Editing Adoption in ancient Rome (section)

===''Adrogatio''===
''Adrogatio'' differed from ''adoptio'' in that the person adopted was already ''[[sui iuris]]''; another father did not have to surrender his ''potestas'',{{sfn|Gardner|1986|p=6}} and rather than extirpating the adoptee's previous family line, the two family lines were merged.{{sfn|Berger|1953|p=250, s.v. ''adoptio''}} An adrogated adoptee was likely to have inherited from the natural father whose death had left him ''sui iuris'', consolidating two patrimonies.{{sfn|Corbier|1991|pp=75}} Ownership of anything belonging to the adoptee was legally transferred to the ''paterfamilias'', though it was set aside as ''[[peculium]]'', a fund or property for use by an unemancipated son or slave. When [[Tiberius]] was adopted in adulthood by [[Augustus]], he thereafter observed this longstanding legal requirement by crediting any property he received through inheritance to the ''peculium'' rather than his private ownership.{{sfn|Buchwitz|2023|p=175, citing [[Suetonius]], ''Tiberius'' 15.2}}

The development of ''adrogatio'' as a form of adoption is bound up with an early procedure for making a will that required the approval of the ''[[comitia calata]]'', an assembly of the Roman people. Upon the testator's death, the named heir was in effect adopted by the deceased.{{sfn|Gardner|1986|p=164}} The legislative act of adrogation was carried out by thirty magisterial [[lictor]]s summoned by the [[Pontifex Maximus]].{{sfn|Gardner|1986|p=6}} Because adoption law developed to support the particular institutions of Roman society, ''adrogatio'' could take place only in the city of Rome until the reign of [[Diocletian]] in the late third century.{{sfn|Gardner|1989|p=237}}

Adrogation of female adoptees became possible through imperial [[rescript]] in the [[Antonine era]] (AD 138–192), and under exceptional circumstances a woman could adopt in the same way. In one documented case from the 3rd century, a woman whose sons had died was permitted to adopt her stepson. Since a woman did not transfer paternal ''potestas'', however, adoption accomplished little that could not be achieved through exercising her rights under inheritance law.{{sfn|Gardner|1986|p=144}}