Current Students

Sara Borrello

This project aims at investigating the roles that children and young boys (‘pueri’), from birth to early adulthood, played in the political elite of the Roman Republic. According to the second century CE antiquarian Gellius (Attic Nights, 10.28), a male individual was considered a puer (‘boy’) until he turned seventeen: at that point he would become a civis (‘citizen’), equipped to serve the res publica. The central ambition of this study is to frame the political engagement of young boys within the wider context of interactions and competition of the senatorial nobility. The discussion encompasses the period between the Hannibalic War (218 BCE) and the establishment of the Principate (27 BCE), using a wide range of literary, numismatic, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence. It aims to make a distinctive contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of political advancement and demotion in the Roman world.

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/classics/research/students/sara-borrello/

Supervisory Team: Dr Federico Santangelo, History, Classics and Archaeology (Newcastle), Dr Micaela Langellotti, History, Classics and Archaeology (Newcastle), Dr Amy Russell, Classics and Ancient History (Durham).

Start Date: January 2017