Introduction to “Aryballos I: Studies in Honour of Nigel B. Crowther”

Abstract

Thanks to the work of scholars such as Brent Shaw, it has long been recognized that both pagan and Christian infants are underrepresented on tombstone inscriptions in the city of Rome. However, attention has not been given to the differences between pagan and Christian commemorations of the few infants who did receive epitaphs. This study compares the evidence of Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 6 and Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae to demonstrate that pagan commemorations of infants were significantly less frequent than those of their Christian counterparts, and that the former were more likely to be commemorated by a person in a quasi-parental role than were the latter. At the same time, Christian women tend to be praised on their tombstones for giving birth to large numbers of children, suggesting that Christians enumerated births rather than living children, while, in contrast, pagan women’s commemorations counted only survivors. This article argues that the reason for differences in commemorative...