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ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...
, ''contubernium'' was a quasi-marital relationship between two slaves or between a slave (''
servus Servus, and various local variants thereof, is a salutation used in many parts of Central and Eastern Europe. It is a word of greeting or parting like the Italian (which also comes from the slave meaning through Venetian ). wiktionary:servus I ...
'') and a free person who was usually a former slave or the child of a former slave. A slave involved in such a relationship was called ''contubernalis'', the basic and general meaning of which was "companion". Under
Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Jus ...
, the slave was treated as property (''res'') and lacked the
legal personhood Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
to enter into legitimate forms of marriage. Although not codified as marriage (''
conubium Marriage in ancient Rome () was strictly a monogamous institution: a Roman citizen by law could have only one spouse at a time. The practice of monogamy distinguished the Greeks and Romans from other ancient civilizations, in which elite males ty ...
'') in Roman law, ''contubernium'' had legal implications that were addressed by Roman jurists in case law and was intended to be a lasting, ideally permanent union modelled on marital affection (''affectio maritalis'') that was approved and recognized by the slave's owner. Inscriptions indicate that ''contubernium'' with the intentions it expressed was primarily a concern for "upwardly mobile" slaves and former slaves who served the imperial house (''familia Caesaris'') and bureaucracy or who belonged to houses of
senatorial A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the eld ...
or
equestrian rank The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian o ...
. In ''contubernium'' when only one partner remained enslaved, most often the free person was a freedwoman ''(liberta)''. ''Contubernium'' institutionalized the slave's honorable intention to form an enduring heterosexual union with economic, emotional, and parental benefits—an acknowledgment of the inherent contradictions between the status of the slave as property and "tool" (''instrumentum'') and the individual's evident humanity and desire to participate in what Romans regarded as normal family life.


The ''contubernalis''

The word ''contubernalis'' seems sometimes to have been used as an enduring term of endearment even after a formerly enslaved couple achieved a legal status that allowed them to marry formally. Men who commemorate the death of a female partner set up epitaphs for a ''contubernali bene merenti'' ("to a well deserving companion"), ''carissimae'' ("dearest"), ''piissimae'' or ''pientissimae'' ("most devoted"), ''optimae'' ("best"), ''incomparabili'' ("incomparable"), ''rarissimae'' ("most rare"), ''sanctissimae'' ("most sacred"), and ''dulcissimae'' ("sweetest"). Women also use many of these descriptors for the male partner they lost, and the same
adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
s are used in epitaphs for spouses who had legal marriages.


