1. “Aurelia ornata femina signatura testamentum sumpserat pulcherrimas tunicas. Regulus cum uenisset ad signandum, ‘Rogo,’ inquit ‘has mihi leges.’ Aurelia ludere hominem putabat, ille serio instabat; ne multa, coegit mulierem aperire tabulas ac sibi tunicas quas erat induta legare.” Pliny the Younger, Letters and Panegyricus, trans. Betty Radice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 1:2.20.10-11. On this passage, see in particular Tellegen, Jan Willem, The Roman Law of Succession in the Letters of Pliny the Younger (Zutphen: Terra Publishing, 1982), 50–60 Google Scholar.

2. The value of fabric is often neglected by contemporary historiography. On the cut and value of silk clothing, see: Becker, Wilhelm Adolf, Gallus, oder Römische Scenen aus der Zeit des Augustus zur genaueren Kenntniss des römischen Privatlebens (Leipzig: F. Fleischer, 1863), 3:203–19 Google Scholar; Hildebrandt, Berit, “Seide als Prestigegut in der Antike,” in Der Wert der Dinge. Güter im Prestigediskurs, eds. Hildebrandt, Berit and Veit, Caroline (Munich: H. Utz, 2009), 183–239 Google Scholar.

3. On the metaphor of hunting in a comparable context, see Martial, , Epigrams, ed. and trans. Bailey, D. R. Schackleton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, 1:4.56 and 2:9.88. On terminology, see: Mansbach, Agnes R., “Captatio: Myth and Reality,” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1982), 2 Google Scholar; Champlin, Edward, Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 87 Google Scholar. The expression captare testamentum is first found in Horace’s satires: “Well, I have told you, and I tell you now. Fish craftily in all waters for old men’s wills, and though one or two shrewd ones escape your wiles after nibbling off the bait, do not give up hope, or drop the art, though baffled.” Horace, , Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica, trans. Fairclough, H. Rushton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926), 2.5.23–24 Google Scholar. The practice thus named was already mentioned by Plautus in The Braggart Soldier (Miles gloriosus): “On my death I’ll distribute my goods among my relatives, I’ll divide them among them. They’ll be with me, look after me, visit me to see how I am and what I want. Before it’s light they’re present and ask me if I’ve slept well. Those who send me gifts I treat as my children.” Plautus, , The Braggart Soldier, in Plautus, ed. and trans. Melo, Wolfgang de (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 3:705–15 Google Scholar. See, too, Cicero’s Paradoxa Stoicorum: “Or is there any doubt about the slavery of people who are so covetous of cash that they refuse no condition of the harshest servitude? The hope of a legacy—what harshness of service does it not undertake? What nod from a rich old man without children does it not attend to? It makes conversation when it suits him, executes all his commissions, follows him about, sits at his side, makes him presents; which of these is the action of a free man? Which indeed does not make an indolent slave?” Cicero, , Paradoxa Stoicorum, in Cicero, trans. Rackham, H. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942) 4:39 Google Scholar. Furthermore, in Pro Cluentio, Cicero observes: “By the will of P. Aelius his kinsman was disinherited, and the defendant, though quite a stranger, was made heir.” Cicero, , Pro Cluentio, in The Speeches, trans. Hodge, H. Grose (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 162 Google Scholar. On this topic, see Verboven, Koenraad, The Economy of Friends: Economic Aspects of “Amicitia” and Patronage in the Late Republic (Brussels: Latomus, 2002), 198 Google Scholar.

4. With later authors, however, such examples vanish. See Mansbach’s chart in “Captatio: Myth and Reality,” appendices A and B, pp. 118-35, which uses the list drawn up by Schmid, Dankwart, “Der Erbschleicher in den antiken Satiren,” (PhD diss., Tübingen University, 1951)Google Scholar. An overview of uses can also be found in Champlin, Final Judgments, appendix 4, pp. 201-2.

5. Friedländer, Ludgwig, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von Augustus bis zum Ausgang der Antonine (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1919), 1:248–53 Google Scholar; Saller, Richard P., Personal Patronage Under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 124–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hopkins, Keith, “Wills and Legacy Hunters,” Death and Renewal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 235–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Corbier, Mireille, “Idéologie et pratique de l’héritage (I^er s. av. J.-C.-II^e s. ap. J.-C.),” Index 13 (1985): 501–28 Google Scholar; and Verboven, The Economy of Friends, 197-200. The latter’s analysis refers primarily to Champlin, Final Judgments, 87-102, which in turn refers to Mansbach, “Captatio: Myth and Reality.”

