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Concubinae1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Susan Treggiari
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Concubine

I1 concubinatus deve essere nettamente distinto dal matrimonio e dal contubernium. I contubernales non avevano conubium a causa del loro status (almeno uno dei componenti la coppia era schiavo); nel concubinatus non c'era affectio maritalis, e poichè l'intenzione di sposarsi era il fattore principale nel determinare se il matrimonio esistesse o meno, la relazione legale fra due coabitanti poteva essere non sempre chiara agli occhi dei terzi. Il concubinatus era una relazione extra-legale, ma stabile ed abbastanza accettata da essere discussa dai giuristi e commemorata su iscrizioni tombali. Dopo avere esaminato le iscrizioni di Roma (che confermano le conclusioni di Rawson) e di altre città italiane pubblicate nel CIL, e le indicazioni offerte dai giuristi sullo status sociale delle concubinae, l'articolo giunge alla conclusione che, come le fonti letterarie ci fanno supporre, le concubine erano probabilmente inferiori ai loro partners, socialmente e forse anche economicamente. Quelle ricordate sulle iscrizioni sono raramente libertae dei loro conviventi, anche se i giuristi sembrano accettare che un uomo abbia per concubina la sua stessa liberta. Lo status di liberti o forse di cittadini è comune per ambedue i concubini. Donne ingenuae però, se pure potevano essere legalmente concubine, sono raramente attestate come tali nelle iscrizioni. L'evidenza che ci proviene dai giuristi e dagli epitaffi, anche se né gli uni nè gli altri danno un quadro completo della società, suggerisce che il concubinatus, se pure legale ed accettato, non era statisticamente tanto significativo quanto le fonti letterarie potrebbero farci credere. Si sostiene inoltre che non era previsto che un uomo avesse una moglie ed una concubina contemporaneamente.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 49 , November 1981 , pp. 59 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1981

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References

2 Later, when many upper-class women were Christian and upper-class men were on the whole pagan, the former appear sometimes to have lived in concubinage with Christian men who were their social inferiors. Plassard holds (p. 163) that in most couples in the classical period the woman was socially superior, but this conclusion is vitiated by his faulty methodology in collecting and interpreting the epigraphical evidence.

3 Amantissimae (CIL VI, 9375, 22293, 24441), ‘pro meritis quae dilexit eum’ (6873); piissima 21607; pientissima 24953; carae / carissimae (24857, 24953, 25014).

4 Pp. 1–10, especially pp. 1–2.

5 The rest of the text concerns paelex, a term for a mistress which is chiefly literary. Castello has a detailed but not entirely satisfactory discussion (pp. 9–23).

6 ‘Amica’ in the sexual sense may occur in a few epitaphs. Cf. Rawson 299–300.

7 D. 24. 2. 11, 25. 7. 1, Ulp.; 25. 7. 2, 50. 16. 144, Paul, on the Lex Julia et Papia, 48. 5. 14 pr. Ulp., de adulteriis. Like wives, concubines can of course crop up in various contexts apart from specific discussions of marriage.

8 ‘Almost in the position of / a substitute for a legal wife’ (Suet. Vesp. 3, cf. Dom. 12).

9 Suet. Nero 50, Sen, . Suas. 2. 17Google Scholar, Mart. 3. 82. 11.

10 Cf. Cael. apud Quint, . Inst. 4. 2Google Scholar. 124 = ORF3 no. 162. 17, Tac, . Hist. 1. 72Google Scholar, 3. 40, Pliny, Epp. 3. 14Google Scholar. 3. See further below, p. 77.

11 CIL IX. 5256 (Asculum). Since the woman is not named, she cannot be a current partner about whose status Vibius has doubts: she must be a potential mate, still in the future.

12 CIL XI. 6136 (Forum Sempronii), 6257.

13 Plaut. Trin. 689–91. Cf. Watson pp. 2–6.

14 See Williams, Gordon, Tradition and originality in Roman poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 378–87Google Scholar. The main references are Aen. IV. 125–6, 165–71, 316, 338–9.