Between two slaves

Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Jus ...
regarded the slave as property; slaves lacked
legal personhood Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
and therefore could not enter into contracts on their own behalf, including legally sanctioned forms of marriage (''
conubium Marriage in ancient Rome () was strictly a monogamous institution: a Roman citizen by law could have only one spouse at a time. The practice of monogamy distinguished the Greeks and Romans from other ancient civilizations, in which elite males ty ...
''). Some slaves, however, were permitted or encouraged to form family units—permanent heterosexual unions within which "natural children" (''liberi naturales'') might be reared as '' vernae''. Roman jurists themselves when discussing case law sometimes refer to unions involving slave ''contubernales'' with terms for "husband" and "wife". In inscriptions, most ''contubernales'' whose status can be identified are slaves, though ''liberti'' and ''libertae'' (freedpersons) are also frequent. Although a slave lacked legal standing to contract a marriage recognized by Roman law, slaves who came from outside Italy would have their own marriage rites and customs, and there was no prohibition against slaves considering themselves married by custom in this way. On a country estate (''
villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...
''), a male slave who had proven his reliability might have license to cohabit with a fellow female slave (''conserva''). The agricultural writer
Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the ...
says that ''contubernium'' is particularly desirable for the ''
vilicus {{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) Vilicus ( el, ἐπίτροπος) was a servant who had the superintendence of the villa rustica, and of all the business of the farm, except the cattle, which were under the care of the magist ...
'', the bailiff or overseer of a farm, who was often but not always a slave or former slave. Any children born from these unions would increase the master's wealth. ''Vernae'', slaves who had been born and reared within the household of their enslaved mother, were themselves more likely to be allowed to cohabit as a couple and to rear their own children. Inscriptions reinforce the impression that ''contubernium'' was a privilege extended to slaves whose work at higher-skill jobs was valued. It was possible for ''contubernium'' to exist between two slaves with different owners, but the clearest evidence occurs within a household. During most of the
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or again ...
and
Imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texas ...
eras, free Roman women had the right as citizens to own property and retained their property rights within marriage. The mistress of the house would have her own staff, and many of the household's female slaves are likely to have been hers. Documented examples of couples in which each is affiliated with a different ''
gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (plural: ''stirpes''). The ''gen ...
'' (extended family or clan) suggest that the two slaves might still belong to the same household or estate, one in the possession of the male head of household as ''dominus'' and the other of his wife as ''domina''. ''Contubernium'' thus was normally a cohabiting relationship between two slaves within the same household. In the records kept by well-to-families concerned with lineage, the ''contubernia'' of slaves were acknowledged along with family births, deaths, and manumissions.
Arranged marriage Arranged marriage is a type of marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures a professional matchmaker may be us ...
was common among Romans of any status, and at least some ''contubernia'' would have been arranged by the owner. A Greek novel of the 2nd century AD has a fictional ''domina'' forcing a slave girl she's jealous of to serve as the wife of an enslaved goatherd. The ''paterfamilias'' would have retained the right to break up ''contubernia'', just as a father might seek to dissolve the marriage of his son or daughter against their will, but the agricultural writers in particular thought that an attachment to family and home made workers more stable and productive. When cases about breaking up families came to juridical attention, the jurists tended toward keeping spouses, parents and children, and even siblings together. But neither the protections nor liabilities of Roman law on marriage applied to ''contubernales''; for example, a ''contubernalis'' could not be prosecuted for adultery.


Between a free woman and a male slave

''--> from the
columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria) is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns, holding cremated remains of the deceased. The term can also mean the nesting boxes of pigeons. The term comes from the Latin "''col ...
of the Volusii along the
Appian Way The Appian Way ( Latin and Italian: ''Via Appia'') is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, ...
, on display at the
Musée Condé The Musée Condé – in English, the Condé Museum – is a French museum located inside the Château de Chantilly in Chantilly, Oise, 40 km north of Paris. In 1897, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, son of Louis Philippe I, bequeathed th ...
, Chantilly The Digest (Roman law), jurists of the ''Digest'' tend to use the term ''contubernalis'' in the context of a marital union between two slaves that is acknowledged by the owner. In practice, the 260 ''contubernia'' recorded in inscriptions from the city of Rome ('' CIL'' vol. 6), analyzed by
Susan Treggiari Susan Treggiari is an English scholar of Ancient Rome,John Simon Guggenheim Memoria ...
, show that in this form of quasi-marriage, while most common between two slaves or two former slaves, one partner could be free and the other not. Among the ''contubernia'' between a slave and a free person, most often it was the woman who was free, and the male was the slave. There were several scenarios in which this arrangement could be advantageous to the female or male partner or both. Since legally binding manumission came with automatic citizenship and the legal status of a child was determined by the mother's, children born from ''contubernium'' between a male slave and a freedwoman were themselves free citizens. If she remained a slave, their children would be born into slavery even if later manumission was granted to one or both parents. Some slaves earned money by managing a fund or property ('' peculium''), and certain lucrative financial positions, such as the ''dispensator'' who managed a wealthy household, were staffed by slaves for legal reasons. "Upwardly mobile" slaves who served in the imperial bureaucracy also could expect to accumulate wealth and were regularly manumitted in their early thirties. Although women served in the imperial household as well, the highest positions in financial services were held by male slaves. Under these circumstances, a slave might retain the earning power of his job and arrange to use his ''peculium'' to pay for the manumission of his ''contubernalis'' instead of himself. In such cases, the wife might act as the functional head of the household because as a free person she had the right to own property. As another example, a woman born into first-generation freedom as the daughter of a successful freedman might have limited prospects for finding a financially secure husband of compatible social standing. ''Contubernium'' with an imperial slave, who reasonably expected to be manumitted between the ages of 30 and 35 in possession of a certain amount of wealth, might be attractive, allowing her to start a family during her childbearing years before he completed his service; their children would be born illegitimate ''(spurii)'' but free. In most ''contubernia'' between a male slave and a free woman, both partners are from imperial slave families—the wife being either a ''liberta'' of the imperial house or the daughter of an imperial freedman. In one case, a ''domina'' had given one of her female slaves (''pedisequae'', "footwomen") to her business manager ''(actor)'' to serve as his wife; the relationship is specified as a ''contubernium''. When the ''domina'' died, she freed all the ''pedisequae'' in her possession by the terms of her will, and the court ruled that the bequest of freedom applied also to the wife of the ''actor'', whose status is not noted. ''Actores'' were typically slaves, and if this ''actor'' had been bequeathed as part of the estate and not also manumitted, the couple would have had unequal status in which only the wife was free. In all these examples, once both partners were manumitted and held citizen status, they could enter into one of the legally recognized forms of marriage and exercise their rights. For instance, slaves lacked the right to make a will; property they had accumulated went to their master if they died enslaved, and if a freedman died
intestate Intestacy is the condition of the estate of a person who dies without having in force a valid will or other binding declaration. Alternatively this may also apply where a will or declaration has been made, but only applies to part of the estat ...
, his former owner as his
patron Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...
had a claim on his property. By using the right to bequeath their property to their children, freedpersons could begin to build generational wealth.


