¹ I would like to express my gratitude for the critical acumen of my fellow laborers, Elizabeth Brown and Claudia Rapp. Their forebearance with primitive draft versions of my paper was a paradigm of endurance; their questioning of matters of substance and rejection of error, models of scholarly dispassion. Thanks are also due to Peter Brown and to the members of the Late Antique Seminar of Princeton University for their critical remarks and suggestions made at the presentation of a paper on the subject in March of 1996. I would also like to note the assistance and advice offered by Keith DeVries, Lois Drewer, Gabriel Herman, Nenad Ivic, Shauna Shaw, Gonda Van Steen, Joel Walker, and an anonymous reader for Traditio. I also note the hospitality of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) during all stages of research and the writing of this essay.Google Scholar

² Boswell, , SSU. In addition to the studies and short-titles cited by Elizabeth Brown (n. 1 of the Introduction above), please note the following: Google Scholar

Blockley = Blockley, Roger C., ed. and trans., The Fragmentary Classisising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius , Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus , 2 vols. (Liverpool, 1981–83).Google Scholar

Bruns, and Sachau, , Syrisch-römisches Rechtsbuch = Bruns, Carl Georg and Sachau, Eduard, eds., Syrisch-römisches Rechtsbuch aus dem fünften Jahrhundert aus den orientalischen Quellen (Leipzig, 1880; repr. Aalen, 1961).Google Scholar

HF = Krusch, Bruno, Levinson, Wilhelm, and Holtzmann, Walther, eds., Gregorii Episcopi Turonensis Historiarum libri X, 2nd ed., MGH SSRM, 1 (Hanover, 1937).Google Scholar

FIRA² = Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani, 3 vols., 2nd ed., ed. Riccobono, Salvatore et al., (Florence, 1972).Google Scholar

Jussen, , Patenschaft und Adoption = Jussen, Bernhard, Patenschaft und Adoption im frühen Mittelalter. Künstliche Verwandtschaft als soziale Praxis (Göttingen, 1991).Google Scholar

Koschaker, , “Adoptio in fratrem” = Koschaker, Paul, “Adoptio in Fratrem,” in Studi in onore di Salvatore Riccobono nel XL anno del suo insegnamento, vol. 3 (Palermo, 1936), 359–76.Google Scholar

Michaelides-Nouaros, , “Peri tês adelphopoiias” = Michaelides-Nouaros, Georgios, “Περὶ τς ἀδελφοποιίας ἐν τ ἀρχαίᾳ ‘Eλλάδι καὶ τ Βυζαντίῳ,” in Zepos, Panagiotes I., Michaelides-Nouaros, Georgios and Simonetos, Georgios, eds., Τόμος κωνσταντίνου ‘Αρμενοπούλου ἐπὶ τ ἑξακοσιετηρίδι τς ‘Eξαβίβλου αὐτου (1345–1945) (Thessaloniki, 1952), 251–313.Google Scholar

Nallino, , “Divieto Romano” = Nallino, Carlo Alfonso, “Intorno al divieto romano imperiale dell’ affratellamento e ad alcuni paralleli arabi,” in Studi in onore di Salvatore Riccobono nel XL anno del suo insegnamento, vol. 3 (Palermo, 1936), 321–57 = ch. 13 in M. Nallino, been used to create a ritual brotherhood in which one man ‘adopted’ another as his ‘brother’. This still leaves a large question to be considered: precisely what kinds of social institutions or arrangements did these rituals seek to confirm? I propose to investigate this problem in the context of evidence relating to the social structures of Roman and post-Roman societies, both to elucidate the social bonds reflected in the rites of adelphopoiesis and to suggest why this peculiar type of personal attachment is strikingly absent from the annals of western Roman imperial society.Google Scholar

ed., Nallino, Carlo Alfonso, Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti, vol. 4: Diritto musulamo, diritti orientali cristiani (Rome, 1942), 585–631 [cited from the reprint edition].Google Scholar

Pitra, , Analecta = Pitra, Jean-Baptiste, ed., Analecta sacra et classica spicilegio Solesmensi parata, 8 vols. (Paris, 1876–91; repr. 1966–67).Google Scholar

Rallês, and Potlês, , Syntagma = Geôrgios Alexandros Rallês and Michaêl Potlês, Σύνταγμα τν θείων καὶ ἱερν κανόνων τν τε ἁγίων καὶ πανευφήμων ἀποστόλων καὶ τν ἱερν οικουμενικν καὶ τοπικν συνόδων … κ.τ.λ., 6 vols. (Athens, 1852–59; repr. Athens, 1966).Google Scholar

Zepos, and Zepos, , Ius Graecoromanum = Zepos, Iohannes and Zepos, Panagiotes, Ius Graecoromanum, 8 vols. (Athens, 1931; repr. Aalen, 1962).Google Scholar

Some of the views expressed here first appeared, though in much abbreviated form, as a review of John Boswell's book under the title, “A Groom of One's Own?” The New Republic (18 and 25 July 1994): 33–41.Google Scholar

³ Du Cange, , Glossarium latinitatis (Paris, 1668; repr. 1938), 10: 67–70. Two of the succeeding ‘dissertations,’ nos. 22 and 23, also contain relevant materials.Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid., 67.Google Scholar