15 De orat. 1. 183, 238.

16 E.g. D. 34. 9. 16. 1, Pap.

17 D. 23. 2. 45. 5, Ulp. For others than libertae, unilateral divorce was possible even when the divorced partner was mad: D. 24. 2. 4, 24. 3. 2. 2, 24. 3. 22. 7, Ulp.). Some held that even a concubina could not leave her patron (D. 25. 7. 1 pr., Ulp.).

18 Cf. Longo, G., ‘Affectio maritalis’, Ricerche romanistiche (Milan: Giuffré, 1966) 301–21Google Scholar.

19 See especially D. 24. 1.

20 In D. 24. 1. 58 pr.–1, Scaevola discusses a similar case where a man gives a concubine farms and slaves and then, after marrying her, exchanges them for others, and the case of a man who gives rations to the slaves of a concubine who is subsequently his wife. This is a far cry from the grasping meretrix concubine of the hostile literary tradition which runs from comedy to the changed world of the Christian period (e.g. Ap, Sid.. Epp. 9. 6. 2Google Scholar: ‘… quantum de bonusculis avitis paternis sumptuositas domesticae Charybdis abligurisset …’) and beyond.

21 The man's relations would be the interested parties.

22 For intention, cf. D. 25. 7. 4, Paul., , id. Sent. 2. 20. 1Google Scholar.

23 D. 23. 2. 23 and 44 on the prohibition; 23. 2. 27 and 31 on violation of the law; 23. 2. 58: the libertina conceals her status.

24 Cf. D. 23. 2. 1, Mod., denning marriage as ‘coniunctio maris et feminae et consortium omnis vitae, divini et humani iuris communicatio’. For the idea see, e.g., Cic, . Off. 1. 54Google Scholar, Quint. Decl. 247, Ritter p. 13, vv. 12–13.

25 For instance, Domitian was expected to kiss Caenis, his father's concubine, when he met her (Suet. Dom. 12).

26 Late emperors encouraged men to marry concubines by whom they had had children and to legitimise the children born before the marriage: CJ 5. 27. 5. 10; cf. Corbett p. 95. The policy was sometimes at least endorsed by churchmen: cf. e.g. Ambrose, Sermo 52. 9Google Scholar = Migne XVII. 735.

27 D. 23. 2. 41. 1, Marcell.

28 D. 32. 45.

29 D. 32. 1. 29 pr.

30 D. 32. 49. 4 (italics mine).

31 Cf. CJ 5. 4. 22: … pares honestate personas …

32 These numbers refer to Appendix A.

33 Cic. Mil. 60.

34 Pp. 292, 290.

35 This reckoning is close to that given by Rawson 289.

36 Of the libertinae, at least two (I. 2, 3) and perhaps three (I. 1) were freed by the partner himself, five by other men (I. 7, 10, 14, II. 1, XI. 3) and no less than ten by women (I. 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, XI. 1, 2, 4; sometimes jointly with a male owner: I. 5, XI. 4).

37 These numbers refer to Appendix B. The following inscriptions were omitted because they are fragmentary or doubtful or do not name both partners: V. 1298, 2660, 3714, 5910; IX. 998, 1502, 1935, 5256, 5910, 6296; X. 367, 1935, 4451, 8161; XI. 2822, 2824, 3990; XIV. 4454.

38 I. 4, 5. The woman in 5 is freed by two men, one of whom could be her partner, the other perhaps his patron.

39 I. 3, 8, 10, 11, 14; III. 1; VII. 4.

40 IX. 1. Cf. Chilver, G. E. F., Cisalpine Gaul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941) p. 79Google Scholar.

41 Chilver has shown that the two offices were not confined to freedmen and that practices varied between towns in northern Italy {Cisalpine Gaul pp. 198–207).

