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WOMAN

VOLUME II

ROMAN WOMEN

by

Rev. ALFRED BRITTAIN

TULLIA, DAUGHTER OF SERVIUS
After the painting by E. Hildebrand

We have had the good queen, now we encounter the bad..... Tullia was of that type of which Shakespeare has given a picture in Lady Macbeth..... Lucius, her husband, with an armed band, repaired to the Senate and seated himself on the throne. King Servius appeared, but no one thought it worth while to hinder Lucius from throwing the aged ruler down the steps of the Senate house; which me manfully did.
Tullia was the instigator of this coup d'état; and impatient to learn its success, drove to the Forum, and, calling her husband from the Senate chamber, was the first to hail him as king. But Lucius commanded her to return home; and the tradition runs that as she was going thither her chariot wheels passed over the dead body of her royal father.

WOMAN

In All Ages and in All Countries

VOLUME II

ROMAN WOMEN

by

Rev. ALFRED BRITTAIN

Illustrated

PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PUBLISHERS

PREFACE

The student of history does not proceed far in his researches before he discovers that human nature is a fixed quality. Other lands, other manners; other times, other customs. But the man behind the manner is essentially the same; the woman under the changed custom is not thereby rendered essentially different, any more than she is by a varying of costume. The women of ancient Rome exemplified the same virtues, and were impelled by the same foibles as are the women of to-day. And the difference in environment, the vanished conditions of Roman life, gain large scientific interest from the fact that they did not result in any dissimilarity of fundamental character. If, by the most violent exercise of the imagination, it were possible to transport a female infant of the twentieth century, and cause her to be reared among the women of the Augustan age, she would fit as naturally into her surroundings as she would into the present society of London or of New York. Her legal status would be different; her moral conceptions would be unlike those of the present age; her duties, pleasures, privileges, and limitations would combine to make the accidents of life very different. But underneath all this, the same humanity, the same femininity, the same habits of mind are revealed. Herein is the chief use of history--above that of gratifying natural curiosity--the ascertaining how human nature will comport itself under varying conditions. The author hopes that the following pages, wherein the Roman woman is taken as an illustration, will be found of use to the student of the science of humanity, and not uninteresting to the reader inquisitive as to the manner of the ancient civilization.
ALFRED BRITTAIN.

I

THE WOMAN OF LEGENDARY ROME

The conditions which governed the life of woman in the earliest days of Roman history are too far removed from the searchlight of historical investigation for us to essay to indicate them with any degree of fulness and accuracy of detail. While it is true that the ancient writers have bequeathed to us records of historic events from the very founding of their nation, the source of their information is very questionable and its authenticity extremely doubtful. Rome did not cultivate literature until very late in her history; she was too greatly preoccupied in her rôle of conquering the world. At a time when every Greek was acquainted with the noblest poetry produced by his gifted race, Rome had not produced a single writer whose name has been preserved. And if at that time she had possessed any men of letters, it is quite certain that there were few of her citizens who would have been able to read their works. Hence, when the first attempt was made to write her history, the authors depended principally for their material on traditions and legends which, as is the case with all such lore, had gained greatly in marvellousness at the expense of historical value. In addition to these sources, it is probable that during the early centuries annals were kept of the principal happenings in the State. According to Cicero, they were written at the end of each year by the high priest. These records were used by the first historians; and it is likely that the latter were not so greatly restrained, by their literary conscience, from enlarging on the material, as they were tempted, according to the power of their imagination, to present a picture both interesting and satisfactory to the national pride. In many cases, as where the exact words of their characters are reported, the ancient historians evidently deemed that any deficiencies in the matter of proof were abundantly atoned for by the explicitness of the information given.

As to the historical value of legends, that is a question upon which modern writers are inclined to disagree. Since the inauguration of the higher criticism, it has been the fashion for extremists entirely to disown any belief in the dramatis personæ of ancient traditions. They claim that the names and the actions thus celebrated usually represent natural forces and historic evolutions; though, to the ordinary student, this would seem to require a remarkable amount of poetic inventiveness on the part of an undeveloped people. Moreover, it is not, perhaps, without reason that the student often looks upon the manner in which modern scholars reject the traditional contributions of the old historians as being a little arbitrary. What traveller has not found his patience sorely tried, while viewing with reverence the reputed site of some heroic or sacred occurrence of far-off days, as he recalled to memory the fact that the latest authorities hold that, while the thing might have taken place a few miles to the east or a short distance to the north, it, for certain erudite but unconvincing reasons, could not possibly have occurred on the spot where it has been located by the continuous belief of centuries?

The story of Rome from its founding to the end of the regal period, as it is told in the ancient classics, is no longer accepted as history. It is, for the most part, classified with those mythical creations with which an uncultured people endeavor to account for the origin and the evolution and revolutions of their race. Yet, passing over the marvellous and the manifestly impossible, why may we not at least claim the right to believe the compilers of these ancient legends, when they tell us of certain names that were great in the beginning of their nation? Modern criticism may be right in asserting that it is not likely that the city on the Tiber was called Roma because a man named Romulus selected an uninhabited site and built upon it. Yet why may we not be allowed to believe that in those early times there was one hero so strong and masterful that he came to be known as preëminently the "Man of Rome"? The character may have been a real one, even though the city gave him his name, instead of the reverse, as later generations surmised. And inasmuch as there is an Alexandria, not to speak of innumerable modern "villes" with well-known surnames for prefixes, it need not be thought a thing entirely incredible that the ancient city was really called after the man who established its importance.

It is the habit of modern historians to look with suspicion upon stories such as those which form our sole material for any personal illustration in this present chapter, because they are of a kind so generally found in the legends of all nations. But may not the multiplication of these long-lived narratives, instead of disproving the intrinsic truth of any given one, simply serve to illustrate the fact that, human nature being a permanent factor, the doings of men under similar circumstances, in any age or locality, will be marked by a uniformity of character? For our present purpose, however, if in such twilight as is given by long-preserved monuments and ancient relics, we choose to fancy that we perceive, moving about in their daily life, the feminine forms of traditional lore, the combination will only serve to form a more human, and really not less accurate, picture.

The limits of our subject do not require that we should go back so far as the epoch of Æneas, the hero of Troy; nor need we take into consideration the part which he and Lavinia, his wife, may have played upon the Latin shores. Their traditional coming to Italy simply serves to indicate the fact that nearly all the tribes which inhabited the country at the commencement of Roman history were of the same branch of the great Aryan race as the Greeks. The Romans were the brothers of the Greeks. The former were of that same lithe, supple-bodied, straight-featured type which the wonderful art of the latter has enthroned, for all the ages, as the noblest realization of ideal physical beauty.

But when we consider the rude conditions under which life was passed, it is probable that the highest examples of feminine grace would, in many respects, be open to severe criticism from the civilized and artificial taste which has prevailed in after ages. Those were the days of Arcadian simplicity, which poetry has peopled with sweet and enticing Phyllises and Chloes, whose only occupation was to listen to the pipings of languishing shepherds. But, in reality, though life was simple and wants were few, the women, as in all semi-civilized communities, gave an overplus of labor in return for the special exertions of the men in the chase and the combat. Hence, though the poetic conception may be alluring, we are compelled to believe that the reality possessed but few advantages that could arouse the envy of a modern village maiden. The woman of earliest Rome was wholly a product of nature, endowed only with the unfailing charms of femininity, which were solely reinforced with the perfect health and vigor which come from a simple life.

Of such a type we may imagine Rhea Sylvia, the legendary mother of Romulus and Remus. She was the daughter of a king, but one who was not a monarch in the later significance of the title. Of kings there were many in the Latium of those days. The title meant merely the patriarch of a clan, or the head man of a small city. The regal abode was probably a small, round structure, built of wood and roofed with straw. It may have consisted of only one room, with a hole in the ceiling to admit light and allow the smoke to escape. Of furniture there was little more than rude tables and grass or leaf covered couches, together with the Lares, or household gods. But though life conditioned by such meagre accessories was simple, it was by no means idle, and there existed no such contempt for labor and handicraft among the Latin tribesmen as grew up in later times. The king himself followed the plow, while his wife and daughters were busy with the distaff and spindle, the hand loom and the needle. It was the duty of the women to spin the wool and to make all the clothing for the household. Education consisted solely of the training in the requirements of this simple life, and was provided by no school other than the daily experience which the boys and girls gathered among their elders. The art of writing was in the earliest days not entirely unknown, though, during long years of slow development, it was employed only in painting public records on leaves and skins; or, if greater permanence was required, the records were scratched upon tablets of wood. The amusements of the people consisted mainly of the festivals and athletic games which were held in honor of the gods. If it might only be believed that this life was as pleasant as it is pictured by Virgil, it would be easy to sympathize with the poet when he declares that he pined for such an existence himself. "The husbandman cleaves the earth with the crooked plow.... Winter comes: the Sicyonian berry is pounded in the oil presses; and the autumn lays down its various productions.... Meanwhile, the sweet babes twine around their parents' necks; his chaste family maintain their purity. The swain himself celebrates festal days; and extended on the grass, where a fire is in the middle, and where his companions crown the bowl, invokes thee, O Lanæus, making libation. On an elm is set forth to the masters of the flock prizes to be contended for with the winged javelin; and they strip their rustic bodies for the friendly struggle." Elsewhere the poet describes a home scene, where the man is working by the light of the winter fire: "Meanwhile, his spouse, cheering by song her tedious labor, runs over the webs with the shrill shuttle; or over the fire boils down the liquor of the luscious must, and skims with leaves the tide of the trembling cauldron. This life of old the ancient Sabines followed; this, Remus and his brother strictly observed; thus Etruria grew in strength; and thus too did Rome become the glory and beauty of the world."

