In late 2010, in an online conversation, Sabine Huebner and Geoff Nathan were discussing the now classic 1984 article by Richard Saller and Brent Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman family relations in the Principate: civilians, soldiers and slaves” (Journal of Roman Studies 74: 124–56). Given challenges to its conclusions (and methodology) that the nuclear family model was predominant form of kin grouping in the Roman Empire, both Nathan and Huebner thought that issues of extended family versus the nuclear family and household might bear a broader examination in the pre-modern Mediterranean world.
From that initial discussion, a conference was held at the Max-Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany on 14–15 June, 2012. The parameters of the conference were deliberately left broad: “The Mediterranean Family from Antiquity to Early Modern Times.” The 15 papers given were varied in terms of subject, methodology, source material, time period and geographical area.
When the organizers decided that the conference papers might be successfully turned into an edited volume, they substantially reorganized the nature of the studies. Less than half of the original papers from the conference remain in much expanded and edited form, and a number of new papers were commissioned to give the collection complete coverage of all major geographic regions in the Mediterranean. The decision was also to focus exclusively on the ancient world, from the early Iron Age to Late Antiquity. One of the major themes of the collection considers the so-called “Mediterranean Family” model as it functioned in antiquity. Hence the title of this collected volume. A broad range of specific topics and methodological approaches remain.
The editors would like to thank the Max-Planck-Institute for hosting the conference and sponsoring it with a generous grant.
We would also like to especially acknowledge several scholars who produced excellent material concerning the post-Classical Mediterranean family, but whose contributions could not be included due to a decision by the publishers that this volume should focus exclusively on the ancient world. It was an extremely difficult decision to make, especially since the quality of these papers were some of the strongest.
We would further like to thank those scholars whose contributions appear in this volume. Their hard work and patience through the editing and production process has been the very example of scholastic collegiality.
Finally, our thanks go to the anonymous readers who provided much valuable advice regarding individual contributions as well the overall composition of the volume.