Roman and Post-Roman Societies Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid., 67: “Il est indubitable que l'origine de ces adoptions soit en fils, soit en frère, ne doit pas estre puisée dans le droit romain, mais dans une pratique et dans un usage qui s'est observé de longtemps parmi les princes barbares et septentrionaux.” Google Scholar

⁶ Du Cange, , Glossarium graecitatis, s.v. ἀδελφòς πνευματικòς, ἀδελφοποιητός, ἀδελφοποια-άδελφοποίησις, ἀδελφοποίησις, ἀδελφοπιστία, ἀδελφότης πνευματικὴ, ἀδελφοσύνη, ἀδελφότης, 1: 23–25, where he glosses ἀδελφοποιία and ἀδελφοποίησις as adoptio in fratrem. Google Scholar

⁷ A simple typological point that was emphasized long ago by Kohler, Johannes, “Studien über die künstliche Verwandschaft,” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft 5 (1884): 415–40, at 434–35. Having dealt with artificial connections formed by various types of adoption in the first part of his paper, he continues: “An zweiter Stelle steht, gleichfalls mit der verschiedensten juristischen Wirkung, die Verbrüderung, die Blutbrüderschaft, die Adelphopoiie” (434).Google Scholar

⁸ Herman, Gabriel, “Le parrainage, ‘l'hospitalité,’ et l'expansion du christianisme,” Annales ESC 53 (1998), forthcoming, on the continuity between the Greek and Roman social practices of xenia and hospitium and Christian godparenthood; cf. Lynch, , Godparents and Kinship ; Jussen, , Patenschaft und Adoption; and idem, “Le parrainage à la fin du Moyen Age. Savoir publique, attentes théologiques et usages sociaux,” Annales ESC 47 (1992): 467–502. HF, 10.27 provides a good example drawn from a social context that I shall be investigating in what follows.Google Scholar

⁹ Herman, Gabriel, Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge, 1987), remains the pathbreaking study on the subject for the world of antiquity.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For example, Meeks, Wayne A., The Origins of Christian Morality (New Haven and London, 1993), esp. 170–72; and Fox, Robin Lane, Pagans and Christians (New York, 1987), 324–25, and their references to modern studies (very few, alas). A thorough study of the practice is urgently needed.Google Scholar

¹¹ Christian, William A., Person and God in a Spanish Valley (Princeton, 1972; rev. ed. 1989), 177, for the triangular configuration in which these power relationships are represented.Google Scholar

¹² Kurylowicz, Marek, “Adoption on the Evidence of the Papyri,” Journal of Juristic Papyrology 19 (1983): 61–75; the Egyptian evidence is the best data for the everyday practice of adoption in the Roman world.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid., 61, n. 3.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The earliest of these is Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos iii, Or. 2, 62.26 (PG 26, 280; a.d. 339); followed by pseudo-Chrysostom De caeco et Zacchaeo 35 (PG 59, 605); and Epitimia 73, 5.1 (Pitra, , Analecta, 4: 461–64); for the Christian metaphor of adoption, see Scott, James M., “Υἱοθεσία: the Greco-Roman Institution and the Semantic Field,” in Adoption as Sons of God: An Exegetical Investigation into the Background of υἱοθεσία in the Pauline Corpus (Tübingen, 1992), 3–57; Horsley, G. H. R., “καθ’ υἱοθεσίαν,” New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, no. 88 (Melbourne, 1987), 173. Otherwise, the earliest example of a term close to ἀδελφοποίησις is the word ἀδελφοθετία found in a decree recorded on a bronze plaque concerning the Sicilian Greek polis of Entella: Dubois, Laurent, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile: contribution à l'étude du vocabulaire grec colonial (Paris and Rome, 1989), no. 206, 257–65 (Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 30 [1980], no. 1119), 306–7, perhaps dating to the third century b.c. Google Scholar

¹⁵ Scott, , Adoption as Sons of God, esp. his general conclusions at 267.Google Scholar

¹⁶ So matters have remained to the present day, especially in the context of the much stronger personal power relationships that exist outside the penumbra of the institutional apparatuses of state and society. Henry Hill recollects of his life in the American ‘mafia’: “The only way to guarantee that I'm not going to get ripped off by anybody is to be established with a member, like Pauli [viz., Paul Vario]. Somebody who is a made man. A member of a crime family. A soldier. Then, if somebody [messes] with you, they [mess] with him, and that's the end of the ballgame. Goodbye.”: Pileggi, Nicholas, Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family (New York, 1985), 55; for further notices of these ‘made’ men see 117–19; the artificial kin linkage thus created is conceived as potentially more significant than a biological father-son relationship (75: Pauli was Henry's ‘real’ father); the same terms are used in the Italian and Sicilian dialects of the ‘old’ mafia in Italy, see, e.g., Arlacchi, Pino, Men of Dishonor — Inside the Sicilian Mafia: An Account of Antonino Calderone, trans. Marco Romano (New York, 1992), 51, 68–69: creating a ‘made’ man is a way of renewing ‘the family.’ Google Scholar

¹⁷ The text of the four manuscripts reported by Boswell, , SSU, 345–47, 351–63, reads: Google Scholar

(i) καὶ δòς αὐτος τò ἀγαπν ἀλλήλους ἀμισήτως καὶ ἀσκανδαλίστως πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τς ζως αὐτν (Grottaferrata Γ.β. II);Google Scholar