42 Filiation is only prima facie evidence for citizen birth, but rules out slave birth. I omit IX.

43 I. 2, 3, 6, 12; IV. 4; I. 3; I. 7, 16; IV. 5, 6; I. 1.

44 I. 14. The Apollinares correspond to Augustales elsewhere. Cf. Chilver (op. cit. n. 40) p. 203.

45 III. 1.

46 VII. 3; VIII. 1, 2.

47 I. 4 is similar.

48 The more recently discovered inscriptions reported in L'Annie Epigraphique do nothing to change this picture.

49 291, citing CIL VI. 28431 (where it is uncertain whether the unnamed concubine is the mother of the illegitimate child) and 14706 (where the partner is unnamed and the child, M. f., may be legitimate offspring of another relationship). The deliciae in VIII. 2 may be the couple's son.

50 Conf. IV. 2; VI. 12–15.

51 It is not clear who put up the inscription.

52 A. I. 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13; XL 2. 4; B. I. 3, 8, 10, 11, 14; III. 1; VII. 4. I have no explanation.

53 25. 7. 1. pr., 3; 2; 3; 4.

54 D. 25. 7. 1. 1. It was impossible to commit stuprum with a prostitute (48. 5. 14. 2, as long as she was not married), lena or actress (h.t. 11. 2), woman condemned for adultery (at least in Ulpian's opinion, 25. 7. 1.2). Castelli (p. 149) adds the other women with whom marriage was forbidden to ingenui by the Lex Julia according to Tit. Ulp. 13. 2.

55 D. 25. 7. 5.

56 D. 23. 2. 38, 57, 63, 65; 24. 1. 3. 1; 34. 9. 2. 1.

57 D. 25. 7. 3.

58 D. 20. 1. 8, Ulp., 42. 5. 38, Paul.; Plaut. Epid. 66; CJ 7. 15. 3. 2. Cf. Watson pp. 6–7.

59 D. 25. 7. 1 pr.

60 D. 24. 2. 10 Mod., 24. 2. 11, 38. 11. 1. 1, Ulp.

61 D. 23. 2. 41. 1.

62 D. 38. 1. 46, Valens; 48. 5. 14 pr., Ulp.

63 A vexed passage. Recent commentators include Castello 166, 189; Solazzi, S., ‘Il concubinato con l' “Obscuro loco nata”’ (SDHI 14 (1948) 269–77Google Scholar); Orestano; Longo, G., ‘Presunzione di matrimonio’ (Studi Paoli (Florence, 1956) 485–8Google Scholar; Robleda p. 89.

64 ‘Et maxime ea’ or the whole phrase ‘et maxime … fecit’ have been suspected.

65 Pp. 135–8.

66 Cf. Cic, . 2 Verr. 5. 167Google Scholar: Homines tenues, obscuro loco nati; Sall, . Cat. 23. 1Google Scholar; natus haud obscuro loco; Livy 26. 6. 13: loco obscuro tenuique fortuna ortus.

67 Alioquin … committere. The grammar is shaky (in concubinatum); the reference to testatio suggests that at least sine … faciente is postclassical. But the agreement on the possibility that a charge of stuprum could be brought with the passage of Ulpian cited above (D. 25. 7. 1. 1) suggests that something on the lines of this sentence existed in Marcian's original statement.

68 But concubinatus was hardly, as Castello says (p. 28) a neologism in the Augustan laws.

69 Adulterium and stuprum axe often interchangeable. Cf. Plassard p. 71, Castelli p. 157. Stuprum must be meant here, since married women were not concubines. ‘Ab ipso’ in the last sentence, which would have to mean ‘by him’ (? in contrast to ‘by her’) may just be an infelicity. We would rather expect ‘ipsum’: ‘nor is fornication comitted through concubinage itself (sc. but only by concubinage with a particular woman) …’.