6. Friedländer, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, 1:248. See the English translation, Roman Life and Manners Under the Early Empire, trans. Leonard A. Magnus (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1907; repr. 1965), 1:213: “It was an open secret at Rome that the most wide-awake and zealous of the officiosi or dandies, were professional ghouls-in-waiting [i.e., legacy hunters], flattering their expected testators, anticipating astrologically their decease, bribing doctors to hasten death on ... The extent of this professional fore-measuring of dead men’s shoes casts a lurid light on the mendacity of the Rome of that day.”

7. See, notably: Mansbach, “Captatio: Myth and Reality,” particularly p. 114; Champlin, Final Judgments, 96 and 100-2, particularly p. 100: “There is almost no factual evidence for the existence of captatio as a historical phenomenon.” Along the same lines, see Verboven, The Economy of Friends, 197-200.

8. According to Mansbach, the phenomenon is primarily addressed in erudite literature. See “Captatio: Myth and Reality,” 3-4.

9. Ibid., 114.

10. See Verboven, The Economy of Friends, 180.

11. Champlin, Final Judgments, 97.

12. See the general description of rich women who “wore the pants”: Friedländer, , Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, 1:278 Google Scholar; Friedländer, , Roman Life and Manners, 1:236–38 Google Scholar.

13. John Percy Vyvian Dacre Balsdon notes: “The rich widow attracted the attention of every sort of gigolo and confidence trickster. Either she knew her power, and enjoyed the tyranny that she exercised, or she was ridiculously gullible.” Balsdon, John Percy Vyvian Dacre, Roman Women: Their History and Habits (London: Bodley Head, 1962), 222 Google Scholar.

14. Holzberg, Niklas, Martial (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1988), 54–55 Google Scholar. Compared to earlier historiography, which viewed satirical verse as symptomatic of pervasive misogyny, Jean Gérard’s approach marks an indisputable epistemological advance. See Gérard, Jean, Juvénal et la réalité contemporaine (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1976), 260–64 Google Scholar.

15. Jens-Uwe Krause does not dwell on rich widows and mentions the phenomenon of legacy hunting only in passing. See his Witwen und Waisen im Römischen Reich, vol. 2 of Wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Stellung von Witwen (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1994), 40.

16. Champlin, Final Judgments, 102.

17. On this topic, see the hypotheses explored in ibid., 89.

18. For an overview of the main texts from antiquity in which this theme is addressed, see ibid., 201-2.

19. Ibid., 87-88 and 201-2 (for a list of sources).

20. Ibid., 95.

21. Analyzing the style and composition of Epigrams as well as the way in which Martial engaged with elements and typology belonging to the literary tradition, Niklas Holzberg maintains that they should be read as pure fictions. See Holzberg, Niklas, Martial und das antike Epigramm (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002), 15 Google Scholar. The poet is no longer considered a person, but an author, who attributes fictitious voices to his various personae. Though this is undoubtedly a useful way to arrive at a more precise understanding of Martial’s Epigrams, its denial of real life seems too extreme. Other recent studies of Martial do not so adamantly reject the connection of Epigrams to reality. On the one hand, Sullivan, John Patrick, in Martial, the Unexpected Classic: A Literary and Historical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Spisak, Art L., in Martial: A Social Guide (London: Gerald Duckworth, 2007)Google Scholar, tend to see Martial’s poetry as a “manual” or “guide” reflecting its readers’ ethical outlook and preoccupations; on the other hand, Fitzgerald, William, in Martial: The World of the Epigram (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Rimell, Victoria, in Martial’s Rome: Empire and the Ideology of Epigram (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, consider Martial’s interest in social critique and the broad palette of issues he addresses.

22. Goldbeck, Fabian, Salutationes. Die Morgenbegrübungen in Rom in der Republik und der frühen Kaiserzeit (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010), 36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. Champlin, Final Judgments, 96.

24. Mratschek-Halfmann, Sigrid, Divites et praepotentes. Reichtum und soziale Stellung in der Literatur der Prinzipatszeit (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1993), 11 and 117 Google Scholar.

