The little we know about childhood in Roman Britain comes from descriptions or objects left by the Romans. We know very little about the British children, but some of them would have been slaves. When Roman children were small both boys and girls were looked after by their mothers. If they were from wealthy families, boys went off to school when they were about seven years old. Girls stayed at home, where their mothers taught them how to look after the household.

There is evidence of women and children being in or around Roman forts, particularly after AD 212 when ordinary soldiers were allowed to marry. Many of them married British women and this must have created more settled family lives. Among the writing-tablets excavated from the fort at Vindolanda (Chesterholm, Northumberland), there are several references to children. A letter to the commander’s wife mentions the writer’s ‘little son’, who must have been young enough to stay at home with her. Another tablet contains a line from the Aeneid, a long poem by the poet Virgil. This was the sort of thing that boys were given as a writing exercise. A number of children’s shoes also survive from Vindolanda.