(ii) ‘Υπὲρ το διαφυλαχθναι τὴν ἀγάπην ἀμίσιτον καὶ ἀσκανδάλιστον μέχρι βίον ζως αὐτν, το κυρίου δεηθμεν (Vaticanus Graecus 1811 [1147]);Google Scholar

(iii) δς αὐτοις χάριν το ἀγαπν ἀλλήλους, ἀμισήτους καὶ ἀσκανδαλίστους εναι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τς αὐτν … ἀνάδειξον καὶ ἐν μέσῳ αὐτν γενέσθαι καταξίωσον ἀσκανδαλίστους αὐτοὺς ἐκ τν μεθοδιν το διαβόλου καὶ τν πονηρν αὐτο πνευμάτων … (Sinai 966);Google Scholar

(iv) δòς αὐτοις, κύριε, το ἀγαπν ἀλλήλους ἀμισήτους καὶ ἀσκανδαλίστους εναι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τς ζως αὐτν (Mt. Athos Panteleimon 780).Google Scholar

¹⁸ St.-Michel, Denise, Concordance de l’“Historia Francorum” de Grégoire de Tours, 2 vols. (Montreal, 1984), 2: 912 (thirty-two instances). The word has both a Christian hue of moral wrong and a secular sense used to describe violent social relationships in a highly disintegrated society. It is not found in the vocabulary of the classical historians from Tacitus to Ammianus Marcellinus. Gregory of Tours, however, is not alone in the latter usage for the society of his time; it is also found in the sermons of Caesarius of Arles (e.g., Serm. 13.3; 19.3; 35.4; 35.5; among seventeen cases).Google Scholar

¹⁹ HF 3.5 and 2.2 (see 3.27 for one of the rare ‘moral’ usages); the translations that I have consulted seem to be strongly influenced by the modern English connotations of ‘scandal’ and so fail consistently to catch the central place of physical violence, and the atmosphere of feuding and ambush, that are the manifest basis of Gregory's usage.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid., 8.30.Google Scholar

²¹ Ibid., 7.14.Google Scholar

²² Ibid., 2.36; 4.12; 4.28; 6.10; 6.22; 8.13; and 10.4, for some examples.Google Scholar

²³ Ibid., 10.27.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid., 10.28.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid., 9.20: the agreement is struck “ut omnia quae undecumque inter ipsos scandalum poterant generare, pleniori consilio definirent.” Compare the earlier case of a.d. 533 (3.15) where the agreement between Theuderic and Childebert was founded on oaths that they would not attack each other. They took hostages to ensure that their promises would be kept. Despite these arrangements, a new scandalum broke out. Note that in the Latin of the time caritas was often understood to signify fraternitas or ‘brotherhood’; on how the one term came to substitute for the other, see David, , “Sur les traces,” esp. 114–15, 116.Google Scholar

²⁶ HF 9.20: “Tamen si eum scandalizat illud, quod legatos Chlotharii nepotis mei suscipio: numquid demens sum, ut non possim temperare inter eos, ne scandalum propagetur?” Google Scholar

²⁷ Shaw, Brent D., “Tyrants, Bandits and Kings: Personal Power in Josephus,” Journal of Jewish Studies 44 (1993): 176–204; and idem, “Josephus: Roman Power and Responses to It,” Athenaeum 83 (1995): 357–90.Google Scholar

²⁸ Hamilton-Grierson, , “Brotherhood (Artificial),” 857–71, at 869.Google Scholar

²⁹ Livy Ab urbe condita 1.1.8: “Dextra data fidem futurae amicitiae sanxisse. Inde foedus ictum inter duces, inter exercitus salutationem factam; Aenean apud Latinum fuisse in hospitio: ibi Latinum apud penates deos domesticum publico adiunxisse foedus filia Aeneae in matrimonium data.” Google Scholar

³⁰ Caesar BG 1.36: “si id non fecissent, longe eis fraternum nomen populi Romani afuturum”; 1.44: “Quod fratres a senatu Aeduos appellatos diceret.” Google Scholar

³¹ Tac. Ann. 11.25.1: “Datum id foederi antiquo et quia soli Gallorum fraternitatis nomen cum populo Romano usurpant.” Google Scholar

³² A striking text not noted by Boswell, , SSU (or by the studies upon which he depended), but one that deserves to be brought into the general argument, is Euseb. Praep. Evang. 6.10.27: παρὰ δὲ Γάλλοις oἰ νέοι γαμονται μετὰ παρρησίας, οὐ ψόγον τοτο ἡγούμενοι διὰ τòν παρ’ αὐτος νόμον. καὶ οὐ δυνατόν ἐστι πάντας τοὺς ἐν Γάλλιᾳ οὕτως ἀθέως ὑβριζομένους λαχεν ἐν τας γενέσισι …. Eusèbe de Césarée, La préparation évangélique, livres V. 18–36; VI, trans. des Places, Edouard, SC 266 (Paris, 1980), 222. The translator provides women for the Gallic youths to ravish (“En Gaul, les jeunes gens servent des femmes en toute licence … les Gaulois à ne pas servir de femmes”). But the verb gamêo is in the passive voice and its meaning is explicit; there is no mention of women in the text, and the sense of moral outrage that surrounds the other cases discussed by Eusebius would be nonsensical if the young men were just ‘servicing’ women. In fact, Eusebius's Greek is faithful to the Syriac original (n. 34 below).Google Scholar