25. Kaser, Max, Das Römisches Privatrecht: Ein Studienbuch (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1979), 264–65 Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., 266.

27. Ibid., 281. Even though they were not legally permitted to do so in principle, women could easily become testate if they first followed the purely formal procedure of coemptio with a trustworthy man and then received authorization to be emancipated from manus (remanicipatio) and manumissio.

28. Ibid., 299-300.

29. Ibid., 304. Similarly, one must also include in the category of legacies what was commonly known as “fideicommissum” (fidei commissum), which originally was an informal request made by the testator in a testament to an individual considered trustworthy enough to make a financial payment or gift to another individual. Beginning in the middle of the first century AD, legata and the fideicommissum merged. Justinian claimed the difference between them was purely formal. Justinian Code, 6.43.2.

30. Champlin, Final Judgments, 101; Stern, Yaakov, “The Testamentary Phenomenon in Ancient Rome,” Historia. Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 49–4 (2000): 413–28 Google Scholar.

31. Nörr, Dieter, “Planung in der Antike. Über die Ehegesetze des Augustus,” in Freiheit und Sachzwang. Festschrift zu Ehren von Helmut Schelskys, ed. Horst Baier (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1977), 309–34 Google Scholar.

32. Wagner-Hasel, Beate, “Verschwendung und Politik in Rom. Überlegungen zur politischen Semantik des Luxuskonsums in der späten Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit,” Historische Anthropologie 10–3 (2002): 325–53 Google Scholar.

33. By examining senatorial families, Israel Shatzman shows that patrimony was often acquired and expanded through testaments from friends and individuals beholden to them. See: Shatzman, Israel Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics (Brussels: Latomus, 1975), particularly pp. 409–11 Google Scholar; Tacitus, , Annals 13-16, trans. Jackson, John (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), 13.42 Google Scholar; Pliny the Younger, Letters and Panegyricus 1:5.1; and the commentary of Lewis, Andrew D. E., “The Dutiful Legatee: Pliny, Letters V.1,” in Beyond Dogmatics: Law and Society in the Roman World, eds. Cairns, John W. and Plessis, Paul J. du (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 125–38 Google Scholar.

34. Martin, Jochen, “Zur Anthropologie von Heiratsregeln und Besitzübertragung. 10 Jahre nach den Goody-Thesen,” Historische Anthropologie 1-1 (1993): 149–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially the quote on 152; Shaw, Brent D. and Saller, Richard P., “Close-Kin Marriage in Roman Society?” Man 19-3 (1984): 432–44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Krause, Witwen und Waisen, 215-16.

36. Ibid., 215-16. The fact that fewer female than male testaments are mentioned in the sources does not necessarily mean that women’s patrimonies were smaller, as Champlin implies (Final Judgments, 46-59). This example demonstrates the extent to which the interpretation of data, which is after all difficult to generalize, is shaped by scholarly prejudice, including the frequent assumption that women in antiquity were socially disadvantaged. Krause, for example, presumes that widows were usually poor.

37. In her prosopography of the Roman Empire’s wealthiest citizens, Mratschek-Halfmann gives the example of about fifty women who, in the first century AD, were described by contemporaries as “particularly wealthy”: Divites et praepotentes, nos. 194, 221, 223, 224, 227, 230, 232, 238, 244, 248, 259, etc. Nevertheless, she does not focus on the specific nature of female wealth. The fact that many of the women on her list lived during the second half of the first century AD may have to do with source preservation, but it may also indicate a greater incidence of examples from this period. Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier lists women of the senatorial order, though she refrains from discussing the status of their patrimony. See Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier, Prosopographie des femmes de l’ordre sénatorial, I^er-II^e siècles (Louvain: Peeters, 1987), 2 vols. Existing scholarship undoubtedly needs to conduct more careful analysis of the social characteristics of rich and famous women in order to arrive at more nuanced conclusions, as these are often based on widely held prejudices.

38. Consider, for example, the case of Domitia Lepida, who raised fish and participated in the grain trade. See: Mratschek-Halfmann, , Divites et praepotentes, p. 102, no. 110 Google Scholar; D’Arms, John H., Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 75-76 and 78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On brick-making, see Mratschek-Halfmann, Divites et praepotentes, 103-4 and bibliography.

