Editing Adoption in ancient Rome (section)

==Social and legal context==
[[File:Genio romano de Ponte Puñide (M.A.N. 1928-60-1) 01.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|A family ''[[Genius (mythology)|genius]]'' depicted as a ''paterfamilias'' (1st century)]]
Formal adoption was practiced primarily for financial, social, and political purposes among the property-owning classes. Free working people for whom these interests were minimal had little need of the cumbersome legal procedure and instead [[Alumni (ancient Rome)|fostered]] if they wished to rear children.{{sfn|Rawson|1986|p=196}} For the Romans, kinship was "biologically based but not biologically determined", and procedures such as adoption and [[Divorce in ancient Rome|divorce]] gave them greater latitude to restructure their families{{sfn|Saller|1994|p=43}} than was allowed in Christian Europe.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=47}} [[Cicero]] said that adoption was an accepted way to ensure the ''hereditas'' (transmission) of three aspects of Roman family continuity: the family name ''([[Nomen gentilicium|nomen]])'', wealth ''(pecunia)'', and religious rites ''([[sacra gentilicia|sacra]])''.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=63, citing Cicero, ''De domo sua'' 35}}  Adoption was appropriate for a man who had no legitimate children, but if there were already legitimate heirs, adoption risked diluting their inheritance and the social status that came with it.{{sfn|Saller|1994|p=123, citing [[Ulpian]], ''Digest'' 1.7.17.3}} Romans tended to prefer small families of two or three children for this reason, though premodern rates of [[infant mortality|neonatal]] and [[childhood mortality]], along with other factors, could be an unsought brake on family size that jeopardized the family line.{{sfn|Saller|1994|p=9}} In adopting an adult heir, the father "could see what he was getting".{{sfn|Rawson|1986|pp=8, 12}}

Adoption was carried out by the male who was head of his family, the ''[[paterfamilias]]'', and his adopting did not make his wife a mother.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=63}} Nor was marriage required; an adult bachelor could adopt in order to pass along his family name and ''potestas'',{{sfn|Gardner|1998|pp=143–144, citing [[Paulus (jurist)|Paulus]], ''Digest'' 1.7.30}} as could a citizen [[eunuch]] (Latin ''spado'').{{sfn|Gardner|1998|p=144, citing Gaius, ''[[Institutes (Gaius)|Institutiones]]'' 1.103}}

===The adoptee===
A close relative was preferred as the adoptee, and a ''paterfamilias'' might adopt a grandson, especially if the grandson's father was not in the line of succession. The grandson might be his daughter's son, or the ''pater'' might have removed the boy's father from succession by emancipating him.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|pp=67–68}} One common pattern in Roman adoption was for a woman's childless brother to adopt one of her sons.{{sfn|Treggiari|2019|p=147}}{{sfn|Lindsay| 2009|pp=161–164}} A brother or cousin on the father's side might relinquish ''potestas'' over a son to provide a childless man with an adoptive heir.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=68}} A ''pater'' who had no sons might adopt his daughter's husband to strengthen family lineage, but to avoid technical incest, he would first need to emancipate his daughter so that she was no longer legally a part of the family – the adoption would otherwise create a brother-sister relationship that Roman law regarded as ''consanguines'', the same as blood ties.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=69}} Adoption of a stepson from the wife's previous marriage was another strategy, if the stepson had no children; after adoption, his offspring would enter the line as grandchildren of the adopting ''paterfamilias''.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|pp=71–72}}

The adoptee did not have to be a relative. Romans placed a high value on the social bonds of friendship (''[[amicitia]]''),{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=73}} and a childless man might adopt a friend or friend's son.{{sfn|Lindsay|2009|p=156}} Fostering was preferred to adopting children of "low" birth or unknown parentage, and in [[Roman Egypt]] it was unlawful to adopt a male foundling.{{sfn|Rawson|1986|pp=196, 200 n. 51, citing ''Gnomon of the Idios Logos'' 41, 107}} The ''paterfamilias'' generally transmitted his estate to an adoptee of his own rank, or the adoptee acquired the social rank of the adoptive family, with some exceptions.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=64}}

