the roman life course. a view from the inscriptions

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European Journal of Archaeology

DOI: 10.1177/1461957105058209

2005; 8; 43European Journal of ArchaeologyLouise Revell

The Roman Life Course: A View from the Inscriptions

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THE ROMAN LIFE COURSE: A VIEW FROM

THE INSCRIPTIONS

Louise Revell

University of Southampton, UK

Abstract: Epitaphs inscribed on stone record biographical information about the deceased, and incertain cases, the age at death. However, it has been demonstrated that these ages on Romanepitaphs are not an accurate reflection of the demographics of death, but are subject to culturalbias. Using the idea of the life course, this article explores these cultural biases and their relation-ship to age and gender structures. Material from Italy suggests that these are tied into ideologies ofgender, with adulthood defined by the transition to magistrate for men and wife for women.Material from other areas demonstrates different patterns, and in the case of Etruria, these areshown to be a negotiation between pre-Roman and Romanized customs. The phenomenon of age-rounding is also argued to be part of these ideas of correct age.

Keywords: age, age-rounding, epitaphs, gender, ideology, life course, regionality, Roman

INTRODUCTION

Question: What is it that walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon,on three in the evening?Answer: Man.

The riddle of the sphinx reminds us that even in antiquity life was seen as aprogression from child to adult to old age; a sequence of stages characterized bydifferences in behaviour. Implicit within the riddle, however, is the idea that thesestages are judged in disparate ways. The child has not yet mastered the ability towalk it is an incomplete adult. The adult has fulfilled its full potential; the old hasbecome enfeebled by age. The way in which these stages are socially constructed isdependent upon an ideology of age and ageing, which will differ from one societyto the next, the transition from one life-stage to the next marked by a change in theexpectations and constraints of that society.

Age has proved an under-researched topic in Roman archaeology, with questionsof social identity being overshadowed by investigations into processes ofimperialism and Romanization. And yet statements of age are a familiar part of thearchaeological record thanks to epitaphs which incorporate the age of the deceased.

European Journal of Archaeology Vol. 8(1): 4363Copyright 2005 SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com) and

the European Association of Archaeologists (www.e-a-a.org) ISSN 14619571 DOI:10.1177/1461957105058209

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These have been used to investigate the demography of the Roman Empire, but thishas proved problematic due to the cultural biases evident within them. I shall arguein this article that aged epitaphs can instead provide an insight into the Roman lifecourse, allowing us to reconstruct ideologies of age and the gendered differencesbetween them. Furthermore, these then impact upon the narratives we constructabout lived experiences within an imperial context, and provide new insights intoboth the tempo of cultural change, and the question of regional difference.

APERMANENT REMEMBRANCE

Epitaphs dominate the epigraphic record of the Roman Empire, estimated at aquarter of a million in 1984 (Saller and Shaw 1984:124). Their purpose was to markthe remains of the deceased and to act as a permanent reminder of an individualslife and achievements. Although there are variations by region or social group, thebasic format consisted of a selection of a number of personal details relating to thedeceased: name, origin, virtues (e.g. benemerens, honorissimus, and so on), profes-sion or honours, and age. The tombstone of Sextus Valerius Genialis fromCirencester follows a typical military wording: Sextus Valerius Genialis, trooper ofthe Cavalry Regiment of Thracians, a Frisian tribesman, from the troop of Genialis,aged 40, of 20 years service, lies buried here. His heirs had this set up (RIB 190;see Fig. 1). Thus, it gives his name, profession (including military unit), tribe oforigin, age and years of service. Such inscriptions do not merely form a descriptionor biography, but should be seen as part of an ideology where standing and socialworth were in part dependent upon staking a claim in a value system based

around personal morality or virtus. This discourse of what is honour or goodness isevident within the Roman textual sources, but it is also evident within theinscriptions themselves the virtue of the commemorated through the descriptionof their life and attributes, the virtue of the commemorator through the act ofcommemoration itself (Woolf 1996). Not all inscriptions record the age at death; ithas been estimated that only 55,000 do so (Shaw 1991:67). Therefore, we shouldassume that to mention age was a deliberate decision, marking a stage in the lifecourse when death was judged to be particularly significant. This significancebrings us back to the idea that the life course forms part of this social hierarchy ofworth and virtus.

The epitaphs bearing the age of the deceased have proved a tantalizing sourceof material for social historians, who have sought to reconstruct the demographics

of Roman society based around two variables: average age at marriage andaverage age at death. Such studies began in the nineteenth century (e.g. Harkness1886), but have been facilitated by two developments: the publication of the CorpusInscriptionum Latinarum, and the availability of computer data-managementprogrammes. This led to a number of seminal studies from the 1960s onwards byHopkins (1965, 1966), Saller (1987), and Shaw (1987, 1991). However, anyconclusions about demographics were undermined by a fundamental problem the epigraphic sample is not representative of the Roman population. There are toofew children and old people, and too many women in their late teens and early 20s.

44 EUROPEANJOURNAL OFARCHAEOLOGY8(1)



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REVELL:THE ROMAN LIFE COURSE 45

Figure 1. Tombstone of Sextus Valerius Genialis (RIB 190). Reproduced courtesy of the CoriniumMuseum, Cirencester, England.