³³ Euseb. Praep. Evang. 6.10.35: καὶ οὐκ ἀναγκάζει ἠ γένεσις … τοὺς Γάλλοις μὴ γαμεσθαι ….Google Scholar

³⁴ Han Drijvers, J. W., The Book of the Laws of the Countries: Dialogue on Fate of Bardaisan of Edessa (Assen, 1965), 48–49; Langlois, Victor, ed. and trans., Le pseudo-Bardesan. Le livre de la loi des contrées, in Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. 5.2 (Paris, 1872), 73–94, at 86; for the Syriac text, see Nau, François, Bardesanes: Liber Legum Regionum = Patrologia syriaca 1.2 (Paris, 1907), 490–658, and his Le Livre des Lois des Pays, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1931); the text is thought to have been written by Bardaisan's pupil Philippus: see Teixidor, Javier, Bardesane d'Edesse. La première philosophe syriaque (Paris, 1992), 86–102.Google Scholar

³⁵ HF 9.19: “Bellum vero illud, quod inter cives Toronicus superius diximus terminatum, in rediviva rursum insania surgit. Nam Sicharius, cum post interfectionem parentum Chramsindi magnam cum eo amiciciam patravisset, et in tantum se cantate mutua diligerent, ut plerumque simul cibum caperent, ac in uno pariter stratu recumberent, quadam die coenam sub nocturno tempore preparat Chramsindus, invitans Sicharium ad epulum suum … ad extremum dixisse fertur: ‘Magnas mihi debes referre grates, o dulcissime frater, eo quod interficerim parentos tuos…. Haec ille audiens, amaro suscepit animo dicta Sichari, dixitque in corde suo: ‘Nisi ulciscar interitum parentum meorum, amittere nomen viri debeo et mulier infirma vocare.’ Et statim extinctis luminaribus, caput Sichari seca dividit…. Chramsindus exanimum corpus nudatum vestimentis adpendit in saepis stipite…. At ille … Vosagensim territurii Biturigi pagum expitiit, in quo [et] eius parentes degebant…. Tranquilla quoque, conjux Sicharii, relictis filiis et rebus viri sui in Toronico sive in Pectavo, ad parentes suos Mauriopes vicum expetiit; ibique et matrimonio copulata est. Obiit autem Sicharius quasi annorum viginti.” Google Scholar

³⁶ Ibid., 7.47.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid., 7.47 fin.: “Tunc datum ab aeclesia argentum, quae iudicaverant, accepta securitate conposuit, datis sibi partes invicem sacramentis, ut nullo umquam tempore contra alterum pars alia musitaret. Et sic altercatio terminum fecit.” Google Scholar

³⁸ These characteristics are precisely replicated in a fictional ritual brotherhood described by the Serbian novelist Janko Veselinovic: Kretzenbacher, , Rituelle Wahlverbrüderung, 15–16.Google Scholar

³⁹ Monod, Gabriel, “Les aventures de Sichaire. Commentaire des chapitres xlvii du livre vii et xix du livre ix de l’Histoire des Francs de Grégoire de Tours,” Revue historique 31 (1886): 259–90; Wallace-Hadrill, John Michael, “The Bloodfeud of the Franks,” in The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History (London, 1962), 121–47, at 139–42; Mathisen, Ralph W., “The Final Resolution: Aristocratic Options in Post-Roman Gaul,” in Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin, 1993), 132–43, at 141.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Trask, William R. (Princeton, 1957/1971), 77–95, at 84; cf. 85: “An earlier antique author, then, would not have treated this story at all”; and 87: “A scene, then, which no antique historian would have considered worth representing, Gregory represents in a most graphic manner.” Auerbach's claim is only partially true, and depends on the relationship of the historian to the power system. It is certainly not true of Herodotus, who does retail colorful stories about such fictive kinship rituals — see, e.g., Hdt. 1.74.6 (Medes and Persians), 4.70.1 (Skythians). I would also have to dissent from Auerbach's essentializing claims about ‘barbarian psychology’ in which he presents the persons involved as having no consciousness of past and future, and hence no consciousness of the true meaning of their own social institutions: “It seems that the two had honestly become such close friends that, their consciousness being alive only to the passing moment, it never occurred to them how unnatural and dangerous such a friendship really was.” Quite the reverse, such a friendship was not ‘unnatural’ by any reasonable standards of the society concerned, and the participants were surely well aware of its relationship to danger.Google Scholar

⁴¹ For citation of the relevant primary evidence on their origins, see Barnes, Timothy D., “The Careers and Families of Emperors,” in The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 30–46.Google Scholar

⁴² So Seston, William, Dioclétien et la Tétrarchie, 1. Guerres et réformes (284–300) (Paris, 1946), 64–65, echoing many others, and followed by many others since; but he is refuted, correctly, by Kolb, Frank, Diocletian und die Erste Tetrarchie. Improvisation oder Experiment in der Organisation monarchischer Herrschaft? (Berlin and New York, 1987), 44–47.Google Scholar