Unlike their sisters of Greece, the women of Rome were never secluded; yet their duties and responsibilities were strictly confined to domestic bounds. Here, however, while the husband was master, the wife was mistress. She took equal part with him in the worship of the family Lares, which worship was a prominent feature in every Roman household; and if he were a priest, she, by her marriage to him, became a priestess. But, except in certain religious institutions, she had not the slightest active connection with State or public affairs. That is, she had no such connection in theory and according to law; but it was in Rome as it has been in all ages and in all countries: there were no laws or customs that could prevent a woman who possessed gifts of mind and cherished ambitious projects from gaining some tool by means of whom her hand might turn the affairs of State to her will.

To this strenuous class of women, however, Rhea Sylvia did not belong. Her euphonious name has been preserved, not because of any active influence which she wielded over the destinies of men, but because, through the simple function of motherhood, she introduced into the history of the world a strong man. She was the daughter of Numitor, to whom his father had bequeathed the kingdom of the Sylvian clan. But Amulius, another son, had driven his brother into exile, and, in order to secure himself in his usurpation, had put all his nephews to death. Rhea was spared, probably on account of the fact that the law did not allow women to reign, and hence her existence held no threat. Nevertheless, since of the women of princely houses are born possible claimants to thrones. Amulius deemed it best that some preventive measure should be taken. He evidently did not wish to commit unnecessary barbarities; and he also liked, if possible, to cover his self-protective actions with a gloss of seeming generosity. Rhea Sylvia should be the priestess of Vesta. Hers should be the honorable duty of guarding the perpetual fire which burned on the sacred hearth of the city. Thus she, as was befitting the daughter of Numitor, would be held in as high regard among the people as the queen herself. Incidentally, this would also preclude the possibility of any grandson appearing to claim the throne of the exiled Numitor; for the Vestals were most rigidly pledged to a life of constant virginity. But how often have the gods, and sometimes even Nature herself, thwarted the most cunningly devised schemes of men! Upon this truism Amulius must have reflected, when, without any previous declaration of her intention, Rhea Sylvia introduced to the community a sturdy pair of twins. She declared that Mars was the father of her offspring; either, as Livy discreetly remarks, because she believed it to be so, or because a god seemed the most creditable author of her offence. In those times, the possibility and the frequent occurrence of such matches were devoutly believed, and the first historians freely availed themselves of this belief to enhance the glory of their race, or of a powerful family, by establishing for it the reputation of a divine origin. The idea of superhuman parentage was also a convenient means by which to account for, and sometimes excuse, the unusual character and extraordinary deeds of ancient heroes. In those days, when men's faith was simple and uncritical, belief in divine incarnation presented no serious difficulty.

It is evident, however, that Amulius was not greatly impressed with a sense of the sacredness of the children of the warrior-god. He threw the mother into prison, and ordered her sons to be drowned in the Tiber. But, as is usually and fortunately the case in legendary history, this order was intrusted to one who was either too pitiful or too careless to give it thorough execution. The infants, in their cradle or upon a rude raft, were set afloat on the river, which was at that time in flood; the waters, however, quickly subsided, and the boys were left alive on dry ground. Their cries attracted a shepherd named Faustulus, and by him they were carried to his home, where they were reared by his wife Laurentia. This woman is given a bad name by the ancients. They say that she was also called Lupa; and Lupa being the name applied to a woman of unchaste character, as well as the term used to designate a she-wolf, in this manner the sceptics accounted for the marvellous story of the sons of Rhea being suckled by a wolf. But whatever may have been the failings of Laurentia, if there be any truth whatever in the legend, she made atonement by preserving the life of the founder of Rome. We will not follow these traditions in their well-known details. Whether or not Romulus was indeed the first to select the site of the city which was to spread over seven hills by the Tiber and from them dominate the world is as impossible to determine as it would be unimportant to our subject if ascertained. The purpose before us is solely to inquire what part and lot woman had in the founding of the infant State. That her rôle was mainly a passive one may be taken for granted, as being in accordance with the status of the weaker sex in the childhood of every race and nation.

The ancient historians, who accepted the Romulus legend without question, portray for us the growing town, so sturdily and rapidly advancing in power and fame as to excite the wonder and the jealousy of neighboring communities. One cause to which is attributed this prosperity is interesting, since it led to a famous episode in which women played a leading though an unwilling part. We are told that Romulus opened within, the bounds of the city an asylum, or place of refuge, where fugitives from justice or from servitude were received under the protection of the gods. This attracted new citizens in great numbers, but such as contributed nothing to the respectability of the new State. The new-comers were, almost entirely, unmarried men; and soon the paucity of women in Rome gave cause for grave concern. Romulus had appointed a number of the leading citizens, whom he named as Senators, to assist him in the government. But it was not in the power of these city fathers to aid him materially in securing a continued growth of the community, unless wives could be provided. Ambassadors were despatched to the neighboring States, requesting treaties of alliance, and especially begging the privilege of intermarriage. Owing, doubtless, to the questionable character of the newly acquired inhabitants of Rome, this was a favor which no city was disposed to grant. Everywhere the ambassadors were confronted with the suggestion that an asylum be opened for women also, for only by such a plan could suitable mates be obtained for the men of Rome. Another reason, however, why wives were hard to obtain was the fact that women were comparatively scarce throughout Latium. The custom of exposing female infants to death was prevalent there, as in many other ancient races, daughters being looked upon as a source of weakness and expense to a family, as sons were a gain and a strength. Wives, however, being a necessity, the fathers of boys often secured as brides for their sons girls as soon as they were born. This laid upon the parents of the latter the obligation to spare their lives and rear them. There is no evidence that the purchase of wives was ever a custom among the Romans. Indeed, the opposite was from time immemorial the practice; a dower went with the bride. Hence it is easy to see why the Latin fathers were unwilling to bestow their daughters,--who were not likely to remain on their hands for lack of suitors,--and especially the dowers that went with them, upon the adventurous young men who had sought at Rome asylum from justice or vengeance.

But in those ages, and especially in such a matter as the winning of wives, diplomacy was a resource not wholly depended upon. Among the marriage ceremonies of later times, there was a custom of parting the hair of the Roman bride with a spear. In this we find a reminiscence of the period when marriage by capture was resorted to when there seemed urgent necessity. Thus Romulus determined that what could not be gained by fair means should be obtained by the best method which came to hand. At the festival of the god Consus, appropriately the deity who presided over hidden deliberations, the seizure of the Sabine maidens was planned and carried out; and thus the Romans took to themselves wives. How closely this well-known story corresponds with facts, of course, cannot be determined. Possibly many of its details are attempts of later ages to account for wedding customs, the origin of which had been forgotten. But it is very probable that marriage by capture was common in the embryonic civilization of early Rome. And there may have been one occasion when this rude method of wooing was adopted in so flagrant and wholesale a manner that it led to a war with the Sabines, by which the remembrance of the event was perpetuated in the traditions of the people. Michelet, commenting on this story in his brilliant manner, says: "The progress of humanity is striking. Springing in India from mystical love, the ideal of woman assumes in Germany the features of savage virginity and gigantic force; in Greece, those of grace and stratagem, to arrive among the Romans at the highest pagan morality, to virgin and conjugal dignity. The Sabines only follow their ravishers on compulsion, but, become Roman matrons, they refuse to return to the paternal mansion, disarm their fathers and their husbands, and unite them in one city." Plutarch says that it was in order to obtain forgiveness that the Romans assured certain privileges to their wives. No labor other than spinning should be demanded of them; they should take the inside of the path; nothing indecent should be done or said in their presence; they should not be summoned before the criminal judges; and their children should wear the pretexta and the bulla. Thus in the time of the Greek historian the barbarism of the old times was forgotten, and to the primitive constitution was attributed all the civilization which it required centuries to bring about.

As fair Helen brought woe to Troy, so the abduction of the Sabine maidens was followed by the bitter vengeance of their indignant masculine relatives. If we may believe the old historians, the women soon became reconciled to their enforced condition as wives of the Romans. Doubtless the writers drew this conclusion more from their knowledge of the yielding disposition of feminine nature than from any precise acquaintance with the facts. It being totally uncustomary for the woman to be allowed any decision in the matter, it was a thing of small importance to her whether she was taken by her husband, without either her consent or that of her father, or whether she was given by her father to her husband, equally without being consulted.

The Sabines waited patiently for a favorable opportunity; and when it came, they attacked the Romans with good success. They even gained possession of the strongest fortifications of the city. But, according to the legend, they could not have won such advantage had it not been for the love of gaud of Tarpeia, the daughter of one of the captains of Romulus. Tatius, the King of the Sabines, induced her to open for him the gates, promising as a reward the golden bracelets which his soldiers wore upon their left arms. It is noticeable that the difficulties which must have surrounded an interview between the king and the maiden are discreetly ignored by the tradition. She agreed to open the gate, on the pretence of going forth to draw water for the sacrifice, and the Sabine men were thereupon to rush in. Everything took place as arranged, except that the misguided Tarpeia received much more than she had bargained for. Her request was for "that which they wore upon their left arms," not remembering the fact that upon that arm they also carried their shields. The soldiers, as they entered, either through haste, or because they hated treachery though willing to avail themselves of it, threw at her their shields as well as their bracelets, and the girl was crushed to death beneath their weight. A part of the hill which the Sabines thus gained was ever afterward called the Tarpeian Rock; and it became a place of execution, traitors being hurled from its summit. There is much about this story which justifies the suspicion that it arose from, or at least was adopted by, a desire on the part of the Romans to explain a defeat, rather than from any verifiable historical foundation. It looks like a case of the natural vanity of warlike men saving itself by means of an ungallant slur on the characteristic vanity of women.