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This has led to a somewhat pessimistic view of the value of such inscriptions, asbeing biased by status, by gender, and by age (Parkin 1992: especially 618;Scheidel 2001:1719).

However, if funerary inscriptions are not a representation of social demography,they are still not a random sample. The ages reflect something of the structure ofthese societies, and attitudes towards age and the life course. They reflect the wayin which different age groups are judged differently, and the interplay between ageand gender. The potential of this form of evidence is clear in studies which havelooked at questions of age and its relationship to gender from epitaphs (e.g. King2000; McWilliam 2001; Shaw 1991). These have revealed patterning within thematerial, but the methodologies employed in these and similar works have tendedto concentrate on one element of the overall life course (usually childhood, endingat the age of 16) or have taken the male trend as the norm and contrasted thefemale. Such approaches fail to look at the life course in its entirety, and do notexplain the rationale behind its structuring. Instead they select a single aspect,either by age or by gender, and explain it in isolation. They rest upon assumptionsabout the inevitability of a key transition, or experience, with little need to questionhow that is made the norm in the present or the past.

Recent work on the life course within social sciences and archaeology hasemphasized the idea of ageing as a lifelong progression through a series of stages(Harlow and Laurence 2002:16). These are the product of the specific social andcultural contexts, and may be assigned different values according to the ideologiesof any particular society; for example, post-menopausal women may be seen as anunproductive burden on the community, or valued as a source of wisdom and

experience. These age stages may overlap with gender categories, producing adistinct life course for different genders. Such life courses are marked within thematerial record, as material culture is bound up in the expression of a specific stageand the transitions from one to the next. Funerary inscriptions play a role in this,with attitudes to the deceased related to their position within life. The use of age asa marker on these inscriptions will gain its significance from wider structures ofage and gender within Roman societies. Biases in the record reflect the ideologiesof age: the different stages of the life course; the transitions between them; and theway these were valued in the past.

METHODOLOGY

In order to investigate questions of the ideology of ageing, I propose to adapt amethodology popular within funerary archaeology. In particular, the work ofSofaer Derevenksi (2000) has pointed to the importance of gender and agecategories within the Copper Age in Carpathian Europe. She relates number andtype of grave goods to sexed and aged skeletal remains, arguing that variation inpatterns relates to transitions from one age stage to the next, and the ways in whichthese stages differ for males and females. She uses absolute ages, rather thanpredefined categories such as child or adult, and looks at the overall life span




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rather than specific parts. Thus her study identifies more subtle processes of ageingthan merely child, adult and old age. In a similar way, tombstones can be seenas a form of material culture bound up in the funerary ritual and used to mediatethe social identity of the deceased in the eyes of the living. The iconography andtext of tombstones played an important part in the construction of Romanidentities (e.g. Hope 2001), and so we should be able to explore aspects of age andgender through them.

Previous studies have tended to use large groups of inscriptions, presumably tomake the analysis as robust as possible; however, this will then have the effect ofobscuring any regional variability. The question of regionality has recently becomean important topic in Roman archaeology (as noted in Mattingly 2002), anddifferences in age and gender structures provide one way to address this. Themajority of sites have not yielded enough epigraphic material to undertake theanalysis on a site by site basis, but it is possible to carry out a regional survey.Small areas were initially chosen: for example, Italy was split into regiones in thefirst instance (Table 1); these were then grouped together or subdivided asrequired. In order to maximize the available data, inscriptions were taken from themost up-to-date corpora (CIL, CIL2 or RIB), with annual updates from the relevantjournals. The method used in the following analysis was to collect a data set oftombstones where age and gender were identifiable (Table 2); examples whereeither was missing were excluded. The data were initially grouped by year andsex, but in order to eradicate the bias in commemoration of male and female, theywere expressed as a percentage of the total for each sex. This made it possible toplot the age trends overall and to factor out the preference for commemoration of

males over females. The data exclude Christian inscriptions, as studies have shownthat patterns of age commemoration were different for pagan and Christiancommunities (Hopkins 1965).

Here it is necessary to mention certain biases within the available data. The firstis that the number of tombstones represents a small fraction of the people who


Table 1. Areas used in the study, with total number of inscriptions, percentage of total for eachgender and source. (Sources refer to the standard epigraphic corpora: CIL = Corpus InscriptionumLatinarum; CIL2 = Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 2nd editions; RIB = Roman Inscriptionsin Britain. These are supplemented with the annual updates in the journals LAnne Epigraphique(AE),Journal of Roman Studies (JRS) and Britannia)

Total % male % female Source

Regio 4 344 68.60% 31.40% CIL IX and AERegio 5 71 61.97% 38.03% CIL IX and AERegio 6 219 61.19% 38.81% CIL XI and AERegiones 46 634 65.30% 34.70% CIL IX and XI, and AERegio 7 434 63.82% 36.18% CIL XI and AERegio 7 excluding Tarquinia 322 67.08% 32.92% CIL XI and AETarquinia 112 54.46% 45.54% CIL XI and AEConventus Cordubensis 265 51.7% 48.3% CIL IL2/7Britain 222 66.67% 33.33% RIB, JRS and Britannia



