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349
CONCUBINA.
ercised a great influence over the people in and through these conciones. A magistrate who was higher in rank than the one who had convened a concio, had the right to order the people to dis perse, if he disapproved of the object (avocare, Gell. xiii. 14) ; and such a command and the vehe mence of the haranguing tribunes rendered con ciones often very tumultuous and riotous, especially during the latter period of the republic. The convening magistrate either addressed the people himself, or he introduced other persons to whom he gave permission to speak, for no private person was allowed to speak without this permission, and the people had nothing to do but to listen. (Dionys. v. li ; Liv. iii. 71, xlii. 34 ; Cic. ad Ait. iv; 2.) The place where such meetings were held, does not seem to have been fixed, for we find them in the forum, the Capitol, the Campus Martius, and the Circus Flaminius. (Cic. p. Seoct. 14, ad Att. . 1.) It should be remarked, that the term concio is also used to designate the speeches and harangues addressed to the people in an assembly (Liv. xxiv. 22, xxvii. 13 ; Cic. in Vat. 1), and that in a loose mode of speaking, concio denotes any assembly of the people. (Cic. p. Place. 7 ; comp. the Lexica.) [L. S.]
CONCUBINA (TraAAaKT?, 7raAAa/as). 1. GTvEEK.—The TraAAa/CT?, or -rraAAa/as1, occupied at Athens a kind of middle rank between the wife and the harlot (eraipa). The distinction between the era/pa, TraAAa/d], and legal wife, is accurately described by Demosthenes (c. Neaer. p. 1386), ras Liev ‘yap traipas T]$ov7)S eVe/c5 e%o(u6j/’ ras Se TraA-Aa/cas, ttjs KaO* ypepav frepaTreias rov (rwuaros: ras oe yvvautas, rov Tra&oiroiz’iffQai yisrjcri&s teal rS>v evftov (j>va,ica TTicrrty e^eu/. Thus Antiphon speaks of the 7raAAa/c?7 of Philoneos as following him to the sacrifice, and also waiting upon him and his guest at table. (Antiph. Ace. de Vencf. pp. 613, 0*14 ; comp. Becker, Cliarikles, vol. ii. p. 438.) If her person were violated by force, the same penalty was exigible from the ravisher as if the offence had been committed upon a,n Attic matron ; and a man surprised by the quasi-husband in the act of criminal intercourse with his TraAAa/c^, might be slain by him on the spot, as in the parallel case (Lys. De Caede Eratosth. p. 95). [adulterium.] It does not, however, appear very clearly from what political classes concubines were chiefly selected, as cohabitation with a foreign (£eVr?) woman was strictly forbidden by law (Demosth. c. Neaer. p. 1350), and the provisions made by the state for virgins of Attic families must in most cases have prevented their sinking to this condition. Sometimes certainty, where there were several destitute female orphans, this might take place, as the next of kin was not obliged to provide for more than one ; and we may also conceive the same to have taken place with respect to the daughters of families so poor as to be unable to • supply a dowry. (Demosth. c. Neaer. p. 1384 ; Plaut. Trinummus, iii. 2. 63.) The dowry, in fact, seems to have been a decisive criterion as to whether the connection between a male and female Athenian, in a state of cohabitation, amounted to a marriage : if no dowry had been given, the child of such union would be ‘ illegitimate ; if, on the contrary, a dowry had been given, or a proper instrument executed in acknowledgment of its receipt, the female was fully entitled to all conjugal rights. (Petit. Leg. Ati. p. 548, and authors there quoted.) It does
CONFARREATIO.
not appear that the slave that was taken to her master’s bed acquired any political rights in conse quence; the concubine mentioned by Antiphon is treated as a slave by her master, and after his death undergoes a servile punishment (Id. p. 615). [hetaira.] [J. S. M.J
2. roman. According to an old definition, an unmarried woman who cohabited with a man was originally called pellex, but afterwards by the more decent appellation of concubina. (Massurius, ap. Paul. Dig. 50. tit. 16. s. 144.) This remark has apparently reference to the Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea, by which the concubinatus received a legal character. This legal concubinatus consisted in the permanent cohabitation of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman. It therefore differed from adulterium, stuprum, and incestus, which were legal offences ; and from contubernium, which was the cohabitation of a free man with a slave, or the cohabitation of a male and female slave, between whom there could be no Roman marriage. Before the passing of the Lex. Jul. et P. P., the name of concubina would have applied to a woman who cohabited with a married man, who had not divorced his first wife (Cic. De Orat. i. 40) ; but this was not the state of legal concubinage which was afterwards established. The offence of stuprum was avoided in the case of the cohabitation of a free man and an ingenua by this permissive concubinage ; but it would seem to be a necessary inference that there should be some formal declaration of the intention of the parties, in order that there might be no stuprum. (Dig. 48. tit. 5. s. 34.) Pleineccius (Syntag. Ap. lib. i. 39) denies that an ingenua could be a concubina, and asserts that those only could be concubinae who could not be uxores ; but this appears to be a mistake (Dig. 25. tit. 7. s. 3), or perhaps it may be said that there was a legal doubt on this subject (Id. s. 1); Aurelian prohibited the taking of ingenuae as concubinae. (Vopiscus, Aurelian. 49.) A constitution of Constantine (Cod. v. tit. 27. s. 5) treats of ingenuae concubinae.
This concubinage was not a marriage, nor were the children of such marriage, who were sometimes called liberi naturales, in the power of their father, and consequently they followed the condition of the mother. There is an inscription in Fabretti (p. 337) to the memory of lr aullianus by Aemilia Prima "concubina ejus et heres," which seems to show that the term concubina was not a name that a woman was ashamed of. Under the Christian emperors concubinage was not favoured, but it still existed, as we see from the legislation of Justinian.
This legal concubinage resembled the morganatic marriage (ad morganatic.ani), in which neither the wife enjoys the rank of the husband, nor the children the rights of children by a legal marriage. (Lib. Feud. ii. 29.) Among the Romans, widowers who had already children, and did not wish to contract another legal marriage, took a concubina, as we see in the case of Vespasian (Suet. Vesp. 3), Antoninus Pius, and M.Aurelius (Jul. Cap. Vit. Ant. c. 8 ; Aurel. c. 29 ; Dig. 25. tit. 7 ; Cod. v. tit. 26 ; Paulus, Recept. Sentent. ii. tit. 19, 20 ; Nov. 18, c. 5 ; 89. c. 12.) [G. L.]
CONDICTIO. [AcTio.] .
CONDITORIUM. [funus.]
CONDU-CTIO. [locatio.]
•CONFARREA’TIO. [matrimonium.]
