Most Roman emperors didn't have children, they adopted. Mary Beard writes that "The so-called Julio-Claudian ‘dynasty’ was cobbled together from adoptions, marriages, and last-minute fixes... it was a family only in the loosest sense." (SPQR, p.406). Augustus managed to convince the Roman elite that his claim to succession was more valid than... See more
reddit.comWhy did Roman emperors mostly adopt, while European monarchs were obsessed with bloodlines?
Adoption in Rome had never been principally a means for a childless couple to create a family. If anyone just wanted a baby, they could easily find one on a rubbish heap. Adoption among the elite had always been a means to ensure the transmission of status and property and the continuance of the family name in the absence of surviving sons. Those
... See moreMary Beard • SPQR
For a millennium, rivalries between and among Byzantine noble families propelled public life, with the kind of bloody factional maneuvering that makes the Tudors look like the Waltons in comparison.
Though political power was usually a male privilege in Byzantium, a striking feature of the Byzantine tales is the prominence of women as political... See more
Though political power was usually a male privilege in Byzantium, a striking feature of the Byzantine tales is the prominence of women as political... See more
Edmund White • The Misunderstood Byzantine Princess and Her Magnum Opus
But from the end of the first century CE there was a new pattern. When Domitian was assassinated in 96 CE, the senate offered the throne to the elderly and childless Nerva – a safe pair of hands presumably. Between Nerva and Marcus Aurelius heirs to the throne were selected and adopted without obvious concern for family relationships. Some had no
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