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Document Details : Title: Selling a Freeborn Child. Subtitle: Rhetoric and Social Realities in the Late Roman World Author(s): VUOLANTO, V. Journal: Ancient Society Volume: 33 Date: 2003 Pages: 169-207 DOI: 10.2143/AS.33.0.503599 Abstract : Why would parents sell their freeborn children? There are occasional references to the practice throughout the ancient world. Selling one's own children was not usual, and for the writing elite it was an even more remote and marginal phenomenon. In this paper both the rethoric of selling and selling itself as a phenomenon of social history are studied. The task is to find out in which contexts the issue was raised and assessed by teh elite and how it was related to teh everyday life and family strategies of lower-class people. |
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