⁴³ P. Lond. 710 (a.d. 287); Lact. Mort. Pers. 8.1: ‘frater eius [sc. Diocletiani] Maximianus’; Pan. Lat. 6 (7). 15.6: ‘ab eo [sc. Diocletiano] fuerat frater adscitus’; see, further, Pan. Lat. 7 (6).9.5; 6 (7).15.2; 11 (3).7.6–7; and 7 (6).11.2.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Modern day historians remain puzzled over the reasons for the use of the ‘adoption of a brother’ mechanism by Diocletian and his colleagues, and for its subsequent abandonment in favor of a father-son ideology. Being unaware of the social practice of ritual brotherhood, they attempt to interpret the significance of the bond from a central Roman perspective. But the problem is not so much one of Diocletian ‘experimenting’ with various alternatives or ‘keeping his options open’ (Kolb, , Diocletian und die Erste Tetrarchie, 45), as it is one of an evolutionary development. After the Danubian big men had seized control of the state, they eventually adopted its ways.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ HF 2.12; 3.15; 5.16, 38, 49 fin.; 7.38. Note that all the salient acts and rituals are found in similarly structured societies at an earlier date in the eastern Mediterranean; see Shaw, , “Tyrants, Bandits and Kings” (n. 27 above), esp. fig. 1, 203.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ The term ‘Skythian’ is deliberately anachronistic and ‘classicizing’ among the writers of the period. The peoples to whom they are referring could be Tervingi, Greuthungi (‘Goths’), Alans, Heruls, Taifali, Gepids, Sarmatians, and other transdanubian peoples of the time.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Claude, Dietrich, “Zur Begründung familiärer Beziehungen zwischen Kaiser und barbarischen Herrschern,” in Chrysos, Evangelos K. and Schwarcz, Andreas, eds., Das Reich und die Barbaren (Vienna and Cologne, 1989), 25–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁸ Priskos, frg. 2 (Dind. 280–81) = Blockley, frg. 6.1 (230–31): oἰ δὲ ἔφασαν πάντα ποιήσειν τὰ ἀγαθά, εἰ τὴν αὐτο ἄγοι ἐς ἔργον ὑπόσχεσιν. δεξιν τε καὶ ὅρκων ἐπὶ τος εἰρημένοις δοθέντων, μετὰ βαρβαρικς πολυπληθίσας ἐς τὴν ‘Ρωμαɩκὴν ἐπάνεισι γν ….Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Jones, Christopher P., Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge, Mass., 1986) for the cultural background of Lucian, esp. 56–58, specifically on the Toxaris; Michaelides-Nouaros “Peri tês adelphopoiias,” 269–72.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Konstan, David, Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge, 1997), with reference to earlier studies.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Lucian Toxaris, 37; cf. Herman, , Ritualized Friendship, fig. 7 for a pictorial representation of the rituals that involved drinking from a common cup.Google Scholar

⁵² Lucian, Toxaris, 44–55.Google Scholar

⁵³ Ibid., 7, 35–36, 39, and 63.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Priskos, , frg. 16 (Dind. 329–30) = Blockley, Book 5, frg. 20.3 (306–7); ὅν κατὰ τὴν ‘Ρώμην εἴδομεν πρεσβευόμενοι μήπω ἰούλου ἀρχόμενον, ξανθòν τὴν κόμην τος αὐτο περικεχυμένην διὰ μέγεθος ὤμοɩς. θετòν δὲ αὐτòν ὁ ‘Aέτιος ποιησάμενος παδα καὶ πλεστα δρα δοὺς ἃμα τ βασιλεύοντι ἐπὶ φιλίᾳ τε καὶ ὁμαιχμίᾳ ἀπέπεμψεν. Note that Aëtius was already an amicus or ritual friend of the Huns (HF 2.8).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ HF 5.16: “In Brittanis haec acta sunt. Macliavus quondam et Bodicus Brittanorum comites sacramentum inter se dederant, ut, quis ex eis superviveret, filius patris alterius tamquam proprius defensaret.” Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The region was one of endemic banditry, even when measured against the violent standards of Merovingian society; see HF 9.18.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Boehm, Consider Christopher, Blood Revenge: The Enactment and Management of Conflict in Montenegro and Other Tribal Societies (Lawrence, Kan., 1984; repr. Philadelphia, 1987), 137: the report of an artificial brother-making ceremony in Montenegro in 1890 (typical of many ethnographic field reports): “This did not conclude the ceremony. After the feast the godfatherhoods and blood-brotherhoods had to be concluded, and we discover that great blood-brotherhoods are relationships in which the same men become simultaneously blood brothers and godfathers to one another. The point of creating these ritual kinship ties, between men who were not kinsmen by blood, was perfectly obvious to the Montenegrins. It was to cement positive bonds between members of two clans ….” Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For a survey of the evidence, see Prévost, Marcel Henri, Les adoptions politiques à Rome sous la République et le Principat (Paris, 1949).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ The data are scant, probably because ‘fosterage’ arrangements were preferred to those of strict adoption. On the institution of the alumni/ae see Nielsen, H. S., “Alumnus: A Term of Relation Denoting Quasi-Adoption,” Classica et Mediaevalia 38 (1987): 141–88; Bellemore, Jane and Rawson, Beryl, “Alumni: the Italian Evidence,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 83 (1990): 1–19; for the evidence from the Christian period, the survey by Leclercq, Henri, “Alumni,” DACL 1 (1907): 1288–1306, is still valuable.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Kurylowicz, , “Adoption” (n. 12 above), 72–75; the Roman laws governing the practice of adoption in the East are Dig. 45.1.132 (Paul); and CJ 8.47.4; 4.19.13; 8.47.6 (rescripts issued by Diocletian on adoption date to his travels in the eastern provinces in a.d. 293–94).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Bruns, and Sachau, , Syrisch-römisches Rechtsbuch 2: 114 (§ 127 from the Syriac text); 144 (§ 126 from the Armenian text), and commentary, 2: 254–57 (§ 86); the lost Greek original dates to ca. 476–80; the surviving Syriac version, made in Mesopotamia, dates to the eighth century. The Greek text is a modern retroversion from the Syriac.Google Scholar