Taking the account as it stands, matters were now very serious for the Romans. The enemy had gained the citadel, and a bloody conflict ensued. But the women whose abduction had brought on these troubles were also to be the means of making peace. As the battle was raging, the two armies were astounded to behold the Sabine women rushing from the homes of the Romans, not to make their escape, but to throw themselves between the combatants. With tears, they entreated their fathers and brothers to hear them. Their plea was voiced by a captive named Hersilia, who some historians hold was the wife of that Hostilius who afterward became King of Rome, while others claim that she had been taken by Romulus himself. Plutarch gives us her speech--of course, drawing from his own imagination, though he is not far from what might have been the truth; for anyone may guess what would be likely on such an occasion. She said: "It is true we were ravished away unjustly and violently by those whose wives we now are; but that being done, we are bound to them by the strictest bonds, so that it is impossible for us not to weep and tremble at the danger of the men whom once we hated. You now come to force away wives from their husbands, and mothers from their children. Which shall we call the worse, their love making or your compassion? Restore to us our parents and kindred, but do not rob us of our husbands and children. We entreat you not to make us twice captive." Whereupon, the Sabines learning that their daughters were not yearning to be rescued, and having no other good reason for carrying on the fight, a truce was declared. With a zealous determination to leave nothing unaccounted for, the tradition relates how the women took their kindred into the city and proudly exhibited the comforts and indulgences they enjoyed with their husbands, whose wooing had been so unmannerly. This might well be, as the Sabines were a pastoral people and unaccustomed to what were to them the luxuries of city life. So peace was made; and we are told that it was in commemoration of this event that the ladies of Rome ever afterward celebrated the festival of the Matronalia on the first of March. It was their custom to ascend in the morning in procession to the temple of Juno, and place at the feet of the goddess the flowers with which their heads were crowned. In the evening, in memory of the tokens of gratitude which the Sabine women received from their Roman husbands, they remained at home, adorned in their best attire, waiting for the customary gifts of their husbands and friends. At a date far later, we find Tibullus debating with himself, in an exquisite little poem, what gift he shall send to his beloved Neæra on the Calends of March. With the customary valuation which an author sets upon his own productions, he decides that he can give her nothing more acceptable than a copy of his poems, beautifully bound and adorned.

Every nation has its traditional Golden Age, a period to which the poetic philosophers of degenerate after times love to refer in the assumption that then all things were at their best and men were perfectly happy. So all Roman ideals of civic concord are concentrated in and derived from the legendary reign of Numa Pompilius. He is described as not seeking the kingdom, but preferring the pleasures of reflection in a quiet life with Tatia, his like-minded and noble wife. But the honor was forced upon him, and he reigned in the spirit of a true philosopher. He formulated laws and established a system of morals in accordance with principles worthy of Marcus Aurelius. To him is given the credit of organizing the religious institutions of the Romans, and especially the college of Vestal Virgins. We have seen that, before his time, to certain maidens was assigned the duty of guarding the sacred fire, and at the same time their virgin purity. But Numa was said to have formulated the rules of the order, to have assigned precisely its duties, and to have built a house for Vesta. But there is not the least doubt that around the name Numa have clustered, and to him have been attributed, many advances in civilization which were the growth of centuries. This seems especially probable in view of the fact that Numa was a Sabine, one of the pastoral race which was naturally less advanced in culture than the people who were gathered in cities.

What improvement may have found its way into the conditions of feminine life during this period, it is difficult to determine. The useful arts are said to have grown greatly in favor. Numa is credited with having instituted guilds for the encouragement of flute blowers, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, carpenters, fullers, dyers, potters, and shoemakers. Life would thus become more comfortable, and also be brightened by that which was pleasurable and ornamental. This supposes an enlargement of the sphere of the home, a consequent increasing of the interests and responsibilities of the women, and a softening effect upon their nature. There is also an indication that, as in ancient Germany, though the women may have had no part in the direct government of the State, yet the counsels of certain of their sex were followed by the lawmakers with a reverence akin to religion. There is a strong suggestion of feminine influence in the legends concerning the marital relations of Numa. Plutarch relates that Tatia, Numa's estimable first wife, was separated from him by death after thirteen years of wedded felicity, and that after this he never married again, but sought to console himself by melancholy ramblings in the fields and woods. This gave rise to the story that, in a certain grove, he was accustomed to meet the goddess Egeria, who not only favored him with her love, but also endowed him with the wisdom to perform his duties with marvellous success. On the other hand, Livy, who probably knew neither more nor less about it, says that Numa consecrated this grove, with its grotto and spring of living water, to the Muses, who were accustomed there to meet his wife Egeria. Whether this Egeria is to be regarded as a mortal woman, perhaps the lawful wife of the king, or, what is considerably less likely, a divine being, cannot be decided from these traditions. But they surely have a value in that they indicate the willingness of the earliest Romans to attribute excellence in statesmanship on the part of their best men to the inspiration of members of the fair and gentle, sex.

After the death of Numa, the Romans elected as their king Tullus Hostilius, and thus a turbulent warrior succeeded the peace-loving lawgiver. In this reign, instead of the poetic anachronism which portrays an abnormally advanced civilization, we are brought back again to earth and to history and to a more accurate description of the progress of the people. Much is revealed in the story by which Livy, in his inimitable manner, accounts for the Sororium Tigillium, or the Sister's Post, a monument which he says was existent in his own day. Here we not only encounter the terrible right of the father of a family over the lives of his children, but we also see that the tender instincts of a woman's love were accounted as nothing in comparison with loyalty to the family and her duty of hatred to the enemies of the State. The heroic Horatius, single-handed after the death of his brothers, had slain the three champions of the Alban army, and thus provided the first taste of the delight of subjugation to the city which was destined to become the mistress of the world. In the triumphal return to Rome, Horatius marched foremost of all the army, carrying before him the spoils of the three Alban brothers. As they neared the Porto Capena, the Roman women came forth to welcome the victors home. Among the rest came Horatia, the sister of the youthful conqueror. As she ran to embrace him, she noticed upon his shoulder a familiar robe; in fact, it was a soldier's tunic which she had wrought with her own hands for one of the vanquished Curiatii, to whom she had been betrothed. The truth flashed upon the damsel's mind in an instant. Her lover was dead, and that by the hand of her brother. With tears and lamentations, she began to call upon the name of her betrothed. Possibly with her cries of grief she joined bitter upbraidings of her brother, who had saved himself and Rome at the cost of her bereavement. His sister's lamentations, in the midst of his own triumph and the great public rejoicing, so greatly angered the excited youth that he drew his sword and stabbed her to the heart. As he did this, he cried: "Go with thy unseasonable love; go and rejoin thy betrothed, thou who forgettest thy dead brothers, and him who remains, and thy country! So perish every woman who shall dare to lament the death of an enemy!" This atrocious murder raised, of course, a profound sensation among the people. They did not know which ought to outweigh the other: his awful crime or his brilliant exploit for the public good. The king appointed duumvirs to try him. By these he was condemned to be beaten with rods, within or without the walls of the city, and then to be hanged.

But the law gave to Horatius the right of appeal to the people, and in this second trial he found an effective advocate in his own father. The old man declared that he considered his daughter deservedly slain. Were it not so, he said, he would by his own authority as father have inflicted punishment on his son. It seems probable, however, that Horatius senior took this course of argument, not because he did not regret his daughter, but because he hoped thereby to save himself from being bereft of all his children. "Go, lictor," he said, "bind those hands which but a little while since, being armed, established sovereignty for the Roman people. Strike him within the town, if thou wilt, but in presence of these trophies and spoils; without the town, but in the midst of the tombs of the Curiatii. Into what place can you lead him where the monuments of his glory do not protest against the horror of his punishment?" The tears of the father and the intrepidity of the son won for the latter absolution; but the father was commanded to make expiatory sacrifices, and these were ever afterward continued in the Horatian family. As a further punishment, a beam was laid across the street and the young man made to pass under it, with veiled head, as under a yoke.

Chronologically, this seems to be the appropriate place to introduce some reference to another race which, to no small extent, affected the early history of Rome and also the status of the Roman woman. From Etruria came the ancestor of the Tarquins, that proud dynasty which provided two legends of the extreme opposite types of women: Tullia, the cruel and ambitious queen, and Lucretia, the ideal of conjugal faithfulness. Tanaquil, the never-forgotten helpmeet of an able man, also came from this people.

The Etruscans have ever been a puzzle to historians and one of the principal enigmas in ethnology. Entirely unlike the Hellenic or Italiote races in appearance as well as in customs, even the ancients were at a loss to surmise whence this remarkable people originated. Dionysius says, "they claimed alliance with no people in the world." Inquiry regarding them would not be so interesting, were it not that they have left such an abundance of proofs of their proficiency in art and advancement in civilized industry. At the time of which we are writing, they possessed the very respectable beginning of a literature. We have nearly two thousand of their inscriptions; but hardly a word are we able to interpret, for the Etruscan language is to-day what the Egyptian hieroglyphics were before Champollion. These people were the artists and the manufacturers for all Italy. In the museums of Europe are to be seen specimens of their art, such as statues, beautifully ornamented vases, bas-reliefs, and jewelry, which can but excite the wonder of the beholder by the richness of their execution. Their tombs have been found to contain great quantities of such treasures, which they were in the habit of burying with their chiefs. Reclining on one of these tombs are the carved effigies of a man and his wife, represented as though resting upon a couch. If these figures give as correct an idea of the appearance of the Etruscans as they indicate artistic ability, they were a thickset people, with retreating foreheads, aquiline noses, and eyes rather oblique--all suggestive of the Asiatic type. The barbarous religious ideas of the Etruscans rendered the race gloomy and fatalistic. Their priests were supposed to be experts in divining the future; and their gods often required to be propitiated with human sacrifices. Their civilization had a powerful effect upon that of Rome. In Etruria women were treated with a respect unusual among the races of that time; and it may have been owing to this influence that the women of Rome enjoyed so much more liberty than their sisters of Greece. On the other hand, to the Etruscans' characteristic delight in cruel sports has been attributed the introduction of gladiatorial contests in the arena at Rome.

