Resumen de La famiglia romana, la sua storia e la sua storiografia
The first part of this paper examines the most dominant features in the historiography of the Roman family that have come out of recent scholarship. This investigation demonstrates that the current understanding of the Roman family, mainly developed through Anglophone studies, is closely allied to the values and characteristics of the modern nuclear family. Among the factors that seem to have influenced the development of these new interpretations is the progressive lack of importance attributed to the legal sources compared to other sources, such as demographic studies, other types of documentary evidence, and interpretative schemes borrowed from the modern disciplines of anthropology and sociology. This paper also highlights a certain stagnation amongst Roman historical researchers, who, with a few exceptions, have failed to consider these new perspectives, which in fact allow a useful comparison between the sources and analytical techniques.
The second part underlines the importance of this interdisciplinary approach for opening up new issues and developing new methodologies, until now the sole privilege of the Romanists. The most successful research strategies from the new historiographic school are also highlighted, in particular from the most recent studies.
The final part of this paper outlines the limitations of this new thinking as an effective way of interpreting the legal sources that are inadequately considered in relation to specific issues, which leaves room for misunderstanding. This is for instance the case with the recent revisions of the unresolved question of the purpose of the institute of the tollere liberos or of the radical negation of the generic ius vitae ac necis which in the ancient texts seems to refer to the figure of the Roman pater familias.
