Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

west and east 411
hand, entailed all the uncertainties and risks of being uprooted. Cassiodorus,
celebrating the opulence of the great annual fair of Marcelliana in Lucania,
was to recollect all those pueri and puellae exhibited for sale not because they
were slaves but because they were free (quos non fecit captivatas esse sub pretio, sed
libertas). 69
iv. west and east
It is customary to distinguish the western model of the family, based on the
nuclear unit and strongly featuring exogamic matrimony, from that of the
east, centred on extended households, agnatic lineages and endogamous
marriage patterns. A key role in this distinction is played by Egypt, a region
thought to exemplify eastern kinship for many reasons, though particularly
because of the custom of marriage between siblings-german. As regards
late antiquity, the extent of the Egyptian contribution to this interpretative
picture needs to be radically reconsidered. The documents clearly show
that, following the Constitutio Antoniniana70 and the spread of Christianity,
such marriages became increasingly rare and eventually disappeared altogether.
And that is not all. A recent, plausible explanation for the custom
has traced its origin to the settlements of the Greek colonists, who adopted
a policy of strict closure towards the indigenous population. 71 If, therefore,
the phenomenon is explained as an ethnic decision determined by specific
historical circumstances, we can obviously no longer use it as evidence
either for the specific and primordial nature of Egyptian kinship or for the
eastern tendency for siblings-german to intermarry.
The generalization linking close-kin marriages with the eastern empire
is too imprecise and needs clarifying. For a start, it would not have occurred
to the ancients themselves. In the year 535/6 Justinian issued a law to check
the spread of gamoi athemitoi, ‘unlawful marriages’, in the provinces of
Osrhoene and Mesopotamia. The marriages in question were consanguineous
unions punishable by death: principally those between siblings and
between uncle and niece (those between cousins were not prohibited by
Byzantine law). While confirming the ban for the future, the emperor
agreed to be lenient over past transgressions: those at fault (he said) were
peasants who had been led astray by the customs of neighbouring populations
(the Persians above all) and whose lives had been disrupted by the
numerous recent invasions. 72 A similar measure, this time referring to
Mesopotamia, Osrhoene and the Euphratensis, was issued in 566 by Justin
II, who again referred to ignorance of the law and to corruption from
69 Cass. Var. viii.33.4. 70 Hopkins (1980b).
71 Shaw (1992). On the problem of Egyptian specificity, it is also worth noting that in Egypt the
marrying age of girls was in line with the average in the rest of the empire: Bagnall, Egypt 189.
72 Just. Nov. 154.
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