IMAGES of CHILDHOOD

GIRLS

• Toddler: bronze statuette of a seated nude infant with an elaborate hairstyle. Roman, probably from Egypt, c. 100 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Child with a Dove: marble statue of a draped curly-haired child with a dove on her shoulder. 2nd century CE. Roman copy of a Hellenistic original. Rome, Palazzo Nuovo.
• Portrait bust of a child with curly hair, in marble. Late 2nd century CE. California, Getty Villa.
• Portrait head in marble of a child. Found in Rome near the Via Flaminia, perhaps from a statue in a family tomb, c. 15-40 BCE . Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Puella: a marble statue of a young girl pictured as a miniature adult, in a toga standing beside her mother. 50-40 BCE. Rome: Museo Montemartini.
• Portrait head in marble, with a back view of the child's "melon" hair style. Roman, 200 CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Portrait head in marble of an imperial family girl of the Antonine age (138-180 CE); side view of her hair style. Found in the Stadium on the Palatine Hill. 2009. Rome: Palatine Museum.
• Portrait Head in marble; the rolled hair ribbon indicates that she was a priestess, despite her youth. Roman, from Greece (probably Corinth), 100-140 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Child, elegantly dressed, assists the goddess Aphrodite at her toilette on this gilded silver relief medallion incised around the rim with various symbols associated with love and beauty, such as a fan, a flower, a butterfly, a bird, grasshopper, and lyre. Taranto, 300-200 BCE. London, British Museum.
• Seated statue in marble of an elegantly dressed girl gazing pensively at the ground. Hadrianic copy of a Hellenistic original of c. 280 BCE. Rome, Montemartini Museum.
• Marble statue of a young woman in the guise of Diana/Artemis. Ostia, 60-79 CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.
• Portrait head in marble of a young girl laughing (side view). Roman, 2nd century CE. Berlin: Altes Museum.
• Portrait head in marble of a young girl. Rome, Vatican Museum
• Portrait bust in marble of a young girl. Roman 3rd century CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Terracotta statue painted, 3 ' tall. The young woman, dressed in Greek style clothing, stands with open arms, perhaps in prayer. Roman. From Canosa. 3/2 century BCE. London: British Museum.
• Portrait Bust in marble of a young girl dressed in a Greek chiton and cloak; she wears a wig (resembling the hairstyle of the Empress Julia Domna) over her own hair. Roman, 210-30 CE. London, British Museum.
• Street game: marble statue of a young girl with a "melon" hairdo, seated on the ground playing "knucklebones" (front view). 2nd century CE Roman copy of a Hellenistic original. Found 1732 on the Caelian Hill. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
• Ball Game: fragmentary marble relief of girls playing ball. The full relief shows boys playing separately on the left. Mid-2nd century CE. Paris, Louvre Museum.
• Children at play on the frontal relief of a marble sarcophagus. 170-80 CE.Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum
• Children collect nuts on the frontal relief of a marble sarcophagus whose inscription has been erased. The girls on the left in front of a draped cloth wearing long dresses and melon hairstyles cooperate, while the larger number of boys on the right fight with each other (note how the umbo of the toga is used as a pocket). 3rd century CE. Rome, Vatican museum (Chiaramonte).
• Girl of the Julio-Claudian family in a toga, standing among her parents and male siblings in the family procession relief frieze on Augustus' Altar of Peace. Rome, Ara Pacis 13 BCE.
• Hairstyle of a Roman Girl: video recreation of a girl's hairstyle from c. 40 BCE, researched and reenacted by Janet Stephens, 2015.

PLAYTHINGS

• Money Bank in bronze, cleverly cast in the shape of a curly-haired young girl who reaches out her hand for a contribution, pulling open the decorative neck of her copper striped tunic to show where the coin should be placed. 25-50 CE. California, Getty Villa.
• Dolls
  • Ivory: jointed, with the body of an adult woman. She wears a gold necklace, leg and arm bracelets and has the face and hairstyle of the empress Julia Domna (side view). Found in a marble sarcophagus with the skeleton of a girl, on the Via Valeria in Tivoli. End 2nd century CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.
  • Ivory: jointed, with the body and features of an adult woman, she wears a diadem in her elegantly styled hair. Found with the mummified body of an 8-year old girl, together with carved amber grave goods (described below), perhaps for a woman's toilette, in a marble sarcophagus along the Via Cassia (Grottarossa). End 2nd century CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.
  • Ivory with articulated limbs and an anatomically correct female body. From an underground tomb on the Via di Tor Cervara. 3rd century CE. Rome, Olearia.
  • Terracotta with moveable arms and legs, in terracotta. Greek. 500-400 BCE. California, Getty Villa.
  • Bone: crowned head and torso, now missing its movable arms and legs. Found in Ephesus. London, British Museum.
  • Baby: painted terracotta with upswept hair and head covering; seated with arms outstretched. From a child's grave. Hawara. 2nd century CE. London, Petrie Museum.
• Amber toy chest, part of a girl's burial goods, perhaps a miniature jewelry chest; found along with the Julia Domna doll (described above) in a marble sarcophagus along with the skeleton of a girl, on the Via Valeria in Tivoli, end 2nd century CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.
• Amber utensils for table and toilette, found with the doll described above in a girl's marble sarcophagus along the Via Cassia in Grottarossa. End 2nd century CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.
• Gold pendant with glass beads and cameos carved with children's faces. Roman, from an eastern province. 3rd century CE. London, Victoria & Albert Museum.

