Too Kindred by Half: Half-Siblings in Elite Families of the Mid- and Late Roman Republic

Abstract

My essay examines some ancient evidence for the treatment of half-siblings, and for interactions among half-siblings, in several elite families of the mid- to late Roman Republic. I observe that our ancient Greek and Roman sources on these families at times acknowledge half-sibling relationships, and occasionally testify that parents treated their offspring from different marriages differently. But I argue that these sources make, and that elite Roman families of this era ultimately made, little distinction between half-siblings and fullsiblings. I will focus on several selected families from the second and first centuries bce, whose interpersonal interactions attract notice from a variety of ancient Greek and Roman writers. My concluding discussion will consider the limitations and strengths of this, selective and anecdotal, body of evidence, most of it much later than the events it purports to describe: for investigating halfsiblings in elite republican Roman families, as well as for illuminating “the ancient Roman family” itself. I will ponder, too, how this evidence problematizes scholarly efforts to view the ancient Roman family as typifying a larger, trans-historical Mediterranean pattern. Finally, I will reflect on how and why elite Republican Roman familial dynamics involving the treatment of half-siblings complicate our understanding of elite Roman kinship, and underscore the socially contingent nature of kinship generally.