It was contrary to Roman law for a man with a living son to adopt another. Such an arrangement would clearly threaten the rights of his natural offspring. But Nature had already been superseded by Law when the Senate voted that Claudius could marry his niece. On February 25, A.D. 50, the senators passed a special act of adoption requested by the princeps himself. Claudius gained a new son and gave him a new name: Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, or as he soon became known, Nero.
