Children
As soon as a child was born, it was laid at its father's feet. If he raised the child in his arms, he was acknowledging as his own and admitting it to all rights and privileges of membership in a Roman family. If he did not hold it up, the child was an outcast, without family or protection. During the first eight days of a baby's life there were various religious ceremonies. The day of naming was usually called dies lustricus (day of purification) for the ceremony performed that day. On this day, the family rejoiced.After it's enitial judging a child would be given toys. A child's first toys were small things like rattles. Then came rag dolls and dolls of clay or wax, some with jointed arms and legs. They also had toys like our like our carts, spinning tops, hoops driven with sticks, stilts and balls. As well as toys, children had pets, dogs were common and favourite pets; cats began to be known at Rome in the first century A.D. We don't have definite descriptions of any children's games, but there seem to have been games similar to blindman's buff, hide-and-seek, and seesaw. Games were played on boards, and pebbles and nuts were used as children now use marbles. The Romans had a schooling system and the training of children was conducted by their parents, with the most important virtues for a child to acquire were reverence for the gods, respect for the law, unquestioning and instant obedience to authority, truthfulness, and self-reliance. Until the age of seven, boys and girls were taught by their mother to speak Latin correctly and do elementary reading, writing and arithmetic. At seven a boy went on to a regular teacher and a girl remained her mother's constant companion.
A girl's formal education could be expected to be cut short because a girl married early and there was much to learn of home management so from her mother a girl learned to spin, weave and sew.
A boy, on the other hand, was trained by his father. If his father was a farmer, he learned to plow, plant and reap. If the father was a man of high position in Rome, his son stood beside him in the atrium when callers were received, so as to gain some practical knowledge of politics and affairs of state. The father trained the son in the use of weapons in military exercises, as well as in riding, swimming, wrestling, and boxing as it was expected the boy would carry on in the fathers role.
A girl's formal education could be expected to be cut short because a girl married early and there was much to learn of home management so from her mother a girl learned to spin, weave and sew.
A boy, on the other hand, was trained by his father. If his father was a farmer, he learned to plow, plant and reap. If the father was a man of high position in Rome, his son stood beside him in the atrium when callers were received, so as to gain some practical knowledge of politics and affairs of state. The father trained the son in the use of weapons in military exercises, as well as in riding, swimming, wrestling, and boxing as it was expected the boy would carry on in the fathers role.