explanation rests in the fact that in all probability childhood among
the ancients was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy,
period than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house of a Greek
or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing. If the father,
when the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his
arms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed
then it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren
place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by. And
even if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight
years of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and
rarely or never saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was
shed over those early years. Until the child was full grown the absolute
power of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom,
and met with little notice. For individual life the ancients had a very
slight regard; there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in
their temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, was
everything; domestic life, the life of the individual, occupied but a
small share of their consideration. All the innocent pleasures of
infancy, the joys of the hearth, the charm of the domestic circle, the
flow and sparkle of childish gaity, were by them but little appreciated.
The years before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases they
offered but little to make them worth the retrospect. It is a mark of
the more modern character which stamps the writings of Seneca, as
compared with earlier authors, that he addresses his mother in terms of
the deepest affection, and cannot speak of his darling little son except
in a voice that seems to break with tears.

[Footnote 1: See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat
different point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming _Études sur les
Poëtes de la Décadence_, ii. 17, _sqq_.]