39. See Krause, Witwen und Waisen, 216 (on dowry restitution) and 49 (on dowry amounts). Krause argues that very large dowries (in the range of several hundred thousand sesterces) were a topos. Susan Treggiari believes, perhaps rightly, that such dowries were real. See Treggiari, Susan, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 345–46 Google Scholar. Pliny the Younger explained that he could receive three million sesterces, intended for land acquisition, from his mother-in-law (possibly in the form of a land guarantee). He himself did not have such a sum available because his own patrimony was invested in real estate. See Pliny the Younger, Letters and Panegyricus 1:3.19.7.

40. Krause, Witwen und Waisen, 88-89. After initially failing at maritime commerce, Trimalcin was able to survive thanks to the high value of his wife’s jewels and clothes. See Petronius, Satyricon, trans. Heseltine, Michael, in Petronius: Satyricon; Seneca: Apocolocyntosis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913), 76.3 Google Scholar. The value of the jewels owned by Lollia Paulina, Emperor Caligula’s wife—who, Tacitus recounted, was forced to commit suicide in 49 AD—was estimated, according to Pliny the Elder, at forty million sesterces. See: Tacitus, , Annals 4-12, trans. Jackson, John (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), 12.22.2–3 Google Scholar; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. Rackham, H. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 3:9.117 Google Scholar; and Mratschek-Halfmann, , Divites et praepotentes, p. 295, no. 93 Google Scholar. According to Tacitus (Annals 13-16, 16.30), Servilia sold jewels and clothes that were signs of her rank in order to pay several magi. Pliny the Younger mentions “clothing, pearls, and jewels” as dowry articles (Letters and Panegyricus 1:5.16.7).

41. Juvenal refers to objects being pawned to finance a luxurious banquet. See Juvenal, , Satires, in Juvenal and Persius, trans. Susanna Morton Braund (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), satire 11, 1–26 Google Scholar.

42. Martial tells of a wealthy woman who sought a divorce after her husband was elected praetor (which required him to finance games). See Martial, Epigrams 2:10.41. On the other hand, Juvenal describes a praetor who attended the morning salutationes of rich women, hoping for a marriage or a testamentary inheritance. See Juvenal, Satires, satire 3, 125-126.

43. In footnote 206 on page 216 of Witwen und Waisen, Krause mentions a number of studies concluding that girls found themselves at a disadvantage compared to their brothers, though Krause himself does not emphasize this point. On women in inheritance law, see Crook’s, John A. summary, “Women in Roman Succession,” in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. Beryl Rawson (London: Croom Helm, 1986,) 58–82 Google Scholar, particularly pp. 78-79. On forms of property transference, see: Saller, Richard P., “Roman Heirship Strategies in Principle and in Practice,” in The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, eds. Kertzer, David I. and Saller, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 26–47 Google Scholar; Martin, “Zur Anthropologie,” 156-57 and 160.

44. On inheritance law, see Kaser, Max, Das Römische Privatrecht: 2, new ed. (Munich: C. H. Beck 1971), § 66, pp. 270–71 Google Scholar. On the practice of renunciation, see: ibid., § 69, p. 283; Corbier, Mireille, “Divorce and Adoption as Roman Familial Strategies (Le divorce et l’adoption ‘en plus’),” in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, ed. Beryl Rawson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 53 Google Scholar.

45. On these questions, see Ann-Cathrine Harders’s summary in Suavissima soror: Untersuchungen zu den Bruder-Schwester-Beziehungen in der römischen Republik (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2008), 314.

46. Kunst, Christiane, Römische Adoption. Zur Strategie einer Familienorganisation (Hennef: Clauss, 2005), 35–36 Google Scholar.

47. “The first, typically Roman thought was, however, to put an end to the childlessness orbitas,” writes Corbier in “Divorce and Adoption,” 63. A strong desire for children is also implied by: Krause, Witwen und Waise, 39-40; Thrams, Peter, “Kinderlosigkeit,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 20 (2004): 947–63 Google Scholar.

48. Krause maintains that, in the Roman Empire, “many marriages (at least a fifth) remained childless.” Krause, Witwen und Waisen, 103.

