s niece were applauded at Athens as a
happy union of the dearest relations. The profane lawgivers of Rome
were never tempted by interest or superstition to multiply the forbidden
degrees: but they inflexibly condemned the marriage of sisters and
brothers, hesitated whether first cousins should be touched by the same
interdict; revered the parental character of aunts and uncles, and
treated affinity and adoption as a just imitation of the ties of blood.
According to the proud maxims of the republic, a legal marriage could
only be contracted by free citizens; an honorable, at least an ingenuous
birth, was required for the spouse of a senator: but the blood of kings
could never mingle in legitimate nuptials with the blood of a Roman;
and the name of Stranger degraded Cleopatra and Berenice, to live the
_concubines_ of Mark Antony and Titus. This appellation, indeed, so
injurious to the majesty, cannot without indulgence be applied to the
manners, of these Oriental queens. A concubine, in the strict sense of
the civilians, was a 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.
* 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 outc