70 Some moderns also emend liberam to ingenuam. Cf. Longo, G., Diritto romano III (Rome, 1940) p. 131Google Scholar, Orestano p. 52.

71 For excepta cf. TLL I. B., Cic. Red. in Sen. 9, Lex Vipasc. 2. Videlicet is less common than scilicet, but classical. Admittedly, the conjunction excepta videlicet and similar expressions are common in postclassical law. Cf. Castelli p. 145.

72 For a recent statement of the view that Augustus made concubinatus with an ingenua stuprum, that morals were looser in Modestinus' time and loosened still further in the sixth century see Csillag, P., The Augustan laws on family relations (Budapest: Akad. Kiado, 1976) p. 252Google Scholar, n. 539.

73 Arangio-Ruiz, V. (Aegyptus 5 (1924) 107Google Scholar) is prepared to accept the Modestinus text as classical and to hold that he and Ulpian (D. 25. 7. 1. 1) give two parts of the same equation, ‘dicendo Modestino che si ha stupro ogni volta che ci si congiunga non matrimonialmente con donna libera che non sia la concubina, e ribadendo Ulpiano che non si possa avere a concubina se non quella donna libera con cui non si commette stupro’.

74 Bas. XVIII. 4. 13 (ed. Heimbach III, p. 169), quoted by Orestano pp. 51–2, talks of a presumption of marriage if the woman is free and not a prostitute. Orestano gives a list of the moderns who hold that the compilers expanded the scope of this passage by substituting liberae for ingenuae.

75 Cf. Volterra 743–4.

76 Ulp. Reg. 13, 1–2.

77 D. 40. 2. 20. 2, Ulp.

78 D. 25. 7. 1 pr., 48. 5. 14 pr., Ulp.

79 Cic, . Att. 16. 11Google Scholar. 1, Phil. 2. 3, 3. 17, 13. 23.

80 SHA Marcus 29. 10.

81 D. 25. 7. 1. 1, quoted above p. 71.

82 Plassard pp. 69, 84 conies to a similar conclusion.

83 D. 25. 7. 3 pr.–1.

84 D. 48. 5. 35 pr.

85 D. 25. 7. 3. 1.

86 Cf. Castelli p. 153.

87 To the examples already given we may add M. Aurelius's grandfather (Marcus, Conf. 1. 17. 2Google Scholar).

88 Cf. D. 45. 1. 121.1, Pap. Abandoning concubinage for marriage is a step towards moral and social redemption in later moralists: e.g. Aug, . Conf. 6. 15Google Scholar, Ap, Sid.. Epp. 9. 6. 2Google Scholar, Leo Epp. 147 (Migne LIV. 1205).

89 Aur. 49. 8.

90 CJ 5. 27. 5 pr.

91 None attested in the Rome inscriptions, one from Cisalpina. Cocceius Cassianus, a senator, had a freeborn woman, Rufina, as a concubine, according to a decision by the emperors Severus and Caracalla (D. 34. 9. 16. 1, Pap.

92 Concubinae are rare in inscriptions from the Latin West outside Italy (CIL VIII, 8532, 9100 [Africa]).

93 Suet. Nero 50. Tacitus more correctly calls her paelex (A 13. 46, in Poppaea's mouth); elsewhere she is described as liberta (A 13. 12, 14. 2; Suet. Nero 28. 1). Claudius' mistresses Calpurnia and Cleopatra are paelices (Tac, . A. II. 29–30Google Scholar). Paelex is the correct word for the lover of a married man, often used with the wife's name in the genitive.

94 CJ 7. 15. 3. 2. Cf. pr. (A.D. 531).

95 2. 20. 1.

96 D. 24. 2. 11. 2.

97 D. 45. 1. 121. 1.

98 Above p. 62.

99* marks the person who made the dedication. Ages are given in brackets, † precedes the names of children. MM = Monumentum Marcellae, MIAL= Monumenta inter Appiam et Latinam.