The traditional account of the origin of the Tarquin family is very uncertain historical data, the founder being represented as the son of a foreigner in Tarquinii, a city of Etruria, and his name Lucumo; while history seems to indicate that the lucumon was an Etruscan chief magistrate. However, we will take the legendary account as it stands. In it we are told that Lucumo had married a noble maiden of Tarquinii, called Tanaquil, a name that in after times became a household word among the Romans. When they wished to hold before their daughters the ideal of a good housewife, they exhorted them to emulate Queen Tanaquil. She was also called Caia Cæcilia, "the good spinner"; and to her memory and industry all young brides paid honor. From what is told of her, however, she seems rather to have been an extraordinary type of the women whose ambitions urge their husbands in the quest of high political position and whose wise intuitions help to support their spouses in those positions when attained.

These Etruscans were wealthy; but Lucumo could hope for no place of influence in Etruria, for the reason that he was the son of a foreigner. It is to Tanaquil, however, that the credit is given of having persuaded him to migrate to Rome. We can imagine her argument to have been that, in the new State, where all the nobility were of recent origin and where men were elevated for merit rather than for family descent, the courage and energy of her husband would give him the best chances of success. The story relates that, as they were about to enter Rome, an eagle swooped down from the skies and seized Lucumo's cap in its talons. After flying around the chariot with loud screams, to their great astonishment the bird replaced the cap on the man's head. In those times, the movements of birds were looked upon as the surest kind of omens, as indeed they were so regarded for centuries afterward; and among the first historians, the tradition of the entrance into Rome of a man destined to be its king, in which there was no mention made of an omen, would simply indicate a defect in the narrative which literary justice would require them to make good. Tanaquil, availing herself of the science of augury, in which the Etruscans were especially expert, declared that this was a sign that the highest honors were to be heaped upon her husband's head. Down to very late times, Romans, even those of the keenest intellect, were largely influenced in their actions and decisions by such signs; and it is easy to see how omens might seem valid, inasmuch as they contributed in no small degree to their own fulfilment by encouraging or depressing those who thoroughly believed in them.

THE CONVERT
After the painting by G. R. C. Boulanger

The noble matron Pomponia Græcina has been credited by tradition with having found consolation for the sorrows of the times in that new faith which was undermining old Rome, both literally in the catacombs and figuratively in the rapidity with which it was making converts; but we know not with certainty..... Græcina was accused of yielding to foreign superstitions. This may have been owing to the peculiarities of her manner. She had been the close friend of that Julia, daughter of Drusus, whom Messalina had forced to kill herself. From this time on, for the space of forty years, Græcina wore nothing but mourning, and was never seen to smile..... When the charge of entertaining foreign superstitions was laid against her, she was, in accordance with the ancient law, consigned to the adjudication of her husband..... She was adjudged innocent.

In the city, our legendary Etruscan changed his name to Lucius Tarquinius Priscus. His riches and talents soon availed with the Romans, and he was appointed guardian to the king's children. When Ancus died, Tarquin succeeded in persuading the people to elect him to the throne; and he was not mistaken in his estimation of his own fitness for that position, for his rule was in every way beneficial. He enlarged the territory of the State and undertook many worthy public works. To this period is attributed the building of the great subterranean sewers for draining the city. Lasting, though inelegant, monuments these; for after twenty-five centuries have passed away, and after so many Romes have arisen and fallen above them, the cloacae of Tarquinius Priscus still remain and admirably serve their purpose. The historians further tell us that this Etruscan introduced into the kingly style a magnificence hitherto unknown in Rome. This was especially manifested in his embroidered robes, which were the skilful work of Tanaquil the Spinner. Here was a queen who might have been taken for the model of the virtuous woman depicted in the Book of Proverbs. The heart of her husband could safely trust in her. She did him good and not evil all the days of her life. "She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands." But Tanaquil was as well qualified to assist her husband in his political projects as to array him in a manner befitting his station. This is evidenced by her behavior at his death, which took place at the hand of assassins. We will allow Livy to relate in his own words what happened, "When those who were around had raised up the king in a dying state, the lictors seized on the men who were endeavoring to escape. Upon this followed an uproar and concourse of the people, wondering what the matter was. Tanaquil, during the tumult, orders the palace to be shut up, thrusts out all who were present; at the same time, she sedulously prepares everything necessary for dressing the wound, as if a hope still remained; yet, in case her hopes should disappoint her, she projects other means of safety. Sending immediately for Servius,--who had married her daughter,--after she had showed him her husband almost expiring, holding his right hand, she entreats him not to suffer the death of his father-in-law to pass unavenged, or his mother-in-law to be an object of insult to their enemies. 'Servius, she said, 'if you are a man, the kingdom is yours, not theirs, who, by the hands of others, have perpetrated the worst of crimes. Exert yourself, and follow the guidance of the gods. Now awake in earnest. We, too, though foreigners, have reigned. Consider who you are, not whence you have sprung. If your own plans are not matured by reason of the suddenness of this event, then follow mine.' When the uproar and violence of the multitude could scarcely be withstood, Tanaquil addressed the populace from the upper part of the palace through the windows facing the new street--for the royal family resided near the temple of Jupiter Stator. She bids them be of good courage; tells them that the king was stunned by the suddenness of the blow; that the weapon had not sunk deep into his body; that he was already come to himself again; that the wound had been examined, the blood having been wiped off; that all the symptoms were favorable; that she hoped they would see him very soon; and that, in the meantime, he commanded the people to obey the orders of Servius Tullius. That he would administer justice, and perform all the functions of the king. Servius comes forth with the trabea and the lictors, and, seating himself on the king's throne, decides some cases, but with respect to others pretends that he will consult the king. Therefore, the death being concealed for several days, though Tarquin had already expired, he, under pretence of discharging the duties of another, strengthened his own interest. Then, at length, the matter being made public, and lamentations being raised in the palace, Servius, supported by a strong guard, took possession of the kingdom by the consent of the Senate, being the first who did so without the orders of the people."

Of course, however much or little of all this may have really taken place, the effect of the account is greatly heightened by the brilliant imagination of the historian. But we believe that at least there is enough historical truth in it to show that the early Romans did not consider able statecraft on the part of women an entire impossibility. In regard to Tanaquil's after career as queen-dowager, the legends are totally and regrettably silent; and it is left to us to surmise without data as to how the new king held his own with such an extraordinarily clever mother-in-law; but, from what has just been related, he would seem to have had both the wisdom to appreciate her counsels and the ability to put them into effect.

The Tarquinian dynasty was prolific of remarkable women; and in the legendary history they are set over against each other in sharp contrast. We have had the good queen, now we encounter the bad. Again it is the story of a woman who was ambitious, but this time of one who possessed no moral sentiment to soften her methods, whose respect for that which is honorable in woman weighed nothing against her desire for position. Expediency being furthered by cruelty, she could easily overcome her feminine instincts. She was an exaggerated specimen of that type of which Shakespeare has given an unfading picture in Lady Macbeth. More than this, Tullia represented for the Romans the very acme of wickedness. All feminine virtue with them culminated in filial obedience and marital faithfulness; Tullia murdered her husband and plotted against her father, and was accessory to his death. The Romans were not abstract thinkers; and it is more than likely that this legend is an accumulation, in one imaginary concrete example, of all feminine depravity, rather than a veritable account of a historic personage. Yet we have no good reason to doubt that there was a vicious Tullia, on whose character this ideal of wickedness was erected.

Servius, the good king, had two daughters, Tullia being the younger. These young women were married to the two sons of Tarquinius Priscus, Lucius and Aruns; the eider daughter being given to the elder son. The consequence of this arbitrary choice on the part of the parents was that a most contrary assortment was made. A stirring and prideful man found himself coupled with a woman of easy, good-natured disposition; and a man of contented mind and contemplative habits was afflicted with a high-spirited and ambitious wife. The haughty Tullia could not endure the thought that there was no material in her husband either for daring or energetic action. She gave her regard to Lucius, who, as she considerately informed Aruns, was worthy to be called a man. She went so far as to intimate to Lucius that if the gods had been possessed of sufficient good judgment to have given her the only man who could appreciate her abilities she would soon see the crown in her own house, instead of in that of her father. This inspired the young man; and they both agreed that the mistakes of the deities should be rectified. It soon conveniently happened that two deaths gave the opportunity for a reassortment; and the nuptials of Lucius and Tullia were quickly celebrated.

Having thus far hurried forward the matter, it was not in the nature of the woman to wait patiently for death to make vacant the throne of the aged Servius. She said that she wanted a husband who would rather possess a throne than hope for it. She stimulated Lucius's courage by asking why he allowed himself to be called a prince, if he had not the spirit to take his own. She suggested that, his grandfather having been a merchant, perhaps it would be as well for him to return to Tarquinii, the original home of the family, and engage in the same peaceful occupation; which is evidence that the facile keenness of a woman's power of expression is not a development of modern education. Being thus encouraged, Lucius, as probably many another statesman has done, considered it more advisable to take the chances of public strife than to live in the certainty of domestic unrest. The time seeming propitious, he repaired with an armed band to the Senate house and seated himself on the throne. King Servius appeared, but no one thought it worth while to hinder Lucius from throwing the aged ruler down the steps of the Senate house; which he manfully did.

