Delicati e delicia nell'impero romano

This research is aimed to investigate the condition of delicati and delicia in Roman society. Starting from the epigraphic documentation on these slaves, collected in a corpus, we tried to provide a proper definition of delicati and delicia, in consideration of the apparent inconsistencies resulting from an analysis of both literary sources both of those epigraphic, a fact which has forced scholars over the centuries, to give different interpretations on the issue. In the first, these words are used to indicate, indifferently, luxury goods, both domestic animals and people, mostly young slave, known to cheerfully entertain the owners and becoming an object of predilection and often the subject of sexual attention. In the second, however, delicati and delicia seem to be considered like a family member, since many commemorations recurre on sepulchral family inscriptions. The research, therefore, focused on discussion of the epigraphic documentation, surrogate from a careful analysis of literature in order to rediscover the similarities and differences in the nature of single source. A particular attention is payed to legal sources and, in particular, to the lex Aelia Sentia and lex Iunia Norbana, since the majority of epigraphic evidence on delicati and delicia is used in sepulchral inscriptions of families with servile origins.