This is a book about the social and political impact of adoption in the Roman world, with the main emphasis on the period from the Gracchi to Hadrian, and a primary interest in its operation in Rome and Italy. It has a different focus from the work of Olli Salomies (1992), which concerns itself with adoptive and polyonomous nomenclature, with a special focus on the Imperial period. It has some common ground with Jane Gardner's works, especially Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (1998), although it is on the whole less legal, and more concerned with the practical operation of adoption in different situations. My concern has been with how Romans viewed adoption and what problems they believed it could be used to solve. Some of the same ground is covered by both Salomies and Gardner, but here more space is devoted to the functioning of adoptions in politics and everyday life, and trying to understand how adoption has been utilised in other places and times. Despite extensive use of legal sources to understand the theory behind Roman adoption, the cases discussed are mostly selected from literary sources, since it is here that the functioning of adoption in real situations can be assessed. The onomastic evidence is useful, and the main features of Roman nomenclature after adoption are explored, but by its very nature nomenclature can only provide answers to a restricted range of questions about the impact of adoption.