ABSTRACT
There is little doubt that some such evolution did take place. But the process can be clarified by taking account of the following considerations, which partly modify but, in general, strengthen the arguments. In the first place, adoption, as we have noticed, had its origin, not in the family, but in the clan. This explains why the testimony of Demosthenes has a more cogent force than has been supposed. For the adopted son, being drawn from the clansmen, was indeed of the same blood as the adopter. But adoption into the household (as opposed to adoption into the clan) was not necessary to establish such blood relationship. What it would establish was the priority in succession of the adopted son over his fellow-clansmen. Hence we may assume household adoption to have been a natural accompaniment of the development of the oikos within the structure of the clan, a necessary and limiting adaptation of the ancient institution of adoption into the clan and tribe. Moreover, at an early stage, the practice of exogamy, later limited by such regulations concerning the heiress as we find in the Code, and more drastically limited by regulations of the same order at Athens, would make the adoption of males into the household a necessity, in order to perpetuate the household in the male line.3 (So
In the same way, although the assembled people are still necessary witnesses to the act of adoption, they play a passive part. Formerly, it may be assumed, when adoption was a tribal and not primarily a household concern, the part played by the assembled people was active and indispensable, since adoption was made directly into their ranks, into their system of kinship, in a very real, and not in a formal sense. 3
The solemn nature of the ceremony of adoption, involving, as it did, family, state and religion, is clear from the bare description given in the context. In this respect Gortyna was not exceptional. The ceremony was equally important at Rome." At Sparta, 6 adoption had to take place before the kings, a fact which emphasizes the antiquity of the ceremony, its religious character and constitutional importance. At Gortyna, the place of the kings was taken by the hetaireia, which reinforces what has been said about the part played by the hetaireia in the Cretan state and social structure. The adopter offered his adopted son as a candidate for entry into his own hetaireia, presenting a sacrificial victim and a measure of wine.
