Observations on Boys, Girls, Youths and Age Categories in Roman Sports and Spectacles
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study is not intended to be a full discussion of all age categories in all sports and spectacles in ancient Italy, for space does not permit. Yet it does comment on certain aspects of boys (and to a lesser extent girls) in Greek-style athletics, age groups in Roman boys' events, the youth movement known as the iuvenes, equestrian parades, boys in gladiatorial and circus games, the mysterious pueri gymnici and other features. There will be seen to be a distinction between activities for boys of all classes, boys of a high social background, and those of low or servile origins. The Romans had an interest not only in the competition of boys, but also in their exhibition in various activities before the public. The primary sources for this review are largely the writings of the intellectuals, inscriptions such as dedications by parents and masters and iconography. [1 [1] Unfortunately, no evidence has survived from the children and youths themselves, so that we must rely on other data. For children in general in Rome and for further secondary literature, see Uzzi, Children in the Visual Arts of Imperial Rome and Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy. For Rome's ‘obsession’ with boys, we may cite the example of Domitian and his small confidante (Suetonius Dom. 4. 2. 2). ]
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".