Rome and Us #5: Selecting the Successor

In most cultures, the eldest son was the heir to the throne. Rome wasn’t like most cultures, as Mary Beard points out in SPQR:

“There was no presumption in Roman law that the firstborn son would be the sole or principal heir.”

Instead, what decided the successor was cold realpolitik:

“A successful claim to power also rested on behind-the-scene manoeuvres, on the support of key interest groups, on being groomed for the part and on the careful manipulation of opinion. It also depended on being in the right place at the right time.”

 

So what happened if a Roman emperor didn’t have any living heirs? Or they turned out to be incompetent? Or if the emperor didn’t like his children? The most common solution was: adoption!

 

But no, Romans didn’t adopt a baby in such cases. Why not? For one, infant mortality rates were high, so who knew if the baby would survive into adulthood? Secondly, even if it did survive, who knew if it would grow up to be competent or still be in the good books of the father? And so, in Rome:

“Those adopted were likely to be distinguished adolescents or young adults than babies.”

(Contrast this with how succession is decided in most Indian political parties – it’s always the son, daughter, or nephew. Competence is irrelevant.)

 

This being Rome, they made sure this emphasis on competence was trumpeted. A virtue doesn’t have to be modest:

“When you are about to hand over control over of the senate and people of Rome, the armies, the provinces, the allies to one man alone, would you look at the belly of a wife to produce him or search for an heir to supreme power within the walls of your home?... If he is to rule over all, he must be chosen from all,” said Pliny the Younger.

Mani Shankar Aiyar clearly didn’t subscribe to this view when he mocked Modi, the PM candidate of 2014, for being a chai wallah.

 

If the successor was to be chosen from all, it meant the net had to be cast far and wide. And not just within Rome. And so it happened that:

“Trajan, the first such adoptee (emperor), was originally from Spain.”

Something which the Romans loved to highlight:

“In a way that dramatically fulfilled the Roman project of incorporation, they made the point that the emperor could come from the provinces of the empire.”

A practice that continues even today, like when America points out how many immigrants have done so well and risen so high in their society.

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