Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 35 



nestled in his mother's arms receiving from her a draught of sour 

 wine (as a rule, of course, diluted) instead of milk. 180 I have 

 observed a tiny creature, still unweaned, greedily sucking a sau- 

 sage with no premonition of approaching death. When tied a- 

 round the neck with a string, it serves as a non-disappearing, or, 

 at any rate, retrievable baby-comforter. A yearling is old enough 

 to be given raw chestnuts to eat and have coffee as a beverage in 

 preference to milk. But we must remember that among the 

 Italian poor (except as immigrants in the Americas) cafe is gen- 

 erally not real coffee, but, for the most part, a substitute, made, 

 e.g., from some sort of grain that has been roasted. If a young 

 child cries for his share of ham, he gets it, and too often he gets 

 it raw. A fare of onions may enable parents to find their be- 

 loved bantling more readily in the dark, but he receives it at a 

 much more youthful age than any treatises on the diet of children 

 would allow. Its sweet tooth, or rather those that are on the way, 

 may be gratified with a bit of sponge cake dipped in wine. Where 

 honey is added to the milk for the same purpose, it may be more 

 wholesome for the child than cane or beet sugar. The Romans 

 thought that honey and butter made an infant thrive: modern 

 Italians agree to this. 181 Two millennia ago butter was valued 

 for the treatment of infant maladies, for example, as an ointment 

 for the aches of teething, and, in general, it was, like sugar, classed 

 among the medicines, not the foods. 182 



The attitude of doting indulgence which we observe in so many 

 Italian parents in dealing with their children is in notable con- 

 trast with the stern discipline that characterized the family rule 

 of early Republican Rome. Patria potestas gave the father in 

 those days complete and absolute control over his entire house- 

 hold. 183 Public opinion and the natural feeling of paternity 

 tempered his exercise of the power under normal circumstances. 

 But when today an observer notes precious Pepino as he accords 

 to his nurse's orders at best only a long deferred obedience, and, 

 with a full confidence based on much success, follows the nursery 

 adage: "If at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again", he cannot 

 help recalling from Roman history the opposite attitude, that 

 paternal despotism of early times which is exemplified for us by 

 the case of Brutus, who tried his sons for a plot against their 

 native land and presided over their execution, or by the case of 