Tullia was the instigator of this coup d'état; and impatient to learn its success, she drove to the Forum, and, calling her husband from the Senate chamber, was the first to hail him as king. But Lucius commanded her to return home; and the tradition runs that as she was going thither her chariot wheels passed over the dead body of her royal father as it lay in the narrow street. More of the story of this Roman personification of filial iniquity we are not told, except that, in accordance with the inevitable rule of legendary history, she met the Nemesis of her crimes on a later day. The manner of it we shall see in the expulsion of her family from Rome.

The reign of Lucius Tarquin, surnamed Superbus on account of his extraordinary pride, was strong and tyrannous; but its effect was the aggrandizement of Rome and the increase of her power in Italy. He is credited with some extensive public works, the chief of which was the Capitol. This temple he erected upon the hill which had from time immemorial been held sacred to Jove; for thereupon the people had ofttimes beheld the deity, as Virgil says, "with his right hand shaking his black shield, and summoning the storm clouds to him." For his architectural undertakings the Roman king hired skilled Etruscan workmen, which indicates that his own subjects were as yet laggards in the pursuit of the arts and sciences. Indeed, everything goes to show that the only infant industries which the Romans zealously cultivated at this time were warfare and such agriculture as was necessary to supply the wants of their abstemious life. For their few artistic needs, they depended almost entirely upon the other Italian cities, which in these respects were further advanced.

In the traditional history of the reign of Tarquin Superbus there is included a legend concerning the Sibyl of Cumæ. Of those mysterious women called Sibyls, ten were reputed to have flourished in various parts of the ancient world. She of Cumæ was said to have lived one thousand years; seven hundred of which had expired when Æneas came to Italy and profited by her advice. The probable fact is that there existed a school, or at any rate a succession, of pythonesses at Cumæ, and it is borne out by the fact that to the Sibyl are given no less than seven different names by various ancient authors. These prophetic women used to write their predictions on leaves, which they placed at the entrance of their grotto; and it was very necessary to secure these leaves before they were dispersed by the wind, since, once scattered, they could never again be brought together. It seems, however, that the pythonesses at times transmitted their wisdom in a more substantial manner; for the Sibyl who came to the palace of Tarquin brought with her nine volumes, which she offered for sale at a very high price. On the monarch's refusal to buy them, she burned three of the books, and demanded the same amount for the remaining six. Tarquin declined to purchase these, and she immediately committed three more to the flames, asking the same sum of money for the remainder. This extraordinary conduct so excited the king's curiosity that he bought the books; and the Sibyl vanished, never again to be seen. It is very appropriate that the last of the Sibyls should disappear just as we begin to find verifiable history taking the place of traditional lore.

What the contents of these books were, or whether the king found reason very greatly to regret that he did not accept the Sibyl's first offer of the whole nine, we do not know. That they were highly valued by the Roman people is shown by the fact that a college of priests was instituted to have the care of them; and they remained in existence until the time of Sylla, when they were destroyed in the flames of the Capitol. The Sibylline verses now extant are universally deemed to be spurious.

The name of Tarquin has been placed on the world's roll of dishonor because of the part one of his family played in that sad story which describes how the rule of the kings of Rome came to an end under a cloud of blackness and blood. The tragedy of Lucretia is one of those pictures which are preserved forever on account of their simplicity and naturalness. The figures are almost titanic in their strength; but they will be recognized as typical of humanity in all time. The actions are coarse, because they proceed from the fundamental virtues and vices which are never separate from the hearts of men and women. The great English dramatist has idealized the workings of thought and conscience in the principal actors; but there was really nothing except bare, unadorned humanism in every situation. There was the tyranny which always accompanies unbridled power; there was the honest soldier's outspoken pride in the unrivalled beauty and goodness of his wife at home; there was the brutal animalism of the man who heeded no higher instincts; there was the wounded heart that saw no hope but to retrieve honor at the expense of life; there were ensuing grief and revenge. In all this there is nothing subtle, nothing strange, to human knowledge. It simply masses together all the general experiences of the universal man. Yet here is one of the world's most notable dramas; and the picture is interesting, because it portrays with strong colors in one scene all the great motives and traits which sway and color human life.

Lucretia was the daughter of a Roman noble, and she was the wife of Collatinus, one of the Tarquinian family. The Roman army was investing the city of Ardea, the capital of the Rutulians; and the young princes had too little to occupy their time, as the sequel shows, to keep them out of mischief. One day, they were drinking and conversing in the tent of Sextus, the king's son. Soldier fashion, being occupied with wine, their talk turned on the subject of women. Each man extolled the superior charms of his own wife or betrothed. Their conversation doubtless did not range beyond lawful wedded mates, or those who were such in prospect; for in the Rome of those days there existed no class of demi-monde, nor, indeed, were there many women whose reputation for chastity would be liable to criticism even in the freedom of a soldiers' camp. Life then was austere, and morality was intensive rather than extensive. The gallant contention waxed more and more enthusiastic among the comrades, until Collatinus said that there needed to be no dispute about the matter; that it could be easily seen in a few hours how far his Lucretia exceeded all the rest. Whereupon he challenged them all to ride to Rome and let the matter be decided as each one found his wife occupied on his unexpected arrival. To this they agreed, and immediately galloped to Rome, which they reached in the dusk of the evening. The king's sons found their wives spending their time in luxurious entertainments; whether or not they agreed on any one as being superior to the others, we are not told. But Collatinus's home was some miles out in the country, so that it was visited last of all. Late as it was, they found Lucretia, with her maids, spinning wool in the atrium, or middle hall of the house. Collatinus and his friends were gladly welcomed by the industrious Lucretia, and were provided with bountiful entertainment; and they were not slow to vote that she had easily won the contest. But the beauty of Lucretia's person and mind had made far too deep an impression on Sextus, the son of Tarquin. Throughout the journey back to camp he was revolving in his mind how he might again make a visit to the house at Collatia, in which he did not desire the company of its master.

A few days later, Sextus appeared at Lucretia's door and met a kindly welcome, in which her pure mind mingled no misgiving. There were no locks on the inner doors of the Roman house; for, as Shakespeare makes poor Lucretia tell her story:

"... to the dreadful dead of dark midnight,

With shining falchion in my chamber came

A creeping creature with a flaming light,

And softly cried, 'Awake, thou Roman dame,

And entertain my love; else lasting shame

On thee and thine this night I will inflict,

If thou my love's desire do contradict.'"

His threat was to murder both the lady and one of her male slaves, and to place them so that it would appear that he had killed them to avenge the honor of Collatinus. Thus we may see how poor Lucretia could truly plead:

"Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,

And far the weaker with so strong a fear;

My bloody judge forbad my tongue to speak;

No rightful plea might plead for justice there;

His scarlet lust came evidence to swear

That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes,

And when the judge is rob'd, the prisoner dies."

The next day, she sent messengers to call her husband and her father. They hastened to her at once, the former bringing with him Brutus, who was to be the leader in liberating Rome from the infamous race of Tarquin. When Lucretia had told her story, she made her relatives first swear that the criminal should not go unpunished. To this they savagely pledged themselves; but they tried to console her with the fact that, her mind being pure, she had incurred no guilt. Lucretia replied; "It remains for you to see to what is due to Tarquin. As for me, though I acquit myself of guilt, from punishment I do not discharge myself; nor shall any Roman woman survive her dishonor in pleading the example of Lucretia." Thus saying, she drew a knife which she had concealed in her garments, and plunged it into her heart.

Brutus, while they were all overcome with grief, gently drew the weapon from the wound; and holding it up, dripping as it was with Lucretia's life blood, he cried: "By this blood, most pure before the pollution of royal villainy, I swear, and I call you, O gods, to witness my oath, that I shall pursue Lucius Tarquin the Proud, his wicked wife, and all their race, with fire and sword, and all other means in my power; nor shall I ever suffer them or any other to reign at Rome." In this oath Collatinus and the others joined. They carried the dead body of Lucretia to Rome, and succeeded in giving the populace the last incentive necessary to drive out the already hated Tarquins. Thus the misfortunes of noble Lucretia brought vengeance upon the wickedness of Tullia; for the historian says that "she fled from her house, both men and women cursing her wherever she went and invoking on her the Furies, the avengers of parents."

What portion of these stories of the women of legendary Rome may be accepted as fact, and what must be relegated to the realm of fiction, it is not within the capacity of research to ascertain. Probably we shall not be far wrong if we consider these legends as moralizings founded on facts. Tullia represented to the Romans all the viciousness against which women were warned; in Lucretia, there were accumulated all the virtues to which a woman was taught to aspire. They were pictorial moral discourses; and, just as the moral character of a modern age might be discovered from the sermons of the period, so these legends represent what was lowest and highest in the ethical conceptions of earliest Rome.

II

NOBLE MATRONS OF THE REPUBLIC

After the revolution, of which the tragedy of Lucretia was the traditional cause and which ended forever monarchical rule in Rome, our subject begins to emerge from the haziness of legendary narratives into the clearer light of veritable history. It now becomes possible for us to catch glimpses of the women of Rome, living and moving amid scenes that were real and under conditions which undoubtedly prevailed.

Roman society at the beginning of the Republic was most distinctly and rigidly classified. Not only were the people divided by the circumstances of birth into separate classes, but the law preordained for every person his precise station, his duties, his privileges, and his limitations. The citizen could no more go beyond these than he could transfer himself into another order of creation; for law, in Rome, was as absolute as it was rigid. Speaking generally, there were two orders, the patrician and the plebeian. A common opinion of the old writers was that out of the influx of adventurers who crowded to Rome at its founding Romulus chose one hundred Senators, their qualification being that they could name their fathers. Their children were called patricians. In the third century before Christ, when the plebeians had wrested many privileges and offices from the unwilling higher class, Publius Decius, himself a plebeian, uses this theory of the origin of the patricians to great advantage. Contending in debate for the right of his order to serve in the priesthood, he said: "Have ye never heard that the first-created patricians were not men sent down from heaven, but such as could cite their fathers; that is, nothing more than freeborn? Well, I can cite my father; he was a consul; and my son will be able to cite a grandfather." This excessive pride which Roman citizens took in the fact that they could trace their paternity through more or less generations must not be understood as reflecting, in any way, upon the character of the early matrons; it arose simply from the fact that they could so surely name their ancestry as to eliminate possibility of descent from one of the common herd of unenfranchised inhabitants.

