RomAge. Ageing and Old Age in the 4th-6th cent. Roman Empire: Religious, Legal, Social, and Physical Dimensions

RomAge is an SNSF Consolidator Project that studies how the Christian Church, as it grew into a powerful social force with its own laws, moral codes, leaders, and symbols, reshaped both the experience and the perception of ageing across the regions and social strata of the Roman Empire.
The project draws on social gerontology to treat ageing as a lived and variable experience rather than a fixed stage of life. Gender, class, and geo-ethnic identity are not simply part of the background: they are central to how old age was lived and understood in Late Antiquity. RomAge approaches later life from several directions at once: the physical changes of the body, the imperial legislation that defined the rights and status of the elderly, the social, cultural, and religious attitudes that shaped old age, and the visual images that both reflected and influenced how older people were perceived.