49. Keith Hopkins and Graham Burton show that, during the late empire, more traditional families had a higher reproduction rate than, say, the families of consules suffecti. See Hopkins, Keith and Burton, Graham, “Political Succession in the Late Republic,” in Death and Renewal, 31–119 Google Scholar. See also Mette-Dittmann, Angelika, Die Ehegesetze des Augustus. Eine Untersuchung im Rahmen der Gesellschaftspolitik des Princeps (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1991), 210 Google Scholar. On current controversies relating to research on the Roman family, see Harders’s very clear synthesis in Suavissima soror, 10-11.

50. See, notably, Harders, Suavissima soror, 82.

51. See Corbier, Mireille, “Idéologie et pratique de l’héritage” and “Les comportements familiaux de l’aristocratie romaine (II^e siècle av. J.-C.-III^e siècle ap. J.-C.),” in Parenté et stratégies familiales dans l’Antiquité romaine, eds. Andreau, Jean et Bruhns, Hinnerk (Rome: École française de Rome, 1990), 241–43 Google Scholar. In particular, see her analysis of the characteristics of “vertical” and “horizontal” circulation. See also Martin, “Zur Anthropologie,” 160. On the diffusion of testamentary practices in Rome and, in particular, on networks, see Stern, “The Testamentary Phenomenon,” 423.

52. On this point, see Wesel, Uwe, “Über den Zusammenhang der lex Furia, Voconia und Falcidia,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Romanistische Abteilung 81 (1964): 308–16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Lex Voconia of 169 BC, which forbade members of the highest census class from making women heirs, see Kaser, , Das Römische Privatrecht, § 66, p. 271 and § 68, p. 281 Google Scholar. On the fideicommissum as a legal instrument for circumventing the Lex Voconia, see Saller, Personal Patronage, 34. On the place of widows in the order of inheritance, see Krause, Witwen und Waisen, 82-83 and bibliography.

53. The Lex Julia de ordinibus maritendis of 18 BC and the Lex Papia Poppea of 9 AD are essential in this context. See: Kaser, Das Römische Privatrecht, 318-321; Nörr, “Planung in der Antike,” particularly p. 315; Raepsaet-Charlier, Prosopographie des femmes, 1:2-12; and Mette-Dittmann, Die Ehegesetze des Augustus.

54. Current research generally endorses the idea that the Leges Juliae did not achieve its demographic goals. See: Dixon, Susanne, The Roman Mother (London: Croom Helm, 1988), 97 Google Scholar; Danielle Gourevitch, “Se marier pour avoir des enfants. Le point de vue du médecin,” in Parenté et stratégies familiales, eds. Jean Andreau and Hinnerk Bruhns, 139-51. Mette-Dittmann, however, maintains that it would be premature to describe this family policy as a “failure”: “From a wider chronological perspective, Augustus’s family policy contributed to the transformation of Rome’s aristocratic elite, which had already governed once, into a ruling class that was increasingly provincial and dispossessed of power. This transformation meant greater stability for the Roman system of government.” Mette-Dittmann, Die Ehegesetze des Augustus, 212-13. On the problematic use of census figures in this context, see ibid., 207-14 and earlier bibliographic references to Mette-Dittmann.

55. The denouncer’s reward was a share of the patrimony confiscated from the convicted. See Nörr, “Planung in der Antike,” 312. On the criminal-legal dimension, see also Daube, David, “The Accuser Under the Lex Julia de Adulteriis ,” Hellenika 9 (1955): 8–21 Google Scholar.

56. Juvenal, Satires, satire 6, 38.

57. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 4:14.1.5. Champlin claims that in this context literary commonplaces of the republican period concerning decadent mores are simply being repeated. However, he overlooks the fact that a close connection between the lack of legitimate descendents and power was not emphasized prior to the late empire. See Final Judgments, 96.