''Contubernium'' without approval

A ''
senatus consultum A ''senatus consultum'' (Latin: decree of the senate, plural: ''senatus consulta'') is a text emanating from the senate in Ancient Rome. It is used in the modern phrase '' senatus consultum ultimum''. Translated into French as ''sénatus-consulte ...
'' of Claudius in AD 52 addressed sexual relationships between free women and male slaves of another owner. The legislation, drafted by Claudius's freedman
Pallas Pallas may refer to: Astronomy * 2 Pallas asteroid ** Pallas family, a group of asteroids that includes 2 Pallas * Pallas (crater), a crater on Earth's moon Mythology * Pallas (Giant), a son of Uranus and Gaia, killed and flayed by Athena * Pal ...
, seems to have been motivated by unapproved cohabitation between imperial slaves and women from outside the ''familia Caesaris'', and the ambiguous status of children produced by such a union. If the slave's owner did not approve of his male slave's relationship with a free woman, he could demand that it end. If three such demands were ignored, he had the right to take possession of the woman as his own property, and any children the couple had became his slaves. The edict may have been primarily directed at ''contubernales'' when the freedwoman held only
Latin rights Latin rights (also Latin citizenship, Latin: ''ius Latii'' or ''ius latinum'') were a set of legal rights that were originally granted to the Latins (Latin: "Latini", the People of Latium, the land of the Latins) under Roman law in their origin ...
, but it was remarkable for two reasons. Contrary to the ''ius gentium'', the child's status was in effect determined by the father's. And a freeborn woman (''ingenua'') who consorted with someone else's male slave could gain the owner's approval but would be reduced to the status of freedwoman ''(liberta)'' — the only known instance of Roman law that gave a person the socio-legal status of former slave without having been a slave. A further refinement of the decree under the emperor Vespasian was that a ''liberta'' who entered into a ''contubernium'' with a male slave without the consent of his owner or her patron not only could be re-enslaved by her former master but was denied the hope of citizenship from a second manumission. Constantine I decreed that the offspring of a freeborn woman and a slave serving in the
imperial treasury Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, ...
would hold only Latin rights if freed. No law against ''contubernium'' between a free woman and a slave she owned is known until the 4th century AD, but the Romans generally disapproved of relationships in which the female partner was of higher social status than the male. Inscriptions indicate that most often ''contubernium'' between a free woman and someone else's slave occurred when the female partner was herself a former slave or the child of former slaves. When a woman was in a position to free a slave and to become first his ''
patrona Patrona was a military rank of the Ottoman Navy equivalent to a Vice admiral or modern Turkish ''Tümamiral''. The word ''Patrona'' was originally Italian as term for the Admiral's galley. The Ottoman Patrona was the second commander of the Otto ...
'' and then his wife in legal marriage, the slave most likely had been bequeathed to a ''liberta'' in a will with an awareness or intention that the couple would marry, or she had purchased her ''contubernalis'' and manumitted him. A freedman was not supposed to marry his deceased patron's wife or daughter; the punishment as specified in the '' Sententiae Pauli'' (late 3rd or early 4th century) was condemnation to hard labor.