These latter were the plebeians. This class was made up of the descendants of the ancient people who of old had inhabited the country, ordinary foreigners who were attracted to the city, and the children of captives who had been given their liberty. At first, the plebeians enjoyed no rights whatever. They lived, it is true, under the shelter of the walls of the city, but on the outside. They possessed no right of suffrage, and were not allowed to interfere in any public affair. But they were free. They held property and engaged in handicrafts and in commerce. It soon came to pass that the increase of their number and their importance rendered their repression by the nobles more and more difficult. Under King Servius the plebeians became citizens; and, as is the case in every land, the internal history of Rome contains nothing more interesting than the indomitable and successful struggle of this lower class to wrest ever larger privileges from the tenacious rulers. It was not, however, until B.C. 444 that equality of rights had made sufficient progress for matrimonial alliances to be countenanced between patricians and plebeians. By the commencement of the Christian era all practical distinction between these two classes had vanished.

In addition to the two principal orders, there was that of the clients. These were in reality vassals, who preferred dependence on the great and wealthy to living independently in a precarious liberty. They were called by the names of their patrons and were numbered in the latter's tribe. By enactments of law, the patron was made responsible for the support and protection of his clients. In return, the patrician could depend upon his clients to fight his battles, support his cause, and prove themselves loyal retainers of his house in both good fortune and evil. The subservience of these clients, and the conscienceless zeal with which they furthered the designs, even the most wicked, of their masters, are well illustrated in the part which Marcus Claudius played in the persecution of Virginia by the decemvir Appius. Another dependent class was that of the slaves. At first the number of these was comparatively small; but as the conquering arms of Rome spread over the world her avaricious sway, the captives dragged in barbarous triumph to the city grew out of all proportion to the population. They enjoyed fewer rights and suffered under a regime more inhuman than in any other slaveholding nation in history.

That which distinguished one class from another in early Roman society had nothing whatever to do with the character of the occupation of the people comprising it. The noblest of the early patricians, as well as the commonest plebeians, tilled the soil with their own hands; nor did they disdain to engage in trade, or even in the letting of money on usury. Wealth was no more a consideration than occupation in determining to which order a man or a woman belonged. In course of time, the plebeians, despite the patricians' unneglected privilege of practising robbery under due process of law, numbered many families of great wealth; but no man could therewith purchase entrance to the higher class. It was the blood line that marked these distinctions; it was ancestry alone that could give the patent of nobility. Nor is it surprising that a people who believed in the divine origin of some of their tribes should acknowledge superior rights as attached to a well-authenticated pedigree.

In most societies, the advantages of class are more markedly displayed in the life of the women than in that of the men. This does not appear to have been the case in the early times of the Roman Republic. In fact, it is difficult to see how difference in class greatly distinguished the patrician matron from her plebeian sister. Neither had any legal part whatever in State affairs or in any public functions, excepting those of a religious nature. The duties of each were confined to the home, and no woman was relieved from the obligation of personal and diligent industry. On the epitaphs of many noble women were praises for their chastity and their proficiency in spinning. Indeed, the evidence seems to indicate that any other qualities than these two, and that of fertility, were deprecated rather than admired by the Romans of this period. The only advantages which a patrician woman could possess were her natural pride in the privileges of her family and what honor was reflected upon her from the positions held by her male relatives. The term "Head of the Family" never had so tyrannical a meaning as in most ancient Rome. It was a place which a woman could not hold. The husband was all in all; no one else was recognized by law. Wife, children, clients, and slaves were alike persons without will of their own. They were mancipia, under the hand of the father. He it was who answered for them to the State and who judged them. If a wife was accused of crime, she was committed to her husband for judgment. And this was the law even down to the time of Nero, when Pomponia Græcina, charged with embracing a foreign superstition, was "consigned to the adjudication of her husband." A man could even condemn his wife to death for certain offences, such as the violation of her marriage vows, or even for forging false keys in order to steal his wine. At her husband's death, the wife could not claim any of his property if he had bequeathed it to another, even though it were willed to an entire stranger. In this severely disciplined society, the woman never escaped from guardianship. She was looked upon as belonging to the family rather than to the State. The latter consisted only of men, to whom the women were merely necessary accessories. No one thought that a woman possessed any claim or right to independence of individuality. She was always under a master: her father, when she was a girl; her husband, when she was married; and her nearest male relative, if she became a widow. If she obtained any share in her father's property or in that of her husband, she could not transfer or bequeath it without the consent of her male guardian, unless she were a Vestal; nor could she marry without the same consent.

But, however dependent her position may have been, whether maid or matron, the Roman woman was always treated with reverence. The stola, the characteristic robe of the matron, corresponding to the toga of the male citizen, always ensured for its wearer respect, it being not merely an article of attire, but also an insignia which could only be retained by strict rectitude of life, market days or assembly days. In the villa--a miserable cabin made of mud, rafters, and branches--not a day, not a moment, was lost. Horace does not draw a more agreeable picture of ancient city manners. He tells us that "at Rome, for a long time a man knew no other pleasure and no other festival than to open his door at dawn, to explain the law to his clients, and to lay out his money on good security. They learned from their elders, and taught beginners, the art of increasing their savings." But when it is remembered that Cato was a sour and miserly Puritan, who adopted austerity as his pose, and that Horace was a poet, not untouched with cynicism, who lived in a society in which the charm of simple enjoyments was entirely forgotten, we may consider both pictures, though from differing causes, slightly overdrawn. Nevertheless they serve to indicate how circumscribed was the life of the wives of the early Romans.

Those strong-minded, intense, practical people were not, however, without their entertainments. Music, both vocal and instrumental, was cultivated. There were religious festivals, in which processions of boys and maidens sang pious hymns. We also learn from Cicero that it was the custom for the guests at a feast to sing the praises of their great men to the sound of the flute. It is easy for us to imagine a home scene in which Veturia, the mother of the youthful Cnæus Martius, tells over again to the inquiring boy those inspiring stories which he has heard chanted by his father's hearth and which are to prepare him to emulate heroic deeds at Corioli and earn for himself an honorable name.

But, habitually solemn and grave as were those old Romans, they were also much addicted to amusements of a coarse and grotesque nature. Even in their religious processions they included monstrous mechanical shapes, with formidable teeth and huge jaws which, by their opening and closing, frightened the women and children, to the great enjoyment of the men. Hideous masks were also worn for the same purpose. In fact, so little refinement characterized the minds of the people of these times, that they could find entertainment in only the rudest and coarsest of jests. Farces, which were nothing more than the absurd antics and personal witticisms of buffoons, had been introduced from Atella. But the beginning of Roman drama may be dated from B.C. 364, when, on account of a pestilence which devastated the city, Etruscan actors were imported to institute scenic games in honor of the gods. The pestilence ended; and consequently the games, being regarded as the efficacious remedy, were retained. These games consisted of combined dances and songs, which were accompanied by appropriate but not altogether proper gestures. Later, there was instituted the floral festival, the purpose of which was to induce the goddess of spring to grant that all the flowers which decked the fields at the time of blossoming should be represented by fruit in the harvest. In these games, dancing girls appeared upon the stage; and we may draw our own conclusions from the fact that in the time of Cato the scene was regarded as too frivolous for the eyes of so grave a personage. But the most popular of all the early festivals was that of Anna Perenna, the goddess of life. In this, restraint was abandoned. To drink extravagantly, and to listen to a recitation of the mistakes of Mars in taking a hideous goddess for the beautiful Minerva, were regarded as works of piety. Young girls were required to sing this story, which was full of the coarsest allusions. But the ancients did not consider the requirements of modesty in the same light as we do. They did not esteem that innocence born of ignorance, in which modern times deem it sacrificed to honor was the signal for the expulsion of tyranny.

It was not alone in the incitement of the populace to measures for her protection that the influence of woman was felt in matters of State. There were occasions when by her means calamities were averted, as well as times when civil strife was for her sake produced. The memory of the good service done for the city by Veturia, the mother, and Volumnia, the wife of Coriolanus, was never allowed to fade.

In the history of this brave and haughty warrior we have a picture of Roman political life. Rough politics they were; rock-faced episodes, befitting the character of the times, in which men knew nothing of finesse, and when appeal was made directly from reason to brute force and to the natural feelings of men. Perhaps it would be bordering on literary impiety to think that Shakespeare, in his Coriolanus, has not given the best interpretation possible of this fragment from the old Republic; but it is not one of his greatest pieces, because the material is lacking in those human qualities which are necessary to arouse profound interest. It is a drama with but one motive--filial respect. Yet the most is made of this; and the great dramatist has succeeded in vivifying the principal characters. In the portrayal of the mother of Coriolanus we see a matron who is worthy of such a son; the wife's part is that of passive resignation to the will of stronger spirits. Mrs. Jameson, in her Characteristics of Women, says: "In Volumnia, Shakespeare has given us the portrait of a Roman matron, conceived in the true antique spirit, and finished in every part. Although Coriolanus is the hero of the play, yet much of the interest of the action and the final catastrophe turn upon the character of his mother, and the power she exercised over his mind, by which, according to the story, 'she saved Rome and lost her son.' Her lofty patriotism, her patrician haughtiness, her maternal pride, her eloquence, and her towering spirit, are exhibited with the utmost power of effect; yet the truth of female nature is beautifully preserved, and the portrait, with all its vigor, is without harshness." We may well believe that Veturia--whom, following Plutarch, Shakespeare calls Volumnia--was a woman who could say: "When yet he was tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb ... I was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him, whence he returned, his brows bound with oak." And when the wife tremblingly inquires: "But had he died in the business, madam--what then?" it was in the mother to reply: "Then, his good report should have been my son." This is in accord with the Greek historian's statement that Coriolanus fought heroically, not only for glory and the passion of battle, but to win the meed of praise from his mother.

