Emma Gooch presents a broad investigation of Athenian childhood via analysis of figured ceramics, sculpted grave markers, and burials. She aims to illuminate children’s identities and evaluate their diachronic visibility in Athenian society. While children in the domestic context are usually deemed archaeologically invisible, Gooch proposes that her approach to identifying children’s material culture in iconography and burials has, when applied to the household archaeological record, potential to illuminate children’s use of domestic space. She further aims to evaluate whether Athenian children had an extended life course,that is, recognised social identities not only during their lifetime but also before birth and after death, and to investigate how children’s social identity may have responded to, and been shaped by, socio-political changes at Athens. An additional aim is to investigate the experience of childhood from the child’s perspective.
Chapter 2 sets out Gooch’s methodology. Her focus is Athenian juveniles of pre-pubescent age/life stage and of free or citizen family status. Building on pre-established age categorisation systems (especially Beaumont 2012), Gooch presents the system she will employ. [1] She divides childhood age/life stage into perinate, infant, toddler, younger child and older child and, where possible, lists identifying characteristics specifically relevant to Athenian Geometric figured ceramics, black-figure, red-figure, and white-ground pottery, grave stelai, and burials (Table 2.3, pp. 41-42).
Chapter 3 addresses the evidence of ceramic iconography and adopts a chronological approach, commencing with the Geometric period. Gooch examines all 28 extant Late Geometric vessels that depict children, all but two in prothesis and ekphora scenes. Children are identified according to smaller stature, shorter spiky hair, different arm actions, and somewhat differently shaped and sized heads relative to other figures, however she does not identify the different arm actions and different shape the heads take. She also refers to children’s “less defined facial features” (p. 52) though, given that facial feature detailing is minimal on LG pottery, it is unclear what this points to. Gooch establishes that children, especially younger children, are centrally and publicly involved in prothesis and ekphora scenes: she proposes that their presence is important in establishing continuity of the family line in the face of death, and is indicative of children’s distinct social identity during the LG period, at least in the case of elite families.
In analysing Athenian black-figure pottery, Gooch determines that children appear on approximately 0.23% of the 41,313 black figure vessels in the Beazley Archive Pottery Database (BAPD). She identifies figures on these 96 pots as children according to their clothing (nature of this clothing not defined), “their physical reliance on other figures…and or act(ing) in ways that they are not adhering to adult norms” (p. 74). Of 73 scenes that permit gender identification, bias is towards male children – 65 males and 8 females. Analysis of scene types demonstrates children’s continued presence in prothesis scenes, as well as their representation in palaistra and fountain house settings and scenes of religious ritual. Household furnishing motifs indicate the domestic context in which children spent time. Iconographic attributes associated with children (such as writing tablets, krotala, headbands) indicate educational and ritual activities. However, the only identifiable child-specific item is the wheeled stick/roller. Gooch concludes that children in Archaic Athens were imbued with both public and private social identities and continued to be important in construction of the family ideal. She notes that more than 91% of the 96 black figure vessels with children date between 575-475 BCE and connects this with “socio-political upheaval and reform” (p. 91) engendered by the Peisistratid tyranny, the reforms of Kleisthenes and the Persian threat. This is however a simplistic inference that is not supported by the tiny percentage of vessels depicting children produced at this time. If any conclusion can be drawn from the statistics, it must surely be that black figure representation of children, especially female children, was of little concern to producers and consumers alike.
For Athenian red-figure, Gooch provides further useful statistics: of 50,073 red-figure vessels in the BAPD, 1.55% or 776 pots depict children: 636 images on choes and only 140 on other shapes. Representations of children were especially numerous in the second half of the 5th century when they also began to be represented more naturalistically and might increasingly constitute the pictorial focus, especially on choes. By contrast with Late Geometric and black -figure pottery, red-figure favours infants and younger children rather than older juveniles. When depicted with adults, children in red-figure most often appear with women, emphasising the domestic aspect of juvenile identity, again contrasting with Late Geometric and black-figure where children more commonly appear with men. In addition to children’s appearance in domestic scenes, Gooch notes their presence in sanctuary/ritual and broadly educational settings, including the palaistra. In seeking to identify a material culture of childhood, she points to the frequent representation of amulet strings, wheeled sticks/rollers, choes, rattles, balls, and knucklebones, and notes the children’s canine and avian companions.