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died, pointing to a probable bias in terms of rank. Although there has been somedebate over whether this was purely an lite practice (Hopkins 1983), it does pointto a level of deliberate selection by those commemorating the deceased. Secondly,not all inscriptions give the age of the deceased, and it is impossible to knowwhether those that do are a representative sample of the age structure of all thosecommemorated with funerary markers. However, as this investigation centresround the social significance of death, if certain ages are being selected for explicit

commemoration this should enhance any trends within the data rather thandetract from them. Related to this is the question of age-rounding (Duncan-Jones1977, 1990), to which I shall return later in the article. Finally, there is a clear genderbias within the data, as men are more likely than women to have a tombstonecommemorating their death and their age at death (Table 1). Within all the selectedcase studies, less than 50 per cent of the sample is female, ranging from 31.4 percent for regio 4 to 48.3 per cent in the case of Conventus Cordubensis. This biasshould be noted, but calculating the percentage of the total of each gender ratherthan using absolute figures will allow this to be factored out.

REGIONES 46

Four administrative regions of Italy were selected for the study: Samnium (regio 4),Picenum (5), Umbria (6), and Etruria (7). The sample from regio 5 was too small toproduce meaningful results, and as regiones 4 and 6 followed similar trajectories,they will be treated as a single group. There were 634 inscriptions from regiones 46in total, and these demonstrated a marked clustering towards the first 30 years oflife (Fig. 2; Tables 2 and 3); more than 80 per cent of inscriptions recorded death atage 30 or under, with a slightly higher proportion in the female group than in themale group (87.7% female, 80.7% male). This points to an important transition from


Table 2. Breakdown by 10-year groups for each case study.

regio 7regiones excluding Conventus46 regio 7 Tarquinia Tarquinia Cordubensis Britain

Age inyears M F M F M F M F M F M F

010 76 47 41 28 40 22 1 6 15 10 16 161120 145 91 38 28 32 23 6 5 23 24 14 142130 113 55 62 41 50 35 12 6 25 29 27 153140 34 12 43 16 35 12 8 4 14 21 41 154150 10 7 31 11 24 4 7 7 8 12 18 75160 12 3 21 13 11 3 10 10 18 13 11 4

6170 12 2 21 12 11 5 10 7 11 12 11 17180 8 2 13 6 9 1 4 5 14 6 7 18190 4 1 5 0 2 0 3 0 8 1 2 191100 0 0 2 2 2 1 0 1 1 0 1 0Total 414 220 277 157 216 106 61 51 137 128 148 74

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one stage in life to the next somewhere between the ages of 30 and 40, possiblyoccurring at a slightly later age for men than women; both drop to just below fiveper cent in the 3135 year group, but the male figures remain slightly higher in the3640 year group. Similarly this difference in transition between male and femaleis apparent in the late teens and 20s; both male and female peak in the 1620 agegroup. Interestingly, there is a noticeable difference between them during the 2125age group (Fig. 2), when there is a steep drop in female commemoration, but a lessdramatic decrease in male numbers. This is reinforced when we look at the most

popular ages for commemoration for each gender. For men it is the ages of 25(6.28%), 21 (6.04%), and 17 (5.31%), whilst for women it is 20 (6.36%), 17, and 18(both 5.45%). Although not conclusive in itself, it does support this idea of aslightly different ageing process for males and females.

This difference is reinforced by the historical evidence, which points to differentways of measuring the life course between male and female, and different ages of


Figure 2. Age distribution on tombstones from regiones 4, 5 and 6 (n=634; males=414,female=220).

Table 3. Cumulative total percentages by decade for each case study.

ConventusAge in years regiones 46 regio 7 Tarquinia Cordubensis Britain

010 19.40% 19.25% 6.25% 9.43% 14.41%1120 56.62% 36.34% 16.07% 27.17% 27.03%2130 83.12% 62.73% 32.14% 47.55% 45.95%3140 90.38% 77.33% 42.86% 60.75% 71.17%4150 93.06% 86.02% 55.36% 68.30% 82.43%5160 95.43% 90.37% 73.21% 80.00% 89.19%6170 97.63% 95.34% 88.39% 88.68% 94.59%7180 99.21% 98.45% 96.43% 96.23% 98.20%8190 100.00% 99.07% 99.11% 99.62% 99.55%91100 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%

06

610

1116

1620

2125

2630

3136

3640

4145

4650

5155

5660

6165

6670

7175

7580

8185

8690



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transition. The male life course was measured against an ideal of political andmilitary activity. The end of childhood was marked by the toga praetexta beingexchanged for the toga virilis in a formal ceremony sometime between the ages of14 and 16; the young men then embarked upon military service at about the age of18, and were eligible to begin a political career from the age of 25 onwards(Laurence 2000:444; Wiedemann 1989). This marks a three-staged process: child-hood; adolescence (iuvenis) from the age of approximately 16; and full maturityfrom the age of 25. In contrast, the female life course was measured throughactivities of marriage and childbearing involving two stages childhood andadulthood with the girl becoming a woman at marriage. Pinpointing when thisoccurred is problematic; the literary evidence suggests an age which to moderneyes is very young (1214 years old) and there has been much debate aboutwhether this reflected reality (for example Hopkins 1965). The epigraphic evidenceis too meagre to be used for any form of analysis, and attempts to devise alter-native methodologies are less than convincing. The most plausible guestimate isfor average age at marriage in the mid to late teens based on the average age whenwomen cease to be commemorated by their parents and are instead commem-orated by their spouse (Shaw 1987). Roman men, in contrast, appear to have beenmarried in their mid to late 20s (Saller 1987).

