Se gli antenati si chiamano maiores. Riflessioni di antropologia della parentela

Mario Lentano

Abstract:

The contribution examines how Roman culture defines the notion of maiores and conceptualises the decisive role they play in guiding the actions and behaviours of their descendants or posterity in general. The investigation is developed through the examination of different sources – historical, literary, juridical – and with a special focus on metaphors, which make maiores not only “the greatest”, but also “those who stand highest” and those who by definition lived in a remote time, thus expressing the auctoritas that is acknowledged to them. Finally, the relationship between the ancestors of a single family group and those of the Romans as a whole is discussed.