Abstract:
Imperial succession was a sine qua non condition for the survival of a dynasty in the Roman Empire. If in the first two dynasties, the Julio-Claudians and the Flavians, succession was based on heredity and a few adoptions within the imperial family; the third Roman dynasty, the Antonines, however, organized itself almost substantially around adoption as a transmitter of imperial power - a method that has become known as "adoption of the best". In this sense, in the present paper, my aim is to present some considerations concerning a problem that still surrounds the historiography preoccupied with the 2nd century AD: the question of imperial succession and its relation with the "adoption of the best" during the Antonine dynasty.
Keywords:
Adoption of the best; Antonine Dynasty; Roman emperors; Roman Empire; Imperial succession