Such historical evidence confirms this idea of a similar life course for men andwomen overall, but with the transition to full adulthood slightly later for men. Thisfits in with the results of the funerary epigraphy, with the peak in the 1620 agegroup, marking the point when both genders ceased to be viewed as children. Thevariation between male and female in the 2125 age range can be attributed to the

idea that men passed through a stage as iuvenis before entering their politicalcareer at 25. This difference in life course and the later transition into full adult-hood for men suggests that the peak in male commemoration from 1625 yearsdenotes the time when males had ceased to be children, but had yet to becomeadult. It is clear that the point where they became adult was of particularsignificance; there is a marked peak of death recorded at age 25 for males. Oncethey had made this transition, the trajectory follows that of the female adults.

Whilst the historical evidence provides an explanation for the trajectories formale and female up to the age of 30, it fails to explain the drop in commemorationfrom the age of 30 onwards. This does not correspond with a distinct point oftransition in the life stage, but perhaps it does mark a change in how the deceasedis regarded by the mourners. A frequent theme in epitaphs is the idea of the

shortness of life, such as in the opening two lines of the epitaph of 13-year-oldCoelia from Forum Novum in regio 4: Traveller, halt a moment and look upon mytomb, for you do not know the brief span of my life . . . (CIL 9.4810 ASPECTOPAVLVM TVMULO SUBSISTE VIATOR | NESCIS DVNC VITAE TEMPORAPARVA MEAE). A similar sentiment lies behind Plinys description (Letters 5.16) ofthe death of Minicia Marcella. For him the girls death was even more tragicbecause it occurred just as she was to be married at the age of 13 (i.e. as she was onthe point of coming into her true female role as a wife and mother). The peaks in




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individual years for both male and female occur at the time when they weremaking this transition from childhood, and the difference between male andfemale between ages 21 and 25 years points to the period of adolescence stretchingthis transition for the young men. However, perhaps the pronounced drop at aboutthe age of 30 indicates that this promise had been fulfilled the woman wouldusually be a wife and mother, and the man would have embarked on his politicalcareer. Of course we cannot deduce a matching decline in the dedication oftombstones, only that the age ceased to be mentioned, but that is not really theissue. It is the point at which the mention of the age on the tombstone loses itssocial significance.

ETRURIA AND TAR QU IN IA

Variability in age and familial structure within the epigraphic record has beenremarked upon by previous authors (Hopkins 1966; Saller and Shaw 1984), and itis clear that the pattern of commemoration described here for regiones 46 is notapplicable in other areas. If we turn to the data from regio 7, Etruria, and carry outthe same form of analysis, we can see a different structure to the inscriptions (Figs34). However, it is clear from even a preliminary sorting of the data that thesecannot be treated as a single group, but need to be subdivided. The town ofTarquinia stands out as having an unusually high proportion of tombstones withage at death recorded. These originate mainly from a single necropolis atMonterozzi, which dates backs to the Villanovan I period, and was usedcontinuously until the Roman period with both Etruscan and Latin inscriptions

(Hencken 1968:18). The Latin ones were of a distinctive form a small square basewith a roughly round column above, the majority made from the local tufa(Bormann 1888). They are similar to a series from Cerveteri, although these are


Figure 3. Age distribution on tombstones of males, regiones 47 (n=691; regiones 46=414,regio 7 excluding Tarquinia=216, Tarquinia=61).

06

610

1116

1620

2125

2630

3136

3640

4145

4650

5155

5660

6165

6670

7175

7580

8185

8690

9195

96100

46



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slightly different in form, and do not contain the age at death, whereas those fromTarquinia almost universally do. This produces a total sample of 112 inscriptionswith age from Tarquinia. When these are treated as a separate group, they show amarkedly different pattern in terms of gendered life course. Therefore, in thefollowing discussion, regio 7 will be taken to exclude the data from Tarquinia.

Preliminary analysis suggests that the emphasis on the late teens and 20s which

we saw in regiones 46 is far less pronounced in regio 7, with 62.73 per cent of tomb-stones recording an age of 30 or less, as opposed to 83.12 per cent (Table 3). Forboth male and female, the marked peaks in the late teens and early 20s are missing.Instead, the peak occurs slightly later, in the late 20s, and there continues to be astrong showing through to the age of 50 (Figs. 35). This points to a differentattitude to age and age commemoration within this region; the emphasis on thepoignancy of a life lost just as it was about to fulfil its potential does not seem to bethe rationale behind the practice of commemoration here. This is reinforced whenage peaks are examined: for women it is 30 years (5.66%), and for men it is 25, 28,and 40 (all 4.17%). For both genders, this is slightly later than in regiones 46.

Tarquinia displays a very different pattern to either regiones 46 or the rest ofregio 7. The first feature to comment on is the gender proportion. We saw in theprevious case study that men were twice as likely to be commemorated as women,and this is also the case for regio 7. In contrast, women are more prominent in theTarquinia group, with a 55/45 per cent male/female split (Table 1). There is amarked emphasis on the later years of life, with peaks for both male and female inthe sixth and seventh decades (Fig. 6). This also matches the age peaks fromTarquinia of 26 and 60 for men (both 6.56%) and 60 for women (11.76%). The earlydecades for women are under-represented, and although the male trend shows aspike at 2630, corresponding with the cluster at 26 years, the first three decadesare still much less represented than in regiones 46.