Between a free man and a female slave

Among the 260 inscriptions from the city of Rome referring to ''contubernales'', there is very little evidence of ''contubernium'' between a male partner who can be securely identified as free while the female is still enslaved. The sexual exploitation of female slaves by a slave-owner was not ''contubernium'', which was a relationship meant to serve the purposes of monogamous marriage for those who did not presently possess the citizenship rights that enabled marriage by law ''(
conubium Marriage in ancient Rome () was strictly a monogamous institution: a Roman citizen by law could have only one spouse at a time. The practice of monogamy distinguished the Greeks and Romans from other ancient civilizations, in which elite males ty ...
)''. There was no obstacle to a slave-owner obtaining sexual gratification with no expectation of mutual commitment from his female slave, who was legally his property to use. A free man who wanted to have sex with a female slave belonging to someone else would have to come to an arrangement with the owner just as he would if using any other property he did not own. Because Romans conceived of marriage as a union between a man and a woman who were ideally social equals, the motives for a free man to want a marriage with an enslaved woman would be peculiar to the individual. The status of children born from sexual relations between a free male and an enslaved female was one consideration in whether or how to marry. If the male participant in the relationship was free but the woman was a slave, their children would be born slaves. Slaves referred to as '' vernae''—those who were born to a slave woman and reared within the ''familia''—were at times the biological children of the ''paterfamilias'', his sons, or other free men of the household, though evidence of this is mostly indirect. ''Vernae'' might be brought up and educated as companions to the freeborn children of the house and were more likely to receive privileges such as ''contubernium'' and manumission. The father of a ''verna'' who had no other heir could manumit the child at his discretion independently of the mother's enslaved status, and heads of household without heirs are known to have left their estate to a favored slave who was also manumitted by the will. If the slave-owner had legitimate heirs, the decision to free a slave whom he had impregnated so that she could bear citizen children would require a motive other than producing an heir. A widowed or divorced slave-owner who had no heirs and lacked prospects for a desirable wife might turn to a companionable female slave of his household in hope of producing a "natural" heir, manumitting her to circumvent the disadvantage of servile birth. One of the Augustan laws pertaining to marriage prohibited the manumission of a slave under the age of thirty except for freeing a slave woman for the purpose of marriage. A man of senatorial rank would face legal penalties, including degradation of status, if he married a freedwoman ''(liberta)'', but monogamous concubinage ''(
concubinatus A ''concubinatus'' (Latin for "concubinage" – see also ''concubina'', "concubine", considered less pejorative than '' paelex'', and ''concubinus'', "man who lives with another with no legal marriage") was an institution of quasi-marriage betwee ...
)'' was an alternative. Men not of senatorial rank could enter into a legal marriage with ''libertae'', including wealthy men of the
equestrian order The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as " knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian ...
, though the importance of marriage in securing social and political connections in Rome made a formerly enslaved wife a liability at the highest levels of society. Among the lower ranks, however, many inscriptions record the marriage of a freedwoman and her former owner, who became her
patron Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...
before he became her husband. Their relationship before legal marriage was not construed as ''contubernium'' unless the male partner had been a slave or freedman when it began. A child born from either ''contubernium'' with a freedwoman or concubinage would be ', free but not legitimate; the child could not make a claim to the estate against legitimate heirs, but the father could make the ''spurius'' child legal heir through a will. Because ''contubernium'' expressed a relationship based on mutual affection and ''contubernalis'' was used fondly for a dear companion, as in epitaphs of those legally married, common usage is at times looser than juristic. For example, after the death of his wife,
Vespasian Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Em ...
maintained a relationship with
Caenis Antonia Caenis or Cenide, (died 74 AD) a former slave and secretary of Antonia Minor (mother of the emperor Claudius), was Roman emperor Vespasian's '' contubernalis''. Life It could be thought that she had family in Istria, now in Croatia, ba ...
, the freedwoman and former secretary of
Antonia Minor Antonia Minor (31 January 36 BC - 1 May 37 AD) was the younger of two surviving daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor. She was a niece of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligu ...
, even when he became
emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( e ...
as he neared the age of 60, at which time she was around 58. Their relationship began when she was about 20. In his ''Life of Vespasian'',
Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
calls their union a ''contubernium'' but also refers to Caenis as a ''concubina'' "almost in place of a legal wife" until her death in AD 74; the inscription commemorating her does not use either term. As Roman society changed in the later empire, the finer legal distinctions among freeborn people, freedpersons, and slaves began to dissolve. An attempt in AD 331 to retighten law pertaining to ''contubernium'' was directed at freeborn men who lived with a female slave, had children with her, and then brought up these children as if they were free without bothering to formally manumit them. Family law under Constantine, the first Christian emperor, was primarily aimed at preserving the privileges of freeborn status ''(ingenuitas)'', but at least one law also had the effect of protecting ''contubernales'' attached to a property whose family might have been broken up during a change of lease.


