The paper aims at exploring the emergence of intra-muros burials at Rome in the period between the late VIIInd BC and the Archaic period. This phenomenon, which reveals deep symbolic and social implications, has been reconstructed throughout a wider archaeological documentation, focusing on the identity and age of buried. The role played by pueri in Early Archaic Roman society shows a solid support in the corpus of the Leges Regiae (XII Tables), where references to the infants and children are related to the introduction of new laws about rights and duties of the younger category into the community. A contextual investigation between the evidence of child burials in Rome and some contents of the Leges Regiae contributes to reconstruct the main historical process which involves Rome in the transition of the inter-tribal system around gentes towards to the emergence of the idea of civitas.
Keywords: XII Tables, Archaeology of Dead, intra-muros child burials, early Archaic Rome, Roman history.
