Talk:Adoption in ancient Rome

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

older entries
In paragraph one: "The six sons and daughters of Appius Claudius Pulcher" is ambiguous. It might be better to say "six children" or "twelve children" (which ever is appropriate). Malcohol 11:40, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Too bad it's pretty much completely irrelevant(?), but it's amusing to note the parallels between this entire concept and the Simpsons episode Burns' Heir... Krupo 04:48, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)


 * Why not? A lot of articles have a "references in pop culture" section. Simon A. 08:08, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've once read that a good deal of male upper-class romans suffered from impotence, suspected to be caused by lead poisoning -- because lower-class people got their water from the public fountains at the ends of the aquaeducts (built of stone) while rich people used lead pipes to move on the water to their houses. And as we know today, but they didn't, the low, but steady lead intake can cause poisoning, with impotence being one of the prime symptoms. This, of course, would have forced them to adopt children. So, is there truth to this claim? But I can't remember where I read it.) Simon A. 08:08, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Rich families adopted children produced by other rich families, so probably not. Markalexander100 09:36, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

well, actually, we know plenty of the hazards of lead, and other toxic chemicals, but we routinely let it into our drinking water supplies, food, etc, because right wingers and anti-environmentalists and business lobbyists and all sorts of other entrenched interests do not want the system to change. maybe the romans did know, perhaps they, like us, just had other priorities in their society besides pollution. for example if you are constantly killing barbarians and defending against terrorist attacks, who has time for penny-anny stuff like the environmental wackos telling you about poisonous drinking pipes. do you know how much it would cost to replace all the drinking pipes? like today, imagine we discover that pvc in water supplies is bad (well it is to an extent). nobody is going to go and change all that stuff just because its poisoning us. instead they are going to hire sham doctors and scientists to spend millions of dollars proving that its 'not that bad for you'.

Somebody changed the words Rome for Afganistan and placed Taliban for another.

Title
Would it be better to rename this to 'Adoption in Ancient Rome'? I read this as a link off of Adoption, before it was a featured article, and expected to read something about present-day Rome. Saforrest 15:57, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

what about the slaves? what about adopting female kids?

Renaming to Adoption in Ancient Rome seems a good idea to me. Renaming to Adoption of white upper-class males in Ancient Rome would perhaps be excessive. Markalexander100 01:55, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, Rome didn't have a concept of the white race, even though patricians (being descended from native families) would tend to be white by our standards. But Adoption of patrician males in ancient Rome is all that we cover right now, it's true. Anyway, Adoption in ancient Rome would be more appropriate than the current title. -- Toby Bartels 04:12, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC) Yes that actually does make sense Mr. Burns adopting Homers son as his succesor. HAHAHAHA. Wwell im only a kid ignore what i say i only contribiuted to some of the text. Its always at the bottom!


 * Somewhat belatedly, I'll add my support to the suggestion to rename the article to Adoption in Ancient Rome, and seeing that no one has opposed this in almost a year, I guess it is time to be bold, go ahead and make the move. / Alarm 22:33, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be deleted? the title is already changed to the one suggested [[User:HuGo_87|HuGo_87] 04:55, 16 August 2005 (GMT)

Ben-Hur
Is the adoption of the Judean galley slave Judah Ben-Hur by the Roman official Quintus Arrius unusual? Was Lew Wallace forcing history to match his plot?
 * Freedmen were sometimes adopted by patricians; Suetonius mentions it in a few places. I seriously doubt a Jewish slave could be adopted without havign to give up his religion, though; and wasn't Ben-hur fictional anyways?Kuralyov 06:56, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was fictional, "Kuralyov," but, at that time(c. A.D. 27), he probably would not need to(I do not believe that Jews were banished from Rome until in the reign of Caesar Claudius). In addition(I hope that is not irrelevant), Judah Ben-Hur was a high-ranking nobleman before he was enslaved. I hoped that I was permitted to have answered your questions.--Anglius 00:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Re-adoption?
Please excuse, gentlemen, but was a Roman patrician allowed to have been adopted twice?--Anglius 00:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This source implies it was possible to be adopted several times, but not by the same person.★Trekker (talk) 02:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

testamentary adoption
The section that deals with adoption as a form of political alliance (like marriage) is good, and on second reading is clearer about testamentary adoption than I thought at first. Question: although the case of Clodius Pulcher demonstrates that a patrician could give up his rank through adoption (but he didn't have to; see Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica), even before coming to this article I've been looking for evidence that a man could become a patrician by adoption, or what that would mean. It seems unlikely, for instance, that he would be eligible for the few priesthoods, say, that still required patrician birth by the Late Republic -- but maybe so. Would be interesting to know. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * One could be adopted into the patrician class, as shown by the many Servii Cornelii Scipiones Salvidieni Orfiti: an otherwise unattested Servius Cornelius Scipio adopted an Orfitus, son of Vistilia, thus promoting him & his descendants to patrician status. While this family is very shadowy, there are enough clues that they were patrician. Of course, what this meant down the 1st & 2nd centuries AD was that they had preference for certain slots in the priesthood, & unless they did something stupid could count on achieving the office of consul. But otherwise, this family were a series of aristocratic nonentities who drift out of relevance after the death f Servius Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus (consul 51) in AD 66.


 * However, the issue of testamentary adoption includes more than being admitted into the patrician class. I've encountered it most frequently as a sort of nod from one senator to his friends, as a form of trade. Increasingly in the 2nd century one senator appears to make a deal along these lines: there will be a clause where he offers a friend a chunk of wealth if the other takes the name of the first. Whether the point was to continue the family (as it was in Roman adoption), or as an act of friendship, I'm not clear. To be honest, I came to this article hoping someone else had researched this matter & shared what they found. -- llywrch (talk) 01:04, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Wording
"For families cursed with too many sons and the ones with no boys at all, adoption was the only solution"

I may be nitpicking, but the word "cursed" in the quoted sentence doesn't sound suitable for an objective article. I've changed it to "families with too many sons". Crusoe704 (talk) 12:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Imperial Succession
I've rewritten the last section because it erroneously implied that Julius Caesar the dictator was an emperor. The second paragraph now clears that up, while still describing the adoption. Nick (talk) 05:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)