French school: Cimon and Pero or Caritas Romana, oil on canvas, 18th C.

Work: 145 x 112,5 cm

Frame: 162 x 130 cm

Cimon was sentenced to starvation and imprisoned. It was there that his daughter Pero came to visit him. To keep him alive, Pero made her father drink at her breast. When the town magistrate was informed of this, he was so moved by the loving gesture of father and daughter that he released Cimon. Pero quickly became the ideal image of the child devoted to her parents. The idea that children, as a token of gratitude towards their upbringing, should care for their elderly and weakened parents is a derivative of this history. The term 'Caritas Romana' comes from the first known narrative on paper, in the nine-volume work 'Facta et dicta memorabilia' by Valerius Maximus from AD 31 (link).