Between a soldier and a slave woman

In the
provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...
, Roman social norms would not be in effect, even for the army. Until AD 213, soldiers serving in the legions were not permitted to marry until they were discharged, placing them in a position rather like that of the imperial slave awaiting an expected or contractually fixed manumission. A soldier who consorted with women who were not supposed to be sexually available to him was subject to prosecution under the Augustan laws of morality that regulated illicit sex ''(
stuprum Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature, and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual ...
)''. The sexual use of a female slave, who as property of the owner had no personhood, was not a sex crime. Emotional attachments, expressed in epitaphs, letters, and other written media, formed within some of these unequal relationships, and parental approval might be sought. The epitaphs of soldiers in the provinces are often commemorations by their freedwomen, who in some cases are also identified as a legal wife ''(coniunx)''. An alternative union such as ''contubernium'' with a slave woman or monogamous concubinage with his own freedwoman, mutually agreed upon and perhaps with the approval of the female partner's family, avoided dishonor for the soldier and the woman. Many of these relationships were long-lasting and significant enough to the partners to be commemorated in epitaphs. One such epitaph was set up in Corduba,
Roman Spain Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hisp ...
, by an ''
aquilifer An ''aquilifer'' (, "eagle-bearer") was a soldier signifer bearing the eagle standard of a Roman legion. The name derives from the type of standard, ''aquila'' meaning "eagle" (which was the universal type used since 106 BC), and ''ferre'', the ...
'' (legionary standard-bearer) named Marcus Septicius on behalf of himself; his ''contubernalis'', Sabina; and his biological son ''(filius naturalis)'' Martialis, who died aged ten years, seven months, as the freedman ''(libertus)'' of his own father. When one member of a family died, the funerary inscription sometimes was set up in anticipation of all those who would be entombed together as they died; Martialis, still in childhood, predeceased his father. It can be inferred (though not specifically stated in the epitaph—nontraditional families sometimes shared a tomb) that Sabina is his mother. That she was the slave of Septicius is suggested by the unusualness of manumitting such a young child. As the illegitimate child of a union not recognized as marriage in Roman law, Martialis would not have been an automatic heir to his father's estate, and his father could not have made him a beneficiary of his will if he was still a slave—hence the manumission.Marcel Simonis, ''"Cum servis nullum est connubium": Untersuchungen zu den eheähnlichen Verbindungen von Sklaven im westlichen Mittelmeerraum des Römischen Reiches'' (Georg Olms, 2017), p. 153.


See also

*
Marriage in ancient Rome Marriage in ancient Rome () was strictly a monogamous institution: a Roman citizen by law could have only one spouse at a time. The practice of monogamy distinguished the Greeks and Romans from other ancient civilizations, in which elite males ty ...
* Inheritance law in ancient Rome


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * {{Refend Marriage, unions and partnerships in ancient Rome Roman law Slavery in ancient Rome Types of marriage