MONUMENTS, COINS

• Funerary altar with an inscription for Minicia Marcella, daughter of Marcella Statoria (see the mother's matching marble monument). Both altars were found together in the family tomb. Pliny the Younger grieves for his senator friend C. Minicius Fundanus, her father, praising Minicia and describing her death in Epistulae 5.16. About to be married, she was 12 years, 11 months, 7 days old at her death. CIL 6.16631. 105-106 CE. Rome, Baths of Diocletian.
• Marble relief portrait of Minucia Suavis, from her funerary altar; the dedication text commentary can be found among the funerary inscriptions listed above. 1st century CE. Rome, Baths of Diocletian.
• Portrait bust of Julia Victorina wearing a lunar symbol on the front of her marble funerary altar; in back she wears a radiate solar crown; on either side is carved a flowering tree (left, right). The inscription gives her age as 10. CIL 6.20727. End 1st century CE. Paris, Louvre.
• Relief portrait bust of a young girl with a "melon" hairstyle surrounded by a wreath held by two nude flying cupids; it is the central image on her marble sarcophagus. On either side stand Cupid and Psyche, who has the same hairstyle as the deceased. Early 3rd century CE. Rome, Baths of Diocletian.
• Relief portrait on a marble tombstone of a young girl with her mother. Inscription in Greek translates: "Mimia, too soon, farewell; Koartilla farewell." The mother wears native Mesopotamian costume; the daughter holds a wreath and wears fashionable Roman jewelry. Roman, from the Euphrates region of Syria, 70-100 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Relief portrait on a marble tombstone of a young girl, surrounded by a crescent moon and stars, implying that she has been translated to the heavens; her brother. Rome, c. 180 CE. Copenhagen, National Gallery.
• Young girl pictured on a lectus as if asleep on the frontal relief of her sarcophagus, richly carved in Carrera marble. Beneath the couch lie her sandals and a pet dog; children, possibly siblings, lean on the couch in gestures of grieving. On the left, her mother sits on a solium with her palla pulled over her head in traditional gesture of mourning; on the right sits her father on a folding chair, similarly draped, with mourners around them both. Roman, 160-180 CE. London: British Museum.
• Sarcophagus relief of parents with young children driving carriages into the countryside (possibly a visual metaphor for the journey of life): left family, right family. Central scene of two children playing with a goose and a wheeled scooter. Rome, Baths of Diocletian Museum.
• Alimenta coin issue: Trajan holds his right hand out to a girl and boy who look up and reach out to him. This aureus commemorates the emperor's program of subsistence for freeborn girls and boys in Italian communities. Inscription: CO[n]S[ul] V P[ater] P[atriae] S[enatus] P[opulus]Q[ue] R[omanus] OPTIMO PRINC[ipi] | ALIM[enta] ITAL[iae]. Minted in Rome, 103-111 CE. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
• Alimenta aureus: another gold coin issue celebrating Trajan's program of subsistence for freeborn girls and boys in Italian communities. Inscription as above (the lower portion of the coin, not visible, contains the abbreviation ALIM ITAL. Minted in Rome, 103-111 CE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.
• Funerary altar for 10 year old Antonia Panaces. Visible from above is the internal cavity for her ashes. The front is carved with a gorgon above and a reclining skeleton below; between them is the inscription (CIL VI.12059). On the sides are laurel trees. From Rome, 2nd century CE. Naples: Archaeological Museum.
• Marble sarcophagus lid on which a young girl lies, holding a funeral wreath, as though asleep in her bed. Its provenance and date unknown, it can be found among other antiquities on the ballustrade in the courtyard of the Palazzo Mattei in Rome.