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The Elderly in Classical Antiquity*1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Moses I. Finley
Moses I. Finley
Affiliation:
Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, University of Cambridge and Sometime Master of Darwin College.
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Abstract

For evidence about the extent and experience of old age in classical antiquity, one must rely excessively on literature and mythology, with their heavy bias towards the leisured classes and their lack of quantitative data. Nevertheless, there are bases for some plausible inferences: both life expectancy and for most people the standard of living were low, with a consequence of an early commencement of ‘adult’ employment and the absence of any notion (or possibility) of retirement; those hardy and lucky enough to survive of ten appear to have retained a vigorous creativity into very old age; emotional relations (e.g. between parents and children) were coloured by such factors as high infant mortality and the relative early death of parents and grandparents. The absence of really large cities, other than Rome and one or two others, and of rural isolation (the homestead farm, for example) reduced the dangers of the kind of loneliness associated with the modern bed-sitter, though problems of old age fell solely on the family (rather than the community). Medical literature showed a surprising lack of interest in mental illness associated with old age or even in medical problems other than the obvious ones of debility, and there is no way for us to penetrate the silence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 391 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

NOTES

2 Roth, Martin in Aging of the Brain and Dementia, ed. Amaducci, C. et al. (New York, 1980), p. 5.Google Scholar

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4 Synopsis and concluding remarks. In Bayer-Symposium VII, Brain Function in Old Age (Berlin, 1979), pp. 501–17.Google Scholar

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7 Ibid., pp. 366–7.

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14 Old Age, p. 10.

15 I refer to my Ancient Economy (Berkeley and London, 1973).

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