58. Tacitus, , “Dialogue on Oratory,” trans. Peterson, William, in Agricola. Germania. Dialogus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914), 6.2 Google Scholar. That childlessness results in increased potentia can be deduced from Tacitus’s observations about Calvia Crispinilla: “At the same time, the people demanded the punishment of Calvia Crispinilla. She was saved from danger, however, through various artifices on the part of the emperor, who brought ill-reputation upon himself by his duplicity. Crispinilla had taught Nero profligacy; then she had crossed to Africa to stir up Clodius Macer to rebellion, and had openly tried to bring famine to the Roman people. Afterwards she secured popularity with the entire city by her marriage with a former consul, and so was unharmed under Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. Still later she became powerful (potens) through her wealth and childlessness, which have equal weight both in good and evil times.” The Histories, Books I-III, trans. Moore, Clifford H. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), I.73 Google Scholar. On Calvia Crispinilla, see Mratschek-Halfmann, , Divites et praepotentes, p. 137, no. 194 Google Scholar. In Martial’s Epigrams (1:2.32.6), Laronia is considered powerful because she is a childless and rich old widow. See Mratschek-Halfmann, , Divites et praepotentes, p. 133, no. 248 Google Scholar.

59. Pliny the Younger writes: “[Asinius Rufus] has done his duty as a good citizen, and has chosen to enjoy the blessing of a fruitful marriage at a time when the advantages of remaining childless make most people feel a single child a burden.” Pliny the Younger, Letters and Panegyricus 1:4.15.3.

60. Seneca, “On Consolation to Marcia”: “If I may employ a consolation by no means creditable but true, in this city of ours childlessness bestows more influence than it takes away, and the loneliness that used to be a detriment to old age, now leads to so much power that some old men pretend to hate their sons and disown their children, and by their own act make themselves childless.” Seneca, , Moral Essays, trans. Basore, John W. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), 2:19.2 Google Scholar.

61. One finds descriptions of such situations in Pliny the Younger’s Letters: the widow Pomponia Galla renounced her son following a probable dispute (5.1); elsewhere, a father renounces his daughter (6.33). On these examples, see Tellegen’s exhaustive study, The Roman Law of Succession, 82-94 and 110-118. In several of his controversiae, Seneca the Elder discusses the renunciation of sons by testament (abdictatio). See Seneca the Elder, The Elder Seneca, trans. Winterbottom, Michael (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974)Google Scholar, controversies 1:2.1 and 2.4. On this topic, see also Mette-Dittmann, Die Ehegesetze des Augustus, 171 (for other testimonials and its bibliography).

62. On the methods used for avoiding heirs, see Mette-Dittmann’s synthesis, Die Ehegesetze des Augustus, 210-11 and bibliography. On contraception, see: Hopkins, Keith, “Contraception in the Roman Empire,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 8–1 (1965): 124–51 Google Scholar; Brunt, Peter, Italian Manpower: 225 B.C.-A.D. 14 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 146–55 Google Scholar.

63. Concerning ritual morning visits (salutationes), Goldbeck accepts the possibility that such visits with women occurred in the late first century AD but believes that Martial’s accounts of such visits are a topos. Martial, he contends, offers an acerbic critique of legacy hunting: see Goldbeck, Salutationes, 73. On the terminology of amicitia relationships, see Elke Hartmann, “Euer Purpur hat unsere Togen aus dem Dienst entlassen – Zum Wandel des städtischen Klientelwesens im Rom der frühen Kaiserzeit,” Millennium. Jahrbuch zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr. 6 (2009): 3 and bibliography.

64. On this topic, see Goldbeck, Salutationes, 84-87.

65. See the testimonials presented in Champlin, Final Judgments, 201-23.

66. This corresponds to the critique of patron-client relationships common in the works of authors during this period. See Hartmann, “Euer Purpur hat unsere Togen aus dem Dienst entlassen,” particularly p. 35.

67. Juvenal writes: “No one ever kills even a quail for a man with children. If wealthy and childless Gallitta and Pacius have a hint of fever, the entire colonnade is clothed in petitions struck up in the proper way. There are people who will promise a hundred oxen—not elephants, seeing that here there are none, not even for cash. Such a beast doesn’t breed in Latium or anywhere in our climate.” Juvenal, Satires, satire 12, 97-104.

68. Martial, Epigrams 2:9.100.4. On the meaning of receiving large numbers of morning visitors, see Goldbeck, Salutationes, 267-273.

69. Martial, Epigrams 1:2.40, 1:3.76, 2:9.48 and 2:9.88.

70. Juvenal, Satires, satire 4, 18-19; satire 5, 97 and satire 6, 40.

71. Martial, Epigrams 1:5.39.

72. On the phenomenon of impoverishment and the embarrassment it caused the upper classes, see Hartmann, “Euer Purpur hat unsere Togen aus dem Dienst entlassen,” 32.