The action in the story of Veturia and her son is entirely political. The balance of power between the patricians and the plebeians was very narrow, especially when hardship aroused the latter to make inquiry into the claims of the former. A famine was more than sufficient to incite the lower order to threaten the privileges of the upper class; and Rome was at that time suffering from a scarcity of corn. The populace was not entirely convinced by Menenius's parable that the whole duty of the patrician order consisted in being the belly of the State organism. The people clamored; their tribunes saw in this an opportunity to gain increased powers; the Senators were inclined to be subservient. But the haughty spirit of Coriolanus would yield nothing of the ancient privileges. For his mother's sake, he sought the consulship; nevertheless, he angered the commons, though he could not gain the office without their suffrages. The stress became so great that his patrician friends could not prevent his exile. He left Rome, only to return to wreak vengeance at the head of a Volscian army. This enemy being already a menace to Rome, the defection of the great leader to their ranks placed the disordered city at their mercy. Then it was that the Romans remembered that though women were incapacitated for political action and were unable to fight, yet they were powerful factors in the appeal to those feelings of the human heart whence flow justice and pity. The arguments of ambassadors and the behests of the priests had not availed; the authorities were constrained to adventure what might be effected by the tears of the women for whom alone, of all that was Roman, Coriolanus retained any regard. His mother and his wife were implored to make the last appeal. This plan had come by inspiration into the mind of Valeria, sister of the great Publicola, as she was praying with the other matrons in the temple of Jupiter. Veturia and Volumnia, leading the two sons of Coriolanus, went forth to the Voiscian camp. As they drew near, Coriolanus, though resolved to remain obdurate, showed himself not lacking in filial respect; he advanced to meet them, ordering the fasces to be lowered in the presence of his mother. The Roman historians clothe Veturia with noble dignity as she makes her appeal. "Before I receive your embrace, let me know if I have come to an enemy or to a son; whether I am in your camp a captive or a mother. Has length of life and a hapless old age reserved me for this--to behold you an exile and an enemy?... So then, had I not been a mother, Rome would not be besieged; had I not a son, I might have died free in a free country." The spirit of this is truly Roman. Even the women were trained to force the claims of blood and the natural affections into a place secondary to the duty of loyalty to the State. This appeal; joined with the embraces of his wife and the lamentations of the other matrons, prevailed over the anger of Coriolanus; and again Rome was saved by the Roman women. As a reward, a monumental temple was erected by the men of the city, and dedicated to Female Fortune.

It was not alone as peacemakers that the Roman matrons served the public interests of the city. On more than one occasion the treasury was rendered efficient by means of their generous contributions. More than once the golden ornaments of the wives became auxiliary to the iron arms of their husbands, and in one instance they accomplished that which the latter could not achieve. When the Gauls burned the city, and were only turned from the citadel by the payment of one thousand pounds of gold, with the sword of Brennus thrown on the Gallic side of the scale to insure good weight, the amount could not have been raised but for the self-sacrifice of the matrons. In gratitude for this, the Conscript Fathers voted that thenceforth funeral orations might be made for women. The gold was afterward repaid to the women out of Etrurian plunder. Again, when, in accordance with the vow of Camillus, a tribute was to be presented to Apollo, the matrons brought what they possessed of the precious metal, it was especially honored by being made into a golden bowl, which was carried to Delphos. On this occasion also they were rewarded; for the Senate conferred on them the privilege of riding to public worship and to the games in covered chariots, and on other errands in open carriages. The historian introduces this latter information with "they say"; whether or not, previous to this, the Roman ladies had been obliged to walk is left to be surmised without further evidence.

Some Idea of what those golden ornaments were may be gathered from the account of a voluntary contribution which was made in Rome at a later period. Funds were required to equip a fleet against Philip of Macedon, the ally of Hannibal. Lævinus the consul, urging upon his fellow Senators the duty to set an example of public generosity, says: "Let us bring into the treasury to-morrow all our gold, silver, and coined brass, each reserving rings for himself, his wife and children, and a bulla for his son; and he who has a wife or daughters, an ounce weight of gold for each. Let those who have sat in a curule chair have the ornaments of a horse, and a pound weight of silver, that they may have a salt-cellar, and a dish for the service of the gods ..." Notwithstanding the fact that, in response to this appeal, the needs of the fleet were abundantly provided for, the indication is that at this period, about B.C. 280, the decorative tastes of the Roman ladies had in no wise acquired that luxuriousness with which they afterward became characterized. There was no ornament so common as the ring, the place of which, in these early times when only one was worn, was the third finger of the left hand. It was used for the purpose of sealing letters and papers, and long before the end of the Republic the custom arose of setting rings with precious stones. Indeed, the people of the early Republic were not unacquainted with most exquisite work of the goldsmiths' art; but there was still prevalent that consciousness of the surpassing value of personal excellences which could afford to be independent of outward adornment, and of which Cornelia's reference to her sons as her jewels was a surviving echo.

But the times were soon to change. Hitherto we have seen the Roman matrons living the simple, diligent, unsophisticated lives of women who were fitting mates for men who held to the plow for support, but dared not let drop the sword. Until then, Rome had been nothing but a city struggling for existence--sometimes a precarious existence. Instances there were when her fortunes waned almost to the vanishing point; when the tide of progress seemed to hang at the ebb. The god of victory, though honored as the tutelary deity of Rome, was frequently partial to her Italian neighbors; her walls were entered and her houses razed by the barbarian Gauls; and once she was at the point of being deserted by her citizens, the majority of whom could hardly be restrained by the ideals of religion from removing the State and the Capitol to Veii. Yet her star of empire persisted and, despite temporary eclipses, remained in the ascendant.

How did those centuries of varying civic fortune affect the status of the women? They were, by the necessities of their circumstances, trained to endure hardship. The temple of Janus was never closed, for warfare was unceasing; and it was usual for the widow's wailing death dirge to be embittered by the fact that the husband had been slain in his strength and prime. Slavery and outrage, the concomitants of barbarous warfare, were always included within the possibilities of a Roman matron's fate. Under such circumstances civilization necessarily advanced slowly; it is only as life and liberty and leisure are secured that existence can acquire the social graces. Hence the probability is that, during the first two and a half centuries of the Republic,--that is, until Rome was fully launched upon her career of conquest,--the position and the habits and manner of life of the women did not greatly change. It is true that there was a continuous internal development of the State; but this manifested itself in an accentuation of those laws which reveal the hardness of the old Roman character, rather than in any tendency toward the easement of the individual lives of the citizens. Never has personal privilege been so completely subjugated to State prerogative. The laws, which were rigidly--even slavishly--interpreted according to the letter and never according to the spirit, considered the individual from the standpoint of his value to the State, and rarely from that of his own rights. The woman's value to the State was entirely submerged in that of her husband. Therefore, we find that it was only with the greatest difficulty that edicts granting privileges to woman could be passed, unless it were in payment for some special act of loyalty on her part to the State. Hard and inflexible in their ideas of life were those old Romans, practical and unsentimental in their relations with each other, narrow in their conceptions, proud to arrogance of their State, and reverencing only their institutions.

But in course of time they broke through their insularity with the force of their own arms. Victorious contact with other States gave them a larger acquaintance with the fruits of civilization, and the spoils of conquest afforded them the means to enjoy it. Hence, during the latter half of the republican period we see life in Rome rapidly undergoing a change. As typical of this new state of things, as it affected the character, status, and condition of women, there is only one woman whom we need to select. In Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus and the wife of Sempronius Gracchus, is found the ideal of Roman femininity of that day. She was in every way worthy of her patrician ancestry, which had produced a greater number of eminent men than any other family, twenty-one consulships being held by the Cornelii in eighty-six years. Cornelia lived in a Rome which we can understand and appreciate; we begin to recognize social features upon which the imagination can lay hold and from them piece together some idea of the reality. Hitherto the data has been too foreign and too meagre for any great success in this; but when we read of Cornelia providing herself with a country house, riding to public worship, listening to the gossip of her friends respecting each other's jewelry, and interesting herself in Greek literature, we discover that the main features of a Roman matron's life were not essentially dissimilar from those which characterize polite feminine society in our own time. Indeed, there is more to evoke our sympathetic appreciation in the Rome of B.C. 150 than in the Europe of A.D. 1000 or in the Asiatic civilizations of to-day. We feel more at home in the patrician villas than in the mediæval castles; just as we find more that is applicable to modern life in the Roman poets than we do in the bards of chivalry. In studying the period when the ancient civilization of Italy was at its best, we discover habits of thought, bits of life, and social customs, which really startle us with their similitude to those to which we ourselves are accustomed.