Figure 4. Age distribution on tombstones of females, regiones 47 (n=377; regiones 46=220,regio 7 excluding Tarquinia=106, Tarquinia=51).

06

610

1

116

1

620

2

125

2

630

3

136

3

640

4

145

4

650

5

155

5

660

6

165

6

670

7

175

7

580

8

185

8

690

9

195

96

100

46



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These differences are even more apparent when the relationship betweengenders is added to the analysis for both regio 7 and Tarquinia. It becomes clearthat the age and gender structures of the two groups are very different to eachother, but also to regiones 46. Taking the rest of regio 7 first, there is still apreference for the earlier decades for both genders, but women dominate until theage of 30 (Fig. 5); there follows a steep decline, whilst commemoration for menbecomes dominant. Although there is a similar decline for the males as well, it is

not as rapid a fall off. In contrast, in Tarquinia, this early peak is absent for bothgenders (Fig. 6). However, there is preferential commemoration of females duringthe first decade of their lives, no marked preference in the second decade, followedby a consistent dominance of male commemoration until the age of 40, distinct


Figure 5. Age distribution on tombstones from regio 7 excluding Tarquinia (n=322; males=216,females=106).

Figure 6. Age distribution on tombstones from Tarquinia only (n=112; males=61, females=51).

0

10

11

20

21

30

31

40

41

50

51

60

61

70

71

80

81

90

91

100

010

1120

2130

3140

4150

5161

6171

7180

8190

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from the trend in the rest of Etruria. There is then possibly a slight female dom-inance from 40 to 60, followed by roughly comparable figures.

Although this analysis may seem over detailed, it depicts very clear differencesin the social structures for these cultural groups when compared to each other, andto the picture from regiones 46. This is consistent with Nielsens (1989) analysis ofthe Etruscan language tomb inscriptions in which it is more unusual for the age ofthe deceased to be mentioned, with only two areas where it seems to be commonpractice: South Etruria (including Tarquinia), from the fourth century BC; andVolterra during the first century BC. Epitaphs from here show a much higher ageat death being commemorated than at Rome: 41 years for women and 40 for men,as opposed to 21 and 24 respectively (Nielsen 1989: table 4). Analysis of agecommemoration by decade shows some differences between South Etruria andVolterra (Figs. 7a/b-8a/b), but in both samples there are peaks between 20 and 30years, and between 50 and 80 (Nielsen 1989: fig. 21). The peak in the 20s is morenoticeable for males than females, and this may denote the period when they reachfull maturity and magisterial office. Although we do not know whether there was aminimum age for serving as magistrate or zilath, there is epigraphic evidence formen holding office in their 20s (Barker and Rasmussen 1998:99100). The later peakseems to show a willingness to commemorate those reaching advanced years and,as this is more pronounced for women than men, Nielsen (1989:79) argues that itpoints to a high status held by women as grandmothers and great-grandmothers.

The differences within these various data-sets could be seen as an indication ofthe impact of cultural change within the region as Roman customs and attitudesbecome dominant, but also serve as a warning that we are not dealing with a


Figure 7. Analysis of age at death on Etruscan inscriptions from South Etruria; a=male andb=female (after Nielsen 1989: fig. 21).

a) b)



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straightforward linear trajectory. The dating of the inscriptions is difficult; we havealready seen that of Nielsens case-studies, the Etruscan examples from South

Etruria are earlier than the Volaterran material. Based on onomastic evidence, ithas been suggested that the Latin cippi (tombstones) from Tarquinia date from theearly first century BC onwards (Kaimio 1975:196200), and we should expectthe regio 7 material to cover the broad period of first century BC through to theadoption of Christianity. The lack of uniformity within the four groups of datapoints to the changes over time and the cultural negotiation of Etruscancommunities adapting to a new idea of ways of living, encompassing newattitudes to gender and age. The material from Volterra and Tarquinia suggeststhat certain new customs are being adopted, represented by the increasedemphasis on the decade between 20 and 30 years. At the same time, the respect forthe elderly, especially for women, is retained. Nielsen (1989:8081) argues that thisdual emphasis is a product of generational attitudes, but it could equally be thatwe are seeing the process of cultural change with all its messiness adoption ofLatin and emphasis on untimely death, but retention of commemoration ofgrandparents. Similarly, in the regio 7 data, we also see growing importance of thefirst three decades of life for both men and women; but the drop off towards oldage is less marked and, although not as pronounced as in the earlier material, thereis continued commemoration of deceased at a higher rate than in regiones 46. Thisimpression is reinforced by the average age recorded. For Tarquinia it is 45 yearsfor men and 44 years for women, very similar to the Etruscan averages (Nielsen1989). In contrast, the average ages recorded for the rest ofregio 7 are 27.8 years for


Figure 8. Analysis of age at death on Etruscan inscriptions from Volterra; a=male and b=female(after Nielsen 1989: fig. 21).

a) b)



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both men and women; higher than the average for Rome, but lower than theEtruscan tradition. This can be interpreted in two ways either temporal vari-ability within the data, or the continuation of elements of the Etruscan attitudestowards ageing and death throughout the Roman period.