In interpreting these changes in the nature and frequency of red-figure representations of juveniles, Gooch perceives an increased visibility and significance of children’s lives and identities. She also notes a decrease in images depicting the nuclear family group, suggesting this may indicate “a reduced emphasis on the ideal family unit comprised of man, wife and children” (p. 121). This is highly unlikely—the family continued as a core element of Athenian society throughout the 5th century and its reduced iconographic frequency should not be equated with decline in importance of the family ideal. If anything, as suggested by Beaumont (2012) and Oakley (2013), Perikles’ mid-5th century reforms restricting citizenship to offspring of an Athenian citizen father and of a mother of Athenian citizen family status, would have sharpened notions of the family ideal that now became articulated iconographically via representation of Athenian mothers and their Athenian children.
Gooch’s explanation for increasing red-figure depictions of children and introduction of their naturalistic representation in the second half of the 5th century is that “women had more autonomy to commission pieces of painted pottery”, particularly at times “when socio-political unrest of various kinds was prevalent” (p. 131). In support, she claims that “The majority of red-figure scenes depicting children adorned shapes intended for female consumers” (p. 129). However, figure 3.45 (p. 130) shows that, excluding choes, the most common red-figure shapes depicting children are squat lekythoi, cups and lekythoi. Of these, cups (cup shape(s) not specified) and lekythoi cannot be identified as “female” shapes, and it is worth noting that a well-known red-figure image of a mother with infant in highchair (Brussels, Royal Museums of Art and History A890) decorates a kylix, the vessel shape associated with the male symposion. Ultimately, an unavoidable conclusion must be that the increase in red-figure representations of children is almost completely confined to the chous, a shape directly associated with children’s participation in the Anthesteria festival.
Chapter 4 focuses on Athenian children and death. Gooch analyses a sample of 830 child burials from 900–323 BCE, 621 from Athens and 209 from wider Attica: this figure of 209 includes burials from Megara, though without justification. Inevitably, burial numbers are spread unevenly across time: 87 Geometric, 175 Archaic, 364 Classical, and 191 “Archaic/Classical” (Figure 4.18, p. 191). Gooch notes a diachronic tendency to bury children in formal cemeteries, concluding that children’s social identity was consistently publicly recognised and commemorated. Predominance of infant burials is sensibly suggested to, at least in part, result from their easy archaeological identification compared with older children. Excepting Eleusis, where Classical period cremation is present, inhumation is the diachronic preference for children. Grave offerings occur in over three-quarters of burials studied, most commonly ceramic lekythoi and vessels for eating and drinking. Terracotta figurines, which Gooch identifies as toys, were also numerous, including seated (frequently female) figures and animals. By examining children’s grave goods, Gooch determines that a material culture of childhood that archaeologists might also look for in the domestic context includes the chous and feeder (bombylios), with astragaloi and terracotta figurines also commonly associated with children. Adult type grave goods, such as strigils and pyxides, are suggested to project the child’s life course and identity beyond death.
In analysing grave stelai, Gooch identifies that 718 of 2,691 stelai catalogued by Clairmont (1993) depict children. Of these 718, she excludes 303 non-Attic tombstones and those depicting slave children, though she does not specify how slaves are differentiated from non-slaves. All but two (Archaic) stelai date to the Classical period. As observed by Grossman (2007), Gooch notes that male and female children appear on Classical grave stelai in approximately equal numbers, contrasting with juveniles on figure decorated ceramics. Gooch attempts to link increased frequency in funerary stelai depicting child figures in the first half of the 4th century to a time of greater political stability at Athens, contradicting her earlier suggestion that it was at times of political instability that representations of children found favour.
For white-ground pottery, Gooch establishes that 55 of 2,998 vessels in the BAPD represent children. I note that this proportional figure of 1.83% of white ground pots exceeds the 0.23% of black-figure and 1.55% of red-figure vessels recorded by Gooch as depicting juveniles, with white-ground also produced over a shorter time period. Following Beaumont (2012), Gooch reiterates that only male children on white-ground vessels are represented as the deceased and suggests this is consistent with the more frequent appearance of male than female children on single-figure grave stelai. More commonly children, both male and female, appear as mourners in white-ground iconography, reflecting their continued public visibility and identity in the funerary sphere.
