Amor, marmor, memor : patterns of parental commemoration of children in Rome and Roman Italy, with particular reference to mothers and young children and to mothers and older daughters

This thesis examines the epigraphic and literary evidence for ideals of parent-child relationships in Rome and Roman Italy, with a special focus on the relationship between mothers and young children, and mothers and older daughters. It considers all funerary inscriptions from Rome and Italy dedicated by parents to children ‚ÄövÑvÆ not a sample - that record the dedicand, their relationship to the honorand, and at least one epithet, in order to determine what ideals are most commonly expressed of the parent-child relationship, and of the mother-child relationship in particular. In order to place the inscriptional ideals expressed of the mother-child relationship into a broader context, two literary works from the first century A.D. ‚ÄövÑvÆ Seneca's Troades and Statius' Thebaid ‚ÄövÑvÆ are examined in-depth in terms of how their treatment of the mother-child bond reflects the ideals of the mother-child relationships recorded in the epitaphs.