This possible continuation of trends is also apparent in the gender relations of theyoung. Nielsens Etruscan data point to preferential commemoration of femalesunder the age of 10 in South Etruria, but not in Volterra. In the latter, there are norecorded examples of ages at death mentioned for those aged 10 or under, whethermale of female. In the case of the Latin inscriptions, Tarquinia retains the strongfemale preference in the first decade of life (Fig. 6), retaining broadly the sameproportions. The rest ofregio 7 follows the Volterra pattern of no gender preference(Fig. 5), although here the difference is that, following the pattern from regiones 46,there is a new emphasis on the first 10 years. It is difficult to argue that these trendsare due to temporal factors, rather than representing this process of cultural changeand variability between areas.

THE WESTERN PROVINCES: CONVENTUS CORDUBENSIS AND BRITAIN

This regional patterning continues if we analyse the commemoration of age in thewestern provinces. Here, we shall look at two contrasting areas: ConventusCordubensis in southern Spain, and Britain. Of all examples considered, that fromCordubensis produced the nearest to an equal proportion of male and female(Table 1: 51.7% male; 48.3% female). The overall shape of the age structure is againdifferent (Fig. 9). Whereas in regiones 46 the majority of those commemorated are

30 years old or younger (Table 3), at Cordubensis the proportion of those commem-orated below the age of 30 was much lower (47.55%). A more detailed breakdownreveals that there is still a certain emphasis on the late teens and early 20s, but thisis far less pronounced. For women, the period between the ages of 15 and 40 seemsthe most important, with a peak in commemoration between the ages of 16 and 20(16.41%); whilst this seems to mirror the pattern elsewhere, this preference is farless pronounced, and does not fall away as sharply. The male figures are somewhatmore erratic when viewed in five-year groups, but a 10-year grouping seems tosuggest a bias towards the teens and 20s, with the same peak as for womenbetween 16 and 20. There is a second, again somewhat erratic, preference after theage of 55, suggesting that old age was an important stage in the life course of men.

Accounting for these age preferences is more difficult, but it is clear that ideas of

age and correct age are less pronounced than in other areas. For women, thereseems to be a preference for the period of marriage and childbirth, although this isweaker than in Italy. As commemoration continues through into the 40s, there isless emphasis on the transition from child to adult. This impression is reinforced bythe most popular years for commemoration of women (25 and 40 years). InCordubensis, womens ages are still marked by their roles as wife and mother, butcommemoration continues throughout their duration, rather than emphasizing thepoint when they take up these responsibilities. For men, the emphasis onmagisterial career is again less pronounced, and there is a noticeable lack of




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emphasis on the 25 age group. Instead, the more popular age for commemorationis 30 years. This could be due to a different ideology of masculinity, with less focuson magisterial office. Alternatively it is possible that commemoration focused onthose who had already embarked upon their careers rather than the transitionitself, as for women. This second explanation seems more likely, as other types ofinscription point to the importance of magistracies in the definition of the litemale. For both male and female, it is clear that there was greater commemorationof those dying in old age, pointing to this stage in life being perceived as of

continued importance. This complements the results of twin investigations into theage of men and women at marriage by Saller and Shaw respectively (Saller 1987:28and table 1; Shaw 1987:38 and fig. 2.7). These studies demonstrated that in theSpanish provinces, the deceased continue to be commemorated predominantly bytheir parents well into their 30s and 40s, much later than elsewhere in the Empire.Similarly, in their joint article on patterns of civilian and military commemoration,they note that women are more active epigraphically in Spain than in other civiliansamples (Saller and Shaw 1984:1389 and footnote 59). The reasons behind this areunclear, but the continued importance of parents and the epigraphic visibility ofwomen do support the hypothesis that age structures are distinctive in certainareas of the Spanish provinces.

Interpreting the age structure of the population in Britain is somewhat more

difficult due to the dominance of military epigraphy within the province as awhole. There is the danger that as the distribution of inscriptions within theprovince is skewed towards the military areas, this might create different trends incommemoration. In this case it is necessary to distinguish between civilian men,and those who had served within the army; all women have been considered as asingle group. Of the 222 inscriptions which mention age, 74 are women, 64 civilianmen, and the remaining 84 are soldiers or veterans, over two-thirds from legionaryunits. In the commemoration of women, the years up to the age of 40 dominate,with approximately 80 per cent of tombstones dedicated to women 40 or under


Figure 9. Age distribution on tombstones from Conventus Cordubensis (n=265; males=137,females=128).

010

1120

2130

3140

4150

5160

6170

7180

8190

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(Fig. 10). When these figures are grouped by decade, the trend is very uniform, butonce the data are broken down into five-year groups, there is a peak during thefirst five years of life. This is followed by a second clustering around the 2535 agerange, accentuated by the fact that the most popular ages for women to becommemorated are 30 and 35. This suggests that again, age for women isdistinguished by their roles as wives and mothers. For non-military men, there isagain a preference for the first 20 years of life, but in the 20s there is a sudden drop;this is all the more pronounced as it is in marked contrast to the previousexamples, where a peak at this age coincides with the beginning of the magisterialcareer. This reinforces other evidence about the relative invisibility of magistratesin the epigraphic and iconographic record in Britain (Revell 2000), and, takenaltogether, suggests that the idea of magistracies is of limited importance inunderstanding the progression of the male life course. There is a slight preferencefor male commemoration over female from the age of 50 onwards, perhapsmirroring the emphasis on older males suggested by Gowlands (2001:160162)work on grave goods. Within the military group, there is an emphasis on thecommemoration of those between 30 and 50, whilst the deceased was still inservice, with less emphasis on the age of those who have already retired. However,it should be noted that overall, any results from Britain should probably be treatedwith a certain amount of caution as the total number is somewhat small.