Gooch highlights the diachronic agency Athenian women would likely have possessed in burying their offspring, certainly in selecting grave goods. I do, however, question the suggestion that women’s agency regularly extended to determining whether their children were buried formally, especially with respect to inclusion in child-specific burial grounds which would presumably have carried a cost. And if women did have agency in effecting children’s formal burial, why then in one of the periods that Gooch identifies as being a time of increased women’s agency – that is, during the Peloponnesian War when men were occupied with military matters – do we witness a decline in juvenile formal burial?
In Chapter 5, Gooch returns to her original aims. She concludes that material culture associated with ancient Greek children included feeders, amulets, rattles, yoyos, choes, highchairs, terracotta figurines, astragaloi, balls, miniature pots, shells, hoops and wheeled sticks, as well as dogs and birds. She also notes that many of these items were not child-exclusive and many do not survive well archaeologically. Consequently she proposes that in the domestic archaeological context only feeders, highchairs, rattles, choes under 15cm in height, animal terracottas, yoyos, dolls and miniature pots can conclusively identify children’s presence. Gooch might have added additional value to her work by noting that in pre-modern societies children would have formed the largest demographic group, such that we can infer that almost all Athenian households would have included children. I would argue that it is best to assume the presence of children in the domestic context and consequently to examine the household archaeological record for patterns and frequencies in the co-occurrence of juvenile-associated material culture rather than more restrictively seeking to identify only a limited range of artefacts made exclusively for children.
In attempting to identify the location of children’s activities within the household, Gooch analyses Olynthos House Avii4. By mapping terracotta figurine distribution, she suggests that children accessed at least three spaces in the house, including the courtyard and an interior room. But this is an isolated and inconclusive case study, although Gooch indicates that her future research will undertake similar more extensive analyses. She also draws attention to diachronic change in Greek house morphology and sensibly proposes that the simpler form of Geometric houses would have meant that much domestic activity and childhood experience likely took place outside in publicly accessible spaces. By evaluating diachronic changes in the visibility of children in the Athenian iconographic and mortuary records, she suggests an inverse relationship with children’s actual visibility in the lived Athenian public context: that is, at times when children experienced greater exposure to life beyond domestic confines, they were represented less frequently in iconography and the funerary context, and conversely when their lives were prescribed to a greater degree by the domestic context they attracted more attention in artistic representation and burial practice. For the Classical period, she accounts for these changes by, in particular, reiterating her suggestion of women’s increased socio-economic agency and its impact on iconography and burial.
In responding to her aim to evaluate whether Athenian children had an extended life course, Gooch concludes that while their social identities and extended life course could continue after death, this was not generally true of the pre-natal period: she connects this with a child’s delayed acquisition of personhood, whereby its socially recognised identity was not conferred until its formal acceptance into the family in the days after birth, thereby lessening the impact of high child mortality. In post-mortem contexts she concludes that Athenian burial practice was most concerned with commemoration of the deceased child’s life rather than with its extended life course. Identifiable projected identities in the burial record were largely restricted to juveniles who died around transitional moments in their lives, such as puberty or marriage, representing significant loss at societal level.
As commented on throughout this review, Gooch’s aim to investigate how children’s social identity may have responded to, and been shaped by, socio-political changes at Athens is one of the least successful aspects of her book. Her final aim, to investigate the experience of childhood from the child’s perspective, is accorded least space, and in Chapter 5 she notes that much work remains to “develop methodologies that centralise children’s perspectives and strategies for interacting with the world around them, and (to) thereby create a focus on children’s experiences” (p. 292).
Works Cited
Beaumont, L.A. 2012. Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History. London & New York: Routledge.
Clairmont, C.W. 1993. Classical Attic Tombstones. Kilchberg: Akanthus.
Grossman, J.B. 2007. ‘Forever young: An investigation of the depictions of children on Classical Attic funerary monuments’. In A. Cohen and J.B. Rutter, eds, Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy, Hesperia Supplement 41, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 309-352.
Oakley, J.H. 2013. ‘Children in funerary art during the Peloponnesian War’. In O. Palagia, ed. Art in Athens During the Peloponnesian War, 207-235. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Notes
[1] I note a misrepresentation of my own work in Table 2.2 (p. 37): I do not claim that older childhood ceased at age 15 but rather at the biologically and chronologically variable age of the onset of puberty.