Status and legal standing of extramarital children in the Roman Empire until the time of Constantine the Great

Remote eras suffer from a scarcity of sources. So, when Theodor Graf brought thousands of papyri to Vienna, historical science gained an extraordinary source of knowledge. Archduke Rainer purchased these finds, thus creating the first, and to this day, one of the largest papyrus collections known as the Archduke Rainer Papyrus Collection. From that time, the 19th century, papyrology dates as a systematic science, although the first papyrus was published as early as the 18th century. European and American collections quickly amassed thousands of papyri. Legal and accounting documents, inventories, religious and literary texts, often unknown, could see the light of day thanks to the efforts of papyrologists. The publication of texts preserved on papyri continues to this day. They provide impetus for development and precise data to ancient historians, researchers of the Hellenistic, Roman and Arabic worlds. Papyri, in conjunction with other sources: texts carved in stone (epigraphic sources), ancient literature, both beautiful and professional, e.g., in the field of law, allow us to uncover many mysteries of antiquity, and not just the great ones from the sphere of politics. Papyrology allows for the reconstruction of everyday life in past eras. One of the very important aspects of this life is childhood and the perception of people based on their family origin. Discovering the mysteries of the past can be particularly interesting in the context of explaining phenomena existing in modernity. The proposed project, among others, fulfils just such a purpose. Generally speaking, the subject of the study is the concept and category of extramarital children in the Roman Empire. As is known, before 212 CE, i.e., before the so-called Caracalla's Edict, by which Emperor Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus granted Roman citizenship to almost all free inhabitants of the Empire, the Roman Empire (i.e., Italia and the provinces) was inhabited by various population groups whose rights, duties and privileges differed greatly. One of the aims of the undertaken research is to examine how children born outside marriage functioned in these various communities inhabiting the empire. The aim here is to examine the situation of such children in the sphere of law and at the social level compared to marital children. As a result of the research, a definition of the concept of ‘illegitimate child’ in the Roman Empire will be created. Another significant outcome of the project will be to show the differences in the treatment of illegitimate children by various communities inhabiting the territory of the Roman Empire. Children born out of wedlock bore the stigma of exclusion and had a much worse social position than marital children in various historical epochs, even in the 20th century in the European cultural area. However, the origins of this state of affairs are not clear. Preliminary research by the team shows that perhaps extramarital children in the Roman Empire did not enjoy any special privileges, but they were also not socially stigmatised. Especially children born in stable relationships, which were not marriages, functioned identically to illegitimate children at the social level. Although such persons were not entitled to inherit from their parents by operation of law, no difficulties were created for parents to include them in their wills. Also, Latin and Greek terms used to define extramarital children did not carry a pejorative meaning, like the Polish ‘bękart’, English ‘bastard’ or Italian ‘bastardo’. Over time, this situation underwent profound changes. Emperor Constantine the Great was the author of laws that divided extramarital children into two categories—‘better’ born from stable monogamous relationships and ‘worse’, i.e., all others. This emperor also significantly limited the ability of such children to inherit from their parents, and even introduced severe penalties for violating these prohibitions. The question therefore arises, what factors caused such a drastic change, and whether Constantine's legislation was the result of broader social trends, and to what extent it influenced the perception of illegitimate children in subsequent eras. Answers to these questions will be the result of the submitted research project. The significance of the project is not only to deepen and shed light on one aspect of life in antiquity, as well as a contribution to the sum of our knowledge about Greco-Roman antiquity and social history, but also to create a reference point for researchers of other epochs or issues in not only a historical, but also a social and legal context.