One of the greatest worries for an ancient Roman was to die without any male children. Practical as Romans can be, they solved this with – what seems to be – an easy solution: adoption. It is unknown whether this was a common phenomenon, or something more limited. Hopkins in his book 'Death and renewal' claims that adoption wasn't a widespread phenomenon. He based this on an analysis of the names used by consuls. Corbier, on the other hand, says that adoption was not an unknown phenomenon in Roman society. She claims that adoption was linked to the politics of succession and transmission. Independent of who's right, adoption was regulated by strict rules. The only absolute rule was that the child had to born to a legitimate married couple. Other rules apply for the transaction of real and symbolic property. The most important transaction was the family name. The adoptee received the family name of his new family. His old family name is attached as a cognomen, a nick name. For instance: P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. The cognomen Aemilianus shows that his biological family's name was Aemilius. When do the Romans adopt? Mostly it's because of the lack of a male heir, when the transfer of the family name to a new generation is at risk. A man without any male heirs or no heirs at all has the opportunity to adopt. In most cases adoption involves (blood) relatives, for instance an son-in-law, a stepson or cousin. And the best part is, that through a testament, the adoptee can still inherit from his biological family.
Corbier as well as Hopkins state that adoption was custom. The difference between them is numerical. Corbier doesn't say anything about how many times adoption was applied. She only looks at the circumstances in which adoption takes place. Because of the legal rules, she gives the impression that adoption is very regular. Hopkins doesn't look at the legal field, but bases his statement on the names of the consuls between 249 to 50. According to him in (only) 4% of all the consuls adoption is traceable. He indicates 15 names. Considering the high death rates and the possibility to continue the treasured family name through adoption, it is surprising that Hopkins doesn't find any more. It is of course possible that Hopkins didn't notice all adoptions due to the fact that he only looked at the names. This means that adoption is more regular than a mere 4%. Another option is that adoption wasn't always necessary due to uncles and nephews caring the family name. In that case, only one male heir in the family should be enough. This could be, but the adoption of Scipio Aemilianus shows that in his case, it wasn't. When P. Scipio Afr.f. adopted Scipio Aemilianus, there was another male heir within the family. Both L. Scipio (quest.) and Scipio Nasica Corculum had sons and even grand-sons. Even so, P. Scipio Afr.f. fell the need to adopt Scipio Aemilianus. This seems to illustrate that continuing the own family line was important – at least to P. Scipio Afr.f. All in all, it seems to show that adoption was more wide spread than Hopkins makes us believe. How much more will probably not be easy to find out.
Based on:
- M. Corbier, "Divorce and adoption as Roman familial strategies" in: B. Rawson (ed.), Marriage, divorce and children in ancient Rome (Canberra, 1991), p. 63-78
- K. Hopkins, Death and renewal (Cambridge 1983), 49-50
- Gardner, J. F., Family and familia in Roman law and life (Oxford, 1998)
No comments:
Post a Comment