Adoption in the Roman World

Full account of the practice, including the procedures and adoption's use as a mode of succession, especially in political circles.

Hugh Lindsay (Author)

9780521760508, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 October 2009

258 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

Adoption in other cultures and other times provides a background to understanding the operation of adoption in the Roman worlds. This book considers the relationship of adoption to kinship structures in the Greek and Roman world. It considers the procedures for adoption followed by a separate analysis of testamentary cases, and the impact of adoption on nomenclature. The impact of adoption on inheritance arrangements is considered, including an account of how the families of freedmen were affected. Its use as a mode of succession at Rome is detailed, and this helps to understand the anxiety of childless Romans to procure a son through adoption, rather than simply to nominate heirs in their wills. The strategy also had political uses, and importantly it was used to rearrange natural succession in the imperial family. The book concludes with political adoptions, looking at the detailed case studies of Clodius and Octavian.

Preface
Introduction
1. Adoption, kinship and the family: cross cultural perspectives
2. Kinship in Greece and Rome
3. Greek adoptions: comparisons and possible influences on the Roman world
4. Procedural aspects of Roman adoption
5. The testamentary adoption
6. Roman nomenclature after adoption
7. Adoption and inheritance
8. Roman freedmen and their families: the use of adoption
9. Adoption in Plautus and Terence
10. Sallust and the adoption of Jugurtha
11. Adrogatio and adoptio from Republic to Empire
12. Testamentary adoptions - a review of some known cases
13. Political adoptions in the Republic
14. Clodius and his adoption
15. The adoption of Octavian
16. Political adoption in the early empire at Rome, Pompeii and Ostia
17. The imperial family
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]