73. Tacitus, Annals 13-16 15.54.

74. See, for example, Martial, Epigrams, 2:6.66 and 9.8.

75. Juvenal, Satires, satire 5, 97-98.

76. Pliny the Younger describes Regulus’s apparently appalling behavior at the bedside of Verania, Piso’s widow in Letters and Panegyricus 1:2.20.

77. Martial, Epigrams 2.40 and 9.86. Pliny the Elder describes how, in Nero’s time, Julius Vindex allegedly drank cumin to give himself a pale complexion, thus ensuring that there were always legacy hunters in his entourage. See Natural History 6:20.160.

78. Martial, Epigrams 1:2.26: “Quod querulum spirat, quod acerbum Naeuia tussit / inque tuos mittit sputa subinde sinus, / iam te rem factam, Bithynice, credis habere? / Erras: blanditur Naeuia, non moritur.”

79. There is little certainty about the age of those Martial describes as “old” in his Epigrams. It is possible that the women he mocks in his poems were not much older than forty.

80. Women of a certain age in ancient literature were often ridiculed for their purported sexual appetite. See: Kay’s, Nigel M. commentary on Martial 11.29 in Martial, Book XI: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 134–35 Google Scholar; Horace, , Odes and Epodes, trans. Rudd, Niall (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004) 8.12.1–2 Google Scholar. For an overview, see Oeri, Hans Georg, Der Typ der komischen Alten in der griechischen Komödie, seine Nachwirkungen und seine Herkunft (Basel: Schwabe, 1948 Google Scholar). An exhaustive bibliography on the topic can be found in Guillermo Galán Vioque, Martial, Book VII: A Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 75.

81. See Martial, Epigrams 1:3.32, 2:10.67, and 2:10.90. Juvenal, Satires, satire 1, 35-41 and satire 10, 319-20.

82. For other occurrences of this name, see Kay, Martial, Book XI, 135.

83. “Languida cum uetula tractare uirilia dextra / coepisti, iugulor pollice, Phylli tuo: / nam cum me murem, cum me tua lumina dicis, / horis me refici uix puto posse decem. / Blanditias nescis: ‘Dabo’ dic ‘tibi milia centum / et dabo Setini iugera culta soli; / accipe uina, domum, pueros, chrysendeta, mensas.’ / Nil opus est digitis: sic mihi, Phylli, frica.” Martial, Epigrams 3:11.29.

84. On reading Martial, see Best, Edward E., Jr., “Martial’s Readers in the Roman World,” The Classical Journal 64–5 (1969): 208–12 Google Scholar. On the possible ways in which Martial was published, see Winsbury, Rex, The Roman Book: Books, Publishing and Performance in Classical Rome (London: Duckworth, 2009), 23–25 and 95–125 Google Scholar (on recitations).

85. On this point, see Galán Vioque’s commentary in Martial, Book VII, 75.

86. “Vis futui gratis, cum sis deformis anusque. / Res perridicula est: uis dare nec dare uis.” Martial, Epigrams 7.75.

87. Along the same lines, see Galán Vioque, Martial, Book VII, 431.

88. Martial, Epigrams 1:1.10. For other examples, see Howell, Peter, A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial (London: Athlone Press, 1980), 130 Google Scholar. See also: Martial, Epigrams 1:3.93, 2:9.80, and 2:10.8; Juvenal, Satires, satire 6, 136-41.

89. On this topic, see Hartmann, Elke, Frauen in der Antike. Weibliche Lebenswelten von Sappho bis Theodora (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2007), 11–12 Google Scholar.

90. Above all, philological commentaries on epigrams of this kind overlook the fact that, in reality, it is the masculine narrator who is being ridiculed for assuming the role of either an impotent materialist or a prostitute.

91. Martial addresses the contrast between legacy hunting and true friendship: “You are childless and rich and born in Brutus consulship. Do you believe you have true friendships? You do have them, but only those you used to have when you were young and poor. Any one of your new friends is fond of your death.” Martial, Epigrams 3:11.44.

92. Tellegen emphasizes Regulus’s stubbornness but refuses to see his insistence as “illegitimate.” See Tellegen, The Roman Law of Succession, 53.