⁶² Another example of the adoption of a brother that has not yet (to my knowledge) been discussed is found in the Controversiae of the Elder Seneca (Controv. 3.3). Once again, the details of the case suggest an eastern or Greek social practice rather than a Roman one.Google Scholar

⁶³ Dig. 38.8.3 (Unde Cognati): Iulianus libro vicensimo septimo digestorum: “Capitis deminutione peremuntur cognationes, quae per adoptionem adquisitae sunt. Igitur si post mortem verbi gratia fratris adoptivi intra centensimum diem adoptivus frater capite deminutus fuerit, bonorum possessionem accipere non poterit, quae proximitatis nomine fratris defertur: praetorem enim non solum mortis tempus, sed etiam id, quo bonorum possessio petitur, intueri palam est.” Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Dig. 28.5.59 [58].pr (De Heredibus Instituendis): Idem libro quarto ad Vitellium: “Nemo dubitat recte ita heredens nuncupari posse ‘hic mihi heres est.’ cum sit coram, qui ostenditur. 1. Qui frater non est, si fraterna cantate diligitur, recte cum nomine suo sub appellatione fratris heres instituitur.” Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Paul (from the fourth book of his Sententiae) = Collatio 16.3.15: “Consanguinei sunt eodem patre nati, licet diversis matribus, qui in potestate fuerint mortis tempore: adoptivus quoque frater, si non sit emancipatus, et his qui post mortem patris nati sunt vel causam probaverunt.” Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Among the most important studies are those by Tamassia, , L'affratellamento; Nallino, , “Divieto romano”; and Koschaker, , “Adoptio in Fratrem.” Google Scholar

⁶⁷ CJ 6.24.7 (Impp. Diocletianus et Maximianus AA. Zizoni): “Nec apud peregrinos fratrem sibi quisquam per adoptionem facere poterat. Cum igitur, quod patrem tuum voluisse facere dicis, irritum sit, portionem hereditatis, quam is adversus quem supplicas velut adoptatus frater heres institutus tenet, restitui tibi curae habebit praeses provinciae.” Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Tellegen-Couperus, Olga E., Testamentary Succession in the Constitutions of Diocletian (Amsterdam, 1982), 66–70.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Koschaker, , “Adoptio in Fratrem,” 373; on the dating see Barnes, , The New Empire (n. 41 above), 50 (“Imperial Residences and Journeys”): on 2 November 285, Diocletian was at Civitas Iovia and Sonista, and in early December was surely further to the east; for political context, see Corcoran, Simon, The Empire of the Tetrarchs: Imperial Pronouncements and Government, a.d. 284–324 (Oxford, 1996), 115 and 174; Honoré, Anthony M., Emperors and Lawyers, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1994), 154–55, attributes the drafting of the constitution to the magister memoriae Gregorius who was old-fashioned and provincial in his attitudes, and who was also responsible for the constitution on bigamy (CJ 5.5.2).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ FIRA ² , vol. 2, Leges saeculares, no. 86 (Libri Syro-Romani interpretationem A. C. Ferrini confectam, castigavit iterum edidit novis adnotationibus instruxit J. Furlani), 780; cf. Bruns, and Sachau, , Syrisch-römisches Rechtsbuch, 2: 257, on which see Koschaker, , “Adoptio in Fratrem,” 373, and Nallino, , “Divieto romano,” 597, no. 1. The name in Lucian's dialogue, Σισίννης, is a normal Greek one (not Slavic): see Fraser, Peter M. and Matthews, Elaine, A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1987), 408 (Σισίννιος) and Pape, Wilhelm, rev. Benseler, Gustav Eduard, Wörterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen, 3rd ed. (Braunschweig, 1884), 1400; close analogues to Zizo are found in the region of Arabia: a place named Ζίζα in Arabia Petraea (Ptol. 5.16.6); and, in one MS variant, a phylarch of the Arabs in the time of Alexander Jannaeus named Ζίζος (Josephus, , AJ, 13.384): see ibid., 446.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Amm. Marc. Res Gestae, 17.12.9 (a.d. 358 in operations around Sirmium): Zizais was a tall and handsome regalis; 17.12.20; 17.13.30 (Constantius appoints him king); Huchthausen, Liselot, “ ‘Thrakerreskripte’ aus dem Codex lustinianus,” Acta Universitatis Nicolai Copernici: Historia 13 (1979): 7–20 opts for a Thracian origin for the petitioner.Google Scholar