====The freedman adoptee====
Most often adoption would have been a lateral move or a modest boost to the adoptee's standing and wealth, but a [[Freedmen in ancient Rome|freedman]] could also be adopted. A slave might even be simultaneously [[Slavery in ancient Rome#Manumission|manumitted]] and adopted by his former master, who became both his patron ''([[Patronage in ancient Rome|patronus]])'' and his "father". The adoption of a freedman placed his property under the control of his new ''paterfamilias''; it no longer belonged to him, but it would return to him along with the rest of his inheritance. The choice of a freedman for adoption may have been motivated most often by gaining access to his resources rather than securing lineage.{{sfn|Lindsay|2009|p=134}}

In the [[Roman Republic|early Republic]], a freedman through adoption gained the same status as the freeborn citizen who freed him.{{sfn|Gardner|1989|pp=252 ''et passim''}}  By the time of [[Tiberius]], the adopted freedman was regarded as an unemancipated son in matters of family law but held only the rights of freedpersons otherwise.{{sfn|Gardner|1989|p=241}} Legislation that more closely regulated the varied statuses of ''liberti'' left the adoptee as a freedman who could not, for example, marry into the senatorial order even if he was adopted by a senator.{{sfn|Lindsay|2009|p=134}}

===Political adoptions and legal dodges===
In the late Republican era, [[Publius Clodius Pulcher]] famously subverted the usual course of "adopting up", surrendering his [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]] status and becoming a nominal [[Plebeians|plebeian]] in order to qualify for the office of [[Tribune of the plebs|tribune]].{{sfn|Tatum|1999|pp=280–282}} Plebeians had adopted patricians before, but the reasons are not always clear and were not always political.{{sfn|Lindsay|2009|p=170}} Cicero criticized the ''adrogatio'' of Clodius as solely politically motivated,{{sfn|Corbier|1991|p=63, citing Cicero, ''De domo sua'' 35}} and Clodius was emancipated immediately after he had achieved his aim.{{sfn|Lindsay|2009|p=171}} Around the same time, a nominal adoption allowed [[Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther]], son of the [[Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther|consul of 57 BC]], to take a place in the [[College of Augurs]] by getting around the rule against having two members from the same ''[[gens]]''. The adoption seems to have been entirely fictional, since there is no evidence he ever made any use of the nomenclature of the [[Manlia gens#Manlii Torquati|Manlius Toquatus]] who adopted him.{{sfn|Lindsay|2009|p=172}} Cicero's own patrician son-in-law, [[Publius Cornelius Dolabella (consul 44 BC)|Publius Cornelius Dolabella]], followed the path of Clodius in becoming a tribune by having himself adopted by a plebeian Cornelius.{{sfn|Lindsay|2009|p=172}}

Augustan legislation that granted privileges to fathers with multiple children and disadvantaged the childless also prompted adoptions of convenience.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|pp=73–74}} Adoption for this purpose became enough of an issue that by the time of [[Nero]] a senatorial decree had tried to block legal dodges. The historian [[Tacitus]] indicates that fictitious or "fake adoption" ''(simulata adoptio)'' could be detected by rapid emancipation once the benefit was realized – benefits including priority in the selection of [[Roman governor|provincial governors]] or candidates for office for men who had met the fatherhood quota.{{sfn|Gardner|1989|p=249, especially n. 29, citing Tacitus, ''Annales'' 15.9}} The restrictions under the decree are not preserved in full, but a request for ''adrogatio'' could be denied if the would-be adoptive father already had children or was under the age of sixty and assumed able to procreate.{{sfn|Gardner|1989|p=249, citing Cicero, ''De domo'' 34; ''Digest'' 1.7.15.2–3 and 1.17.17.3; and ''[[Codex Justinianus]]'' 8.47.3}}