The profane law-givers 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 civilian, was a woman of servile
or plebeian extraction, the sole and faithful companion of a Roman
citizen, who continued in a state of celibacy.
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