality rate was high.
"It's
like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. By examining papyri, pottery
fragments with writing on, toys and other objects, we are trying to form
a picture of how children lived in Roman Egypt," explains Vuolanto.
The documents originate from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, which was a large town of more than 25,000 inhabitants.
(Image: Mummy-face portrait of a young boy from Antinoopolis)
Oxyrhynchus was so important that Antinous and Hadrian visited the city only a few days before Antinous died in the Nile in 130 AD.
The city had Egypt's most important weaving industry, and was also the Roman administrative centre for the area.
Researchers
possess a great deal of documentation precisely from this area because
archaeologists digging one hundred years ago discovered thousands of
papyri in what had once been the city's rubbish dumps.
