The Roman bulla: the golden amulet that protected freeborn children

In ancient Rome freeborn children wore around their necks a small round container called a bulla. Inside it protective amulets were kept, and the object itself was a mark of status: it showed that the wearer was the child of citizens and not a slave. The bulla accompanied a boy throughout his childhood and was laid aside only on his entry into adulthood, in a ceremony that involved the whole family.

An Etruscan inheritance

Latin authors attributed the origin of the bulla to the Etruscans. Macrobius, in the Saturnalia, gathers various traditions about its introduction to Rome, linking it among other things to King Tarquinius Priscus, who is said to have given it to his son as a reward for the courage he showed in battle while still a boy. Beyond the legends, excavations in Etruria have yielded finely worked gold bullae, worn also by adults, men and women, as jewels and amulets.

In Rome the most precious form, in gold, was reserved for the sons of the wealthiest families, while others wore bullae of bronze or leather. According to some sources, the children of the poorest families made do with a simple knot of leather tied around the neck. The difference in material thus reflected the city's social hierarchy, but the meaning of the object remained the same for everyone: freedom by birth and the protection of the gods.

What it contained

The contents of the bulla are not always known, but ancient sources and finds suggest that small objects considered protective were kept inside. Among them there may have been the fascinum, the phallic amulet that in Rome served to repel the evil eye and envy. Children were thought to be especially vulnerable to the malicious gaze, and the bulla was a constant defence worn on the chest, close to the heart, day and night.

The passage to adulthood

Around the age of fifteen or sixteen, often during the festival of the Liberalia on 17 March, the boy laid aside the toga praetexta, bordered with purple, and put on the toga virilis, entirely white. On that occasion the bulla was dedicated to the Lares, the protective deities of the household, and hung by their domestic shrine, the lararium. The gesture symbolically closed childhood and entrusted the young man to the community of adult citizens.

Girls did not wear the bulla; the sources mention for them a crescent-shaped ornament, the lunula, associated with the protection of girlhood. The bulla itself, moreover, could come back into use in adulthood in exceptional circumstances: Macrobius records that victorious generals, during their triumph, wore a golden bulla as a defence against the envy their glory might arouse.

The bulla reveals an often overlooked side of Roman religion: everyday care for the youngest and the need to protect them from unseen dangers. It was at once an amulet and an identity document, a jewel and a sign of belonging to the city. Italian archaeological museums hold splendid Etruscan and Roman examples, which allow us to picture the neck of a child of two thousand years ago and the hopes of his parents.