It is clear from these last two case studies that we cannot predict the adherenceto a Roman ideology according to levels of supposed Romanization. Cordubensisis in an area we would usually consider highly Romanized, in spite of its distinc-tiveness in previous epigraphic studies. In contrast, although there has been

considerable debate about the level of cultural change in Britain, its integrationinto the structures of the Roman Empire followed a somewhat different trajectoryto other provinces. However, in both these examples, as in regio 7, age and the lifecourse are understood through criteria that were regional, although they werebeing mediated through a Roman form of material culture.


Figure 10. Age distribution on tombstones from Britannia (n=222; males=64, military=84females=74).

010

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2130

3140

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5160

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AGE -ROUNDING: A CO MMEN T

Thus far the question of age-rounding has been avoided, but it is an obviousproblem for anyone attempting to perform any analysis of age statements ontombstones. The phenomenon of preference for ages ending in 0 and 5 wasidentified by Duncan-Jones (1977, 1990), although there was some variability bysocial class, gender, and region; he attributed this partially to the relativeincidences of literacy and illiteracy. The military data from Britain raise certainproblems with this hypothesis. If we look at the examples which give either the ageof the deceased or his years of service, it is clear that there are very differentpatterns of age-rounding between them. There are 90 tombstones which fall intothis category, of which 84 give age and 52 give years of service. In the former

group, 69 per cent are rounded to 5 or 0. This is somewhat higher than usual (thefigure for the whole province is 58.1%), but can be explained by the fact that age-rounding becomes more evident from the 20s onwards, and so the sample isalready weighted in favour of rounding. However, when looking at the years ofservice, there is no evidence of rounding: 23.1 per cent are multiples of 5, which iswithin the expected range (Scheidel 1996:98105 for a more detailed discussion ofage-rounding on military tombstones). This level of precision within recording ofyears of service can be explained by the importance of literacy within theadministration of the army, and the formal recording of the years of service of asoldier. However, it does not explain the rounding of the age; if age-rounding isconnected with literacy, then it should be less pronounced amongst a military (andpredominantly legionary) population.

The problems with this explanation are reinforced if we consider the otherexamples, particularly regiones 46, where we would expect the phenomenon tooccur more infrequently. Here rounding becomes more pronounced as the ageincreases, with a noticeable increase above the age of 30 (Table 4; it is worth notingthat the figure for ages 2130 is inflated by the high number of male deaths at 25years, the age when first eligible for magisterial office). As demonstrated earlier,this is the point where it becomes less important to record age at death ontombstones, and there is a marked drop off in its occurrence. This is confirmedwhen the details of Duncan-Joness results are tied in in both Italy and Africa, therounding index is lower amongst the male magisterial class (Duncan-Jones1990:835 and table 24). However, as he uses only evidence of ages 2364, it isdifficult to be certain about a post-30 drop in the same way. Duncan-Jonessargument rested on both funerary and census data, and perhaps we need to distin-

guish between these two forms of social practice, with different attitudes to theimportance of accuracy in recording age. In the context of a highly documentedmodern western society, it is almost impossible to function without a precise


Table 4. Degree of rounding in regiones 4-6 (percentages of total for each decade).

Age in years 110 1120 2130 3140 4150 5160 6170 7180 8190

Degree of rounding 16.8% 24.7% 31.8% 39.1% 58.8% 66.7% 64.3% 30.0% 20.0%



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knowledge of ones age, or at least ones date of birth. However, we should notexpect the same to be true for other societies. I have argued that in the Romanperiod commemoration of age at death is structured around ideas of correct age,and clearly there are periods in the life course when it was considered moreimportant to be precise about age. In such circumstances the preciseness is evident,whether it is years of military service, or progress towards a magisterial career.

CONCLUSIONS

When we think of Roman imperialism and Roman social structures, we tend tothink of the big questions: politics, power, religion, military warfare, and land-scapes of imperialism. When considering how these impacted on the daily life ofthe peoples of the past, the danger is that we formulate the male experience as thenorm, and use this to form the basis of our interpretation (Scott 1997:24). Con-sequently, little attention is paid to questions of changing ideologies of gender andage as part of this process of cultural change and, more particularly, as part of thecultural diversity of the Empire. This is perhaps due to the continued lack of researchinto gender and age within the archaeology of the provinces (Scott 1995; van Driel-Murray 2002:209211). In contrast there has been increasing interest amongst thosestudying the historical sources, but this has tended to concentrate on Rome andItaly (Dixon 2001). In this study, I have attempted to explore the question of the lifecourse in the Roman Empire at a regional level from the archaeological data.

