Note 23 — Chapter XVII · THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPRESSES

One of the most authoritative works on Roman institutions, Marquardt and Mommsen’s “Handbuch,” says this emphatically: “Ehen, bei welchen der eine Theil der Römischen Bürgerschaft, der Andere den Latinern jüngeren Rechtes oder den Peregrinen angehörte, sind nach Römischen Recht nicht gültig” (vii. 29). Göteke, in a special study of the subject (“Constantinum honeste et ex legitimo matrimonio natum”), says that special edicts made it impossible for an officer to marry in the province in which he served. He believes that the effect of these would not be permanent, but he fails to consider Helena’s disability as a peregrina.