⁷² Basilicorum libri LX: Series A, vol. 5 (textus librorum xxxv–xlii), 35.13.17, ed. Scheltema, Herman Jan, van der Wal, Nicolaas, and Holwerda, Douwe, 8 vols. (Groningen, 1953–88): 5 (1967), 1620; cf. the earlier editions of Fabroti, A. and Heimbach, C. G. E., eds. (Leipzig, 1833–70): 3 (1843), 606; and Zepos, and Zepos, , Ius Graecoromanum, 5: Synopsis Basilicorum (Athens, 1931; repr. Aalen, 1962), 28, p. 64: Μηδὲ παρὰ ξένοις τος ἔξω ‘Ρώμης οἰκοσι διὰ θέσεως ἀδελφότης συνιστάσθω. κἄν τις ὡς ἀδελφòς προσληφθεὶς κληρονόμος γραφ, ἐκπιπτέτω τς κληρονομίας. καὶ ὅτε οὐκ ἔξεστίν τινι εἰς θέσιν λαμβάνειν ἑαυτ ἀδελφόν· εἰ δὲ προσληφθ κληρονόμος, ἐκπίπτει.Google Scholar

⁷³ LX Librorum ΒΑΣΙΛΩΝ: id est universi iuris Romani, auctoritate principum Romanorum Graecam in linguam traducti. Ecloga sive Synopsis , ed. Leunclaim, J. (Basel, 1575), 35.13.15, p. 347 = Zepos, and Zepos, , Ius Graecoromanum: 5: 28, Σ ‘c’, p. 64: ‘Eδεήθη τις βασιλέως, ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ αὐτο ἔλαβεν εἰς θέσιν ἑαυτ ἀδελφόν, καὶ τελευτν ὡς ἀδελφòν ἐνεστήσατο κληρονόμον αὐτόν. καὶ λέγει ἡ διάταξις· Οὐκ ἔξεστί τινι λαβεν εἰς θέσιν ἑαυτο (λεγ· ἑαυτ) ἀδελφόν, καὶ δυνατòν ἀποσπσθαι παρ’ αὐτο τò μέρος το κληρονόμου (λεγ· τς κληρονομίας). δύναμαι καὶ γράφειν κληρονόμον τòν πρòς ὅν ἔχω σχέσιν ἀδελφικήν, μετὰ τς κυρίας προσηγορίας ἀδελφòν αὐτòν ὀνομάζων. εἰ δὲ μὴ ἀπò τοιαύτης σχέσεως, ἀλλὰ Google Scholar

κατὰ πλάνην ὡς ἀδελφòν αὐτòν ἔγραψα, ἡ ἔνστασις ἀκυροφται. Τhe scholia to the Basilika are categorized as ‘old’, dating to the eleventh century, and ‘new’, dating to both the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The heading for this scholion is περὶ ἀδελφοποιίας.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Zepos, and Zepos, , Ius Graecoromanum, 5: 28, Σ ‘a’, p. 64: Τος μὴ συγγενέσιν οσι δηλονότι. ὡς ον παρὰ τος συγγενέσιν οὐ κεκώλυται ἠ κατὰ θέσιν ἀδελφότης· εἰ γὰρ τις ξένον τινὰ κατὰ θέσιν ἀδελφòν ὄντα γραφ κληρονόμον ἀδελφόν ὀνομάσας, οὐ ποιε κληρονόμον διὰ τò ἀδελφòν αὐτòν ὀνομάσαι, ὡς το νόμου τούτου κωλύοντος τὴν κατὰ θέσιν ἀδελφότητα.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Zepos, and Zepos, , Ius Graecoromanum, 5: 28, Σ ‘b’, p. 64: ‘Η θέσις μιμεται τὴν φύσιν. οὐδεὶς δὲ ἑαυτ γενν ἀδελφόν.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Zepos, and Zepos, , Ius Graecoromanum, 7: II(*), pp. 503–4. The discussion is headed: ‘΄Οτι οὐκ ἔστι τος νόμος δεκτὴ ἡ ἐκ διαθέσεως ἀδελφότης, καὶ διὰ τοτο οὐδὲ γαμικὰ συναλλάγματα ἐμποδοστατε. Since the whole text is too long to cite in its entirety, the critical Greek terms are included in the discussion in the text above.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ A concern for which legislative provision had to continue to be made; see Leo, , Novellae, 24: Περὶ το μὴ γαμεν τὰ τέκνα τὰ φυσικὰ τὰ θετά· φιν τοιγαρον καὶ θεσπίζομεν, μηδαμς ἐξεναι τοὺς οὓτως ὐποβεβηκότας τò τν ἀδελφν ὄνομα πρòς τò τς συζυγίας ἀντὶ τς ἀδελφότητος μεθαρμόζεσθαι. See Zepos, and Zepos, , Ius Graecoromanum, 1: Novellae et Aureae Bullae Imperatorum post Iustinianum, 86–87.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Chomatenos's rulings therefore provide insights into this aspect of the society as well: Macrides, Ruth J., “Killing, Asylum, and the Law in Byzantium,” Speculum 63 (1988): 509–38, at 519–20 and esp. 533–34.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ I concentrate on the northern frontiers, since it is here that ritual brotherhoods are most extensively attested in the existing sources. They doubtless existed elsewhere among other societies dominated by segmentary lineage systems, as among the Arabic peoples: see Nallino, Carlo Alfonso, “L'Affratellamento e l'Islamismo,” in “Divieto Romano,” 614–29; and in the Axumite kingdom of Ethiopia: see Kobishchanov, Yuri M., Axum , trans. Kapitanoff, Lorraine T. (University Park, Pa., 1979), 107, for a typical case. Abreha, the rebellious head of the Himyarite kingdom in southwestern Arabian peninsula, and Ella Asbeha, the king of Axum, were reconciled as ‘blood brothers’ (ca. a.d. 545). Ella Asbeha himself had earlier (ca. a.d. 524–25) become the godfather of Sumafa Ashwa, the very man in the Himyarite kingdom whom he had been sent out to destroy (ibid., 101–2).Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Hamilton-Grierson, , “Brotherhood (Artificial),” § 32–43 (= “iii. The institution among the Southern Slavs”).Google Scholar