It is clear that the experience of ageing and the progression through the lifestages is subject to substantial regional variability. The initial pattern in regiones 4, 5

and 6 points to an emphasis on the early decades. Particular importance was attachedto the period of transition into maturity, which differs slightly for male and female,followed by a marked decline once adult identities are firmly established. This fitswell with the textual sources, and allows us to reconstruct a life course for menrevolving around entry into the magisterial ranks, and for women around becomingwives and mothers. Even though this would not be the expectation for all membersof the society, as magisterial office was restricted to the lite, it does not necessarilynegate the idea that this was the correct age for mourning amongst the rest of thesociety. In contrast to this, the three other case-studies (regio 7, ConventusCordubensis, and Britannia) show that this ideology of age was not universallyapplicable. The patterns are clear within the data, but to fully understand their signif-icance it is necessary to explore their regional context. Here, attitudes towards age

are less sharply defined, and ideologies are based upon differing criteria. In the caseofregio 7, it seems that these differences reflect the continuation of certain pre-Romanstructures, and possibly there is a similar explanation for Cordubensis and Britain.

These results demonstrate that the lives of the peoples in these variouscommunities would have been somewhat different. The way they viewed theirprogression through the stages of their lives depended upon ideologies of age,which were distinctive to each region. This impacts upon our understanding ofcultural identity throughout the Roman Empire, and the kinds of expectations wehave about cultural similarity as Romanists. We can detect the adoption of a very




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distinctive Roman practice the dedication of written grave-markers to the deceased,in Latin, and conforming to an expected pattern of wording. However, the peoplesof the Empire are using this Roman practice in a way which suggests certain otheraspects of life are different, and are perhaps being treated in a more conservativeway. Within the dominant research agenda of provincial Roman archaeology, itmight be tempting to downplay these differences in favour of the big questions.Nevertheless, age and gender are basic structuring principles within any society,the product of deeply held beliefs and attitudes. This regional patterning points tofundamental differences between various groups. Equally, it is possible to overstatethe case and argue that this points towards a level of resistance, particularly in thecase of Britain where political definitions of masculinity are not being adopted.Instead, we are seeing the daily negotiation of living in the Roman Empire, wherecertain aspects of life change, but others retain their importance.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Jo Derevenski, Ray Laurence and Yvonne Marshall forhelpful comments, and Martin Millett for reading the first draft of this article.Thanks also to the referees for their helpful comments; all mistakes remain my own.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Louise Revell is a lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Southampton. Her researchinterests focus on Roman public architecture and Roman identities, and she has workedin Britain, Spain and Italy. She is currently writing a book on imperialism and identity:Exploring Roman identities. Case studies from Spain and Britain, and working onpublic architecture in Roman Britain.

Address: Archaeology, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ,UK [email: [email protected]]

ABSTRACTS

Le cours de la vie romaine, vu travers les inscriptionsLouise Revell

Les pitaphes sur pierre contiennent des informations biographiques sur les dfunts et, danscertains cas, leur ge au moment de leur mort. Toutefois on a dmontr que ces indications dgedans les pitaphes romaines ne sont pas un reflet exact des donnes dmographiques des dcs,

mais sont soumis des tendances culturelles. En utilisant le concept du cours de vie, cet articleexamine ces tendances culturelles et leur relation avec les structures dge et de sexe. En se basantsur des pierres italiennes, on prtend que ces tendances taient lies des idologies de sexe, lgeadulte tant pour lhomme le moment o il atteint la position de magistrat et pour la femme lemoment o elle devient pouse. Parmi les pitaphes originaires dautres rgions se laissentdistinguer des modles diffrents. Dans le cas de lEtrurie, ces modles sont des ngociations entredes coutumes prromaines et des coutumes romanises. Le phnomne d arrondissement dgeest galement suppos faire partie de ces concepts de lge correct.

Mots cls: ge, arrondissement de lge, pitaphes, idologie, cours de la vie, rgionalit, romain

Der rmische Lebenslauf: Ein Einblick anhand der InschriftenLouise Revell

Steinerne Epitaphe zeichnen biographische Informationen der Verstorbenen und in bestimmtenFllen das Alter zum Zeitpunkt des Todes auf. Es ist jedoch nachgewiesen worden, dass dieseAltersangaben auf rmischen Epitaphen keine akkurate Widerspiegelung der Sterbedemographiedarstellen, sondern kulturell beeinflusst sind. Mittels des Konzeptes des Lebenslaufes untersuchtder vorliegende Beitrag diese kulturellen Einflsse und ihre Beziehung zu Strukturen von Alterund Gender. Fundmaterial aus Italien legt nahe, dass diese Einflsse mit Ideologien von Genderverknpft sind, mit dem Erwachsenenstatus, der durch den bergang zum amtsfhigen Alter beiMnnern und zur Ehefrau bei Frauen definiert wird. Material anderer Regionen zeigt unterschiedlicheMerkmale, und im Falle Etruriens ist dies ein Wandel zwischen vorrmischen und romanisiertenBruchen. Das Phnomen des gerundeten Alters wird ebenfalls als Teil dieser Ideen des korrektenAlters diskutiert.

Schlsselbegriffe: Alter, gerundetes Alter, Epitaphe, Gender, Ideologie, Lebenslauf, Regionalitt, Rmer


the roman life course. a view from the inscriptions

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