"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"--Provided by publisher.

"This is a book about the social and political impact of adoption in the Roman world, with the main emphasis on the period from the Gracchi to Hadrian, and a primary interest in its operation in Rome and Italy. It has a different focus from the work of Olli Salomies (1992) which concerns itself with adoptive and polyonomous nomenclature, with a special focus on the imperial period. It has some common ground with Jane Gardner's works, especially Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (1998), although it is on the whole less legal, and more concerned with the practical operation of adoption in different situations"--Provided by publisher.