⁸¹ Ibid., 865, citing Ciszewski, , Künstliche Verwandtschaft, 33–35, 60–68.Google Scholar

⁸² For example, Angold, Michael, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081–1261 (Cambridge, 1995), 556–57, strongly suspects a case of adelphopoiesis based on a text that only mentions a condemnation of male homosexuality: Munitiz, Joseph A., ed., Nicephori Blemmydae Autobiographia sive Curriculum Vitae necnon Epistula Universalior, CCG 15 (Turnhout, 1984), 1: 19–21 (pp. 12–13).Google Scholar

⁸³ Procop. Wars, 1.2.12–15; 1.3.5–7; 1.3.17; 5.29.42–43; 6.1.14; 7.32.6; 7.36.23; 7.36.28; 7.34.44; 8.2.18. A detailed case is the Sasanian monarch Kavad's attempt in a.d. 518 to form a close bond with the Byzantine emperor Justin by the device of coparenthood — through Justin's adoption of Kavad's son, Khusro. The link was never consummated, since the Roman emperor's advisers objected to the pretended adoption as incompatible with the legal forms of Roman adoption (1.11.6–29). The divergent ethnic, social, and legal customs only produced hostility: Khusro could not understand why the adoption could not take place, and so he took the Roman rejection as a mortal insult (1.11.29).Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Procop. Wars, 1.5.12–40; on the nature of the intense personal sentiments between the two men, see 1.5.35–40.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Demandt, Alexander, “Der spätrömische Militäradel,” Chiron 10 (1980): 609–36; with modifications and additions in idem, “The Osmosis of Late Roman and Germanic Aristocracies,” in Chrysos, Evangelos K. and Schwarcz, Andreas, eds., Das Reich und die Barbaren (Vienna and Cologne, 1988), 75–85.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Lynch, , Godparents and Kinship, 163 n. 2, specifies the sixteen times that Gregory mentions baptismal kinship arrangements. All but one, Lynch notes, are contemporary with Gregory; he knows virtually nothing about the practice before his own time. The one earlier example he does record (that of Clovis) clearly has exceptional force, because of Clovis's extraordinary stature (but, even so, at only three generations from the event, Gregory does not even know the name of the king's baptismal sponsor).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Amm. Marc. Res Gestae 14.10.1 (a.d. 354); 16.12.17 (a.d. 357); 21.3.4 (a.d. 361): the fratres Gundomadus and Vadomarius; 18.2.15–17 (a.d. 359); Macrianus and Hariobaudus are fratres, indeed germani fratres. Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Hellmuth, , Die germanische Blutsbrüderschaft. Hellmuth purposefully limits his purview to the role of ‘blood’ in the brothering rituals, but he imposes this limitation mainly because the oral-based literary sources upon which he depends highlight blood-sharing as the formative ritual. This perspective dominates these texts, however, because the authors viewed the elements of the rituals from a non-Christian or ‘pagan’ perspective. Hellmuth's decision to focus on the blood-sharing ritual, therefore, tends to mislead; the bond and the rituals are certainly those of ritual brotherhood.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Amm. Marc. Res Gestae , 29.5.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ PLRE, 1, s.v., “Festus (3),” 334–35.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Amm. Marc. Res Gestae 29.2.22: “Festus quidam Tridentinus ultimi sanguinis et ignoti, in nexum germanitatis a Maximino dilectus ut sodalis et contogatus, decernentibus fatis ad orientem transgressus est ibique administrata Syria magisterioque memoriae peracto bona lenitudinis et reverentiae reliquit exempla, unde regere Asiam proconsulari potestate exorsus velificatione tranquilla, ut aiunt, ferebatur ad gloriam.” Some of the MSS have ‘Festinus’ as the man's name, but his career shows clearly that it is Festus that is meant. The ‘inus’ ending on his name must have resulted from dittography of the ‘Tridentinus’. The Latin mimics the terms of biological kinship descent; cf. Apul. Met. 2.3: when Lucius meets his kinswoman (parens) in Thessaly, she tells him: “Parentis tuae non modo sanguinis, verum alimoniarum etiam socia, nam et familia Plutarchi ambae prognatae sumus, et eandem nutricem simul bibimus, et in nexu germanitatis una coaluimus.” Google Scholar

⁹² Amm. Marc. Res Gestae 28.1.5; cf. PLRE, 1, s.v., “Maximinus (7),” 577–78.Google Scholar