La domus Augusta et les formations de parenté à Rome

Abstract

This paper deals with the anthropological typology of the domus Augusta as a kin group, when it appeared, at the end of the Augustan principate. In spite of some recent scholarly views, we cannot regard it as a «house», according to the Levi-straussian terminology, on several grounds: no collective estate belonged to it members, who did not share a common dwelling-place; Rome as a whole was not a «house society»: domus did not superseded gens and familia, which were still extant. Actually, the domus Augusta was mostly an Ego-centred kindred, i. e. a kin class, not a kin group, composed of a wide range of bilateral blood kins and of a small number of close in law and step relatives, attested in the Roman society since the late 3rd century BC. Several statutes, among which three Augustan laws, afford lists of personae exceptae evidencing such a kindred. Nevertheless, the domus Augusta, according to its dynastic character, differs in some features from common Roman kindreds: an official name, a public character, the authority exercised by Augustus over its members.