Supposititious children

Supposititious children are fraudulent offspring. These arose when an heir was required and so a suitable baby might be procured and passed off as genuine.

This was a common concern in the classical period as there were dealers in supposititious children who would provide them for a fee. Laws were passed to counter this and those found to be illegitimate might be sold into slavery.^[1]

References

1. Daniel Ogden, Greek bastardy in the classical and Hellenistic periods