woman
of servile or plebeian extraction, the sole and faithful companion of a
Roman citizen, who continued in a state of celibacy. Her modest station,
below the honors of a wife, above the infamy of a prostitute, was
acknowledged and approved by the laws: from the age of Augustus to the
tenth century, the use of this secondary marriage prevailed both in
the West and East; and the humble virtues of a concubine were often
preferred to the pomp and insolence of a noble matron. In this
connection, the two Antonines, the best of princes and of men, enjoyed
the comforts of domestic love: the example was imitated by many citizens
impatient of celibacy, but regardful of their families. If at any time
they desired to legitimate their natural children, the conversion was
instantly performed by the celebration of their nuptials with a partner
whose faithfulness and fidelity they had already tried. [1341] By this
epithet of natural, the offspring of the concubine were distinguished
from the spurious brood of adultery, prostitution, and incest, to whom
Justinian reluctantly grants the necessary aliments of life; and these
natural children alone were capable of succeeding to a sixth part of
the inheritance of their reputed father. According to the rigor of law,
bastards were entitled only to the name and condition of their mother,
from whom they might derive the character of a slave, a stranger, or a
citizen. The outcasts of every family were adopted without reproach as
the children of the state. [135] [1351]

[Footnote 132: The principles of the Roman jurisprudence are exposed by
Justinian, (Institut. t. i. tit. x.;) and the laws and manners of the
different nations of antiquity concerning forbidden degrees, &c., are
copiously explained by Dr. Taylor in his Elements of Civil Law, (p. 108,
314--339,) a work of amusing, though various reading; but which cannot
be praised for philosophical precision.]

[Footnote 1321: According to the earlier law, (Gaii Instit. p. 27,) a
man might marry his niece on the brother's, not on the sister's, side.
The emperor Claudius set the example of the former. In the Institutes,
this distinction was abolished and both declared illegal.--M.]

[Footnote 133: When her father Agrippa died, (A.D. 44,) Berenice was
sixteen years of age, (Joseph. tom. i. Antiquit. Judaic. l. xix. c. 9,
p. 952, edit. Havercamp.) She was therefore above fifty years old
when Titus (A.D. 79) invitus invitam invisit. This date wo