New approaches to the study of the family in antiquity.

A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds draws from both established and current scholarship to offer a broad overview of the field, engage in contemporary debates, and pose stimulating questions about future development in the study of families. Provides up-to-date research on family structure from archaeology, art, social, cultural, and economic history Includes contributions from established and rising international scholars Features illustrations of families, children, slaves, and ritual life, along with maps and diagrams of sites and dwellings Honorable Mention for 2011 Single Volume Reference/Humanities & Social Sciences PROSE award granted by the Association of American Publishers

What was the family like for the first Christians? Informed by archaeological work and illustrated by figures, this work is a remarkable window into the past, one that both informs and illuminates our current condition. The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.

The family has been recognised in the ancient world as the key social institution on which both society and the state are based. However, in the pre-Classical and Classical world the family was constructed in dissimilar ways and provides the means to explaining why the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, although sharing many cultural features, in fact differed greatly. This volume draws on the most recent work of leading scholars in the field with the aim of establishing a new understanding of the ancient family for the 21st century. In so doing, the book includes new approaches to social institutions, depictions of women and children, the Seleucid dynasty as a negative model of family, the inclusion of Etruscan societies, and a fundamental re-assessment of the family in antiquity.

This volume seeks to explain developments within the structure of the family in antiquity, in particular in the later Roman Empire and late antiquity. Contributions extend the traditional chronological focus on the Roman family to include the transformation of familial structures in the newly formed kingdoms of late antiquity in Europe, thus allowing a greater historical perspective and establishing a new paradigm for the study of the Roman family. Drawing on the latest research by leading scholars in the field the book includes new approaches to the life course and the family in the Byzantine empire, family relationships in the dynasty of Constantine the Great, death, burial and commemoration of newborn children in Roman Italy, and widows and familial networks in Roman Egypt. In short, this volume seeks to establish a new agenda for the understanding of the Roman family and its transformation in late antiquity.

Typical studies of marriage and family in the early Christian period focus on very limited evidence found in Scripture. This interdisciplinary book offers a broader, richer picture of the first Christian families by drawing together research by experts ranging from archaeologists to ancient historians. By exploring the nature of households in the ancient Greco-Roman world, the contributors assemble a new understanding of ancient Christian families that is both compelling and instructive. Divided into six parts, the book covers key aspects of ancient family life, from meals and child-rearing to women's roles and the lives of slaves. Three concluding chapters explore the implications of all this information for theological education today. Contributors: David L. Balch Suzanne Dixon J. Albert Harrill Ross S. Kraemer Christian Laes Peter Lampe Amy-Jill Levine Margaret Y. MacDonald Dale Martin Eric M. Meyers Margaret M. Mitchell Carolyn Osiek Beryl Rawson Richard Saller Timothy F. Sedgwick Monika Trumper Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.

This comprehensive study of families in the Mediterranean world spans the Bronze Age through Late Antiquity, and looks at families and households in various ancient societies inhabiting the regions around the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to break down artificial boundaries between academic disciplines.

This account of the Greek family takes account of a mass of literary, inscriptional, archaeological, anthropological, and art-historical evidence, some of which has only been made recently available, to provide a source of reference for this key aspect of Greek social history.

Through a series of case studies this book demonstrates the wide-ranging impact of demographic dynamics on social, economic and political structures in the Graeco-Roman world. The individual case studies focus on fertility, mortality and migration and the roles they played in various aspects of ancient life. These studies - drawn from a range of populations in Athens and Attica, Rome and Italy, and Graeco-Roman Egypt - illustrate how new insights can be gained by applying demographic methods to familiar themes in ancient history. Methodological issues are addressed in a clear, straightforward manner with no assumption of prior technical knowledge, ensuring that the book is accessible to readers with no training in demography. The book marks an important step forward in ancient historical demography, affirming both the centrality of population studies in ancient history and the contribution that antiquity can make to population history in general.