From curculio@earthlink.net Sat May 11 10:42:43 2002 Received: from mailscan4.cac.washington.edu (mailscan4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g4BHgfw3068500 for ; Sat, 11 May 2002 10:42:41 -0700 Received: FROM mxu2.u.washington.edu BY mailscan4.cac.washington.edu ; Sat May 11 10:42:40 2002 -0700 Received: from gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net (gull.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.84]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with ESMTP id g4BHgeZB000389 for ; Sat, 11 May 2002 10:42:40 -0700 Received: from 1cust109.tnt1.portland.me.da.uu.net ([63.24.94.109] helo=t9q0o0) by gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #2) id 176atD-00032D-00 for classics@u.washington.edu; Sat, 11 May 2002 10:42:40 -0700 Message-ID: <004501c1f913$33bffec0$6d5e183f@t9q0o0> From: "Michael Hendry" To: Subject: Bibliographic query: ancient aunts and uncles Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 13:42:19 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Can anyone help me recall the name of an author and his book? It was by an Italian author, relatively recent, also published in English translation. The probably male author's last name may begin with B. The subject matter is something that might be called 'palaeosociology' or 'palaeoanthropology', and I think it collects chapters on a variety of loosely-related topics. All that is quite vague, but the particular topic I'm interested in is aunts and uncles in ancient Rome. As I recall, the father's brother (patruus) is stereotypically stern, a second father, as his name implies, while the mother's (avunculus) is more, well, avuncular. Similarly, the mother's sister (matertera) is supposed to be much more of a hugs-and-fresh-baked-cookies "auntie" than the sterner father's sister (amita). Unfortunately, I can't remember the author's name or any word of the title, so I can't look it up. And the relatively unclassifiable topic means that it would be hard to find in a library by browsing. So, does any of this ring a bell? Can anyone help me out? Michael Hendry c/o North Yarmouth Academy 148 Main Street Yarmouth, ME 04096 (207) 846-6501 E-mail: curculio@earthlink.net Web-page: http://www.curculio.org .