chap, xliv] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 513 brothers and sisters was admitted without scruple or exception ; a Spartan might espouse the daughter of his father, an Athenian that of his mother ; and the nuptials of an uncle with his niece were applauded at Athens as a happy union of the dearest rela- tions. The profane lawgivers of Eome 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 paternal 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 honourable, 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 134 to live the concubines of Mark Antony and Titus. 135 This appella- tion, indeed, so injurious to the majesty, cannot without indul- gence 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 honours 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 connexion, 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 fruitfulness and fidelity they 134 When her father Agrippa died (a.d. 44), Berenice was sixteen years of age (Joseph, torn. i. Antiquit. Judaic. 1. xix. c. 9, p. 952, edit. Havercamp). She was therefore above fifty years old when Titus (a.d. 79) invitus invitam invisit. This date would not have adorned the tragedy or pastoral of the tender Racine. 135 The JEgyptia conjunx of Virgil (iEneid, viii. 688) seems to be numbered among the monsters who warred with Mark Antony against 'Augustus, the senate, and the gods of Italy. vol. iv. — 33