The city, in the time of Cornelia, showed few outward signs of the magnificence it was to acquire under the emperors. The houses were mostly of brick, though domestic architecture had become quite ambitious in its character, Cornelia herself having built, as has been said, a very expensive villa at Misenum; those of the wealthy were filled with costly furniture and precious works of art, which the Romans first learned to admire in the countries which they subdued; and having acquired a taste for beautiful things, they made no scruple of appropriating them. Rome had now grown wealthy with the spoils of her extensive victories, and, as always comes to pass with the advent of riches, there had been brought about a great differentiation in the condition of the population. Polybius gives us a picture of the extravagant style in which Æmilia, the mother of Cornelia, appeared in public. "When she left home to go to the temple," says he, "she seated herself in a glittering chariot, herself attired with extreme luxury. Before her were carried with solemn ceremony the vases of gold and silver required for the sacrifice, and a numerous train of slaves and servants accompanied her." And this notwithstanding the Oppian law, which limited matrons to a half-ounce of gold on their wearing apparel and prohibited them from riding in carriages in the city, and which had not yet been repealed. As this modish lady passed through the streets of Rome with her brilliant retinue, exciting the envy of other matrons, and bestowing gracious recognition upon white-robed, stately patricians, she must have beheld as many signs of abject, suffering poverty as are prevalent in our own great cities. By this time, the plebeian order had been raised to equal legal privilege with the patrician, and society had now come to be divided into the enormously rich and the extremely poor. The former rendered their position secure by means of extortion in the provinces; the condition of the latter was made hopeless by the fact that all labor was performed by slaves. A state of things unknown to the old times was now prevalent in Rome: men and women were idle, willingly or perforce, according to their circumstances.

The position of women had also changed. They were now beginning to make a stand for their rights--a thing undreamed of in the old days. The father of the family was no longer allowed to execute his arbitrary power entirely unquestioned. Livy narrates an incident which illustrates this development and bears interestingly upon the character of Æmilia and the history of Cornelia. He relates that "the Senators, happening to sup one day in the Capitol, rose up together and requested of Africanus, before the company departed, to betroth his daughter to Gracchus; the contract was accordingly executed in due form, in the presence of this assembly. Scipio, on his return home, told his wife Æmilia that he had concluded a match for her younger daughter. She, feeling her female pride hurt, expressed some resentment at not having been consulted in the disposal of their common child, adding that, even were he giving her to Tiberius Gracchus, her mother ought not to be kept in ignorance of his intention; to which Scipio, rejoiced that her judgment concurred so entirely with his own, replied that she was betrothed to that very man."

It has been well said that the words which Plautus puts into the mouth of Alcmena may be applied to the character of Cornelia, who was thus bestowed by her great father upon a no less worthy man: "My dower is chastity, modesty, and the fear of the gods; it is love to my kindred; it is to be submissive to my husband, kind toward good people, helpful to the brave." She also received a dot, an accompaniment of marriage which was beginning to be highly considered among the matrons of Rome as of more practical value than the above-mentioned moral qualities. It consisted of fifty talents of gold. But the time had not yet arrived when the riches of virtue and goodness were entirely unappreciated; there were still matrons who could enter, with faces neither brazen nor abashed, the temple erected to chastity; and upon the tombs of many of them might have been truthfully inscribed, as upon that of Claudia: Gentle in words, graceful in manner, she loved her husband devotedly; she kept her house, she spun wool. Among these chaste matrons Cornelia excelled; her fame remains as that of the highest type of the pure-principled, noble-minded, cultured Roman matron. She lived in entire sympathy with her husband; and we may well believe that it was partly owing to her influence that the generous Sempronius Gracchus found it in himself to command an army enlisted from among the slaves, and to emancipate them upon the battlefield as a reward for the bravery which his leadership incited.

Plutarch, in his lives of the sons of Gracchus, repeats a story which, though characterized by the superstitions of the times, indicates in what estimation Cornelia was held by her husband and all who knew her. It relates that Gracchus once found in his bed chamber a couple of snakes, and that the soothsayers, being consulted concerning the prodigy, advised that he should neither kill them both nor let them both escape; adding that if the male serpent were killed, Gracchus would die, and, if the female, Cornelia would perish. Therefore, as he extremely loved his wife, he thought that it was much more his part, who was an old man, to die than it was hers, who as yet was but a young woman; so he killed the male serpent and let the female escape. Soon after this, he died, leaving his wife and the twelve children which she had borne to him. "Cornelia, taking upon herself all the care of the household and the education of her children, approved herself so discreet a matron, so affectionate a mother, and so constant and noble-spirited a widow, that Tiberius seemed to all men to have done nothing unreasonable in choosing to die for such a woman; who, when King Ptolemy himself proffered her his crown and would have married her, refused it, and chose rather to live a widow. In this state she continued, and lost all her children, except one daughter, who was married to Scipio the Younger, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius." The daughter, Sempronia, seems to have been in every respect unlike her mother. Unattractive and childless, she neither loved nor was loved by her husband; and, indeed, suspicion was cast upon her of having brought about his death.

Cornelia was well equipped to undertake the education of her children. What is told of her indicates a woman who was alert to advance with all that was progressive in her time. The spirit of literature had but recently attained its reincarnation, and that for the first time upon Roman soil. It was begotten, as it was again fifteen centuries later, by the immortal genius of Greek poesy. The Romans conquered Greece physically; but Hellenic learning subjugated Roman ideas. The Scipios were the ardent supporters of Greek culture; and in this, as in all other respects, Cornelia took a foremost position among the representatives of her gifted family.

She provided for her children the most erudite of Greek masters, and spared no efforts in training their minds in the love of all that was graceful and cultured. In the justly renowned eloquence of her sons, there was recognized a gift which they inherited from their mother, as was testified by Cicero, who had seen her letters. She possessed the ability and also the courage to incite them to noble deeds for their country. It was probably not so much ambition for herself as for them which caused her to reproach her sons with the fact that she was still known as the widow of Scipio and not as the Mother of the Gracchi. But they lost no time in earning for her, both on account of their deeds on the battlefield and by their devotion to the civil affairs of the State, the distinction of this latter title.

The Roman Republic had so far degenerated as to submit to be governed by an oligarchy consisting of a few proud and wealthy families--the worst of all forms of government. The Senators were flagrantly using their power to accumulate enormous riches and to monopolize the land by seizing upon the public domain. Middle-class independence was rapidly diminishing, and the growing masses of the people were oppressed by a poverty from which they had no means of freeing themselves. The Gracchi sought to relieve these evils by passing laws limiting the amount of land which might be held by one person, and offsetting the power of the nobility by securing the economic independence of the people. The Gracchi were reformers; and they each in turn attained to dictatorial power. But though they secured the enactment of their measures, they could not put them into effect; and in the end,--as is frequently the case with reformers,--because they were far-sighted enough to see evil in that which the majority of the rulers considered good, there was nothing for them but martyrdom. This they suffered in turn: Caius taking up the work where Tiberius was compelled, by assassination, to relinquish it.

The parting of Caius from his wife on the morning of his own death is a scene from a heroic tragedy. He could not be persuaded to arm himself, with the exception of a small dagger underneath his toga. As he was going out, Licinia stopped him at the threshold, holding him by one hand and their little son by the other. She pleaded that he would not expose himself to the murderers of his brother. "Had your brother," she urged, "fallen before Numantia, the enemy would have given back what then had remained of Tiberius; but such is my hard fate, that I probably must be a suppliant to the floods or the waves, that they would somewhere restore to me your relics. For since Tiberius was not spared, what trust can we place either in the laws or in the gods?" But Caius, gently withdrawing himself from her embraces, departed; and Licinia, falling in a faint, was carried as though dead into the house of her brother Crassus.

Cornelia bore the death of her two sons with her characteristic nobility of mind. She removed to her seaside home at Cape Misenum; and there she surrounded herself with learned men, and especially delighted in entertaining the exponents of Greek literature. She was held in the highest esteem by all; and her friends desired no greater privilege than to listen to her reminiscences of her father, Scipio Africanus. She would proudly add: "The grandsons of that great man were my children. They perished in the temple and grove sacred to the gods. They have the tombs that their virtues merited, for they sacrificed their lives to the noblest of aims,--the desire to promote the welfare of the people." Such was Cornelia; and she was the noblest of the matrons of the Republic. No greater thing can be said of her than that she gloried most in the reflected honor which came upon her as being the mother of the Gracchi; yet she has been deservedly given a high place among the great and good women of all time.

III

WOMAN'S PART IN RELIGION

In these modern times and in Christian countries, we are accustomed to seeing religious matters take a more prominent place in the life of the women than in that of the men. This is because our form of religion concerns itself more with the emotions and with those subjects which appeal to sentiment than it does with the practical affairs of life. Wherever the details or the appliances of worship are brought into intimate relation with the common occupations in which a people are engaged, it at once becomes less peculiarly the province of women. For instance, where there is union between Church and State, according to the extent to which that union exists, and owing to the fact that women are to a large extent shut out of the management of State affairs, the Church more particularly engages the attention of the male portion of the population. Also, where, as in Asia, an undertaking is supposed to be liable to miscarriage unless entered into conformably with the prevailing religious rites, men are less likely to be negligent in paying their respects to the gods. When, as in mediæval Europe, every phase of human activity was under the supervision of the Church, the arts finding in it a large proportion of their subject matter, and every transaction needing its sanction, woman's influence in religion was much less predominant than it now is. All of which goes to show that there is less of material self-seeking in feminine worship than in that of men.

Never was the intimate relation between the material and the spiritual more strongly accentuated than in ancient Rome. The acts of the gods and goddesses were a part of the lives of the people. Nothing existed or came to pass in State, society, or private life without its cause being attributed to the supernatural. The consequence was that every Roman citizen looked upon the worship of his deities as a practical duty, the neglect of which entailed practical consequences. At the same time, the possession by woman of an important place in religion was assured, not only by her nature, but also by the fact that reverence for the supernatural was conjoined with every phase of life. Worship was no less a private interest than a public affair. It entered into everything. Consequently, a woman's religious duties and privileges were exactly coextensive with the activities of her life. According to Roman theology, the supernatural world was the precise counterpart of the natural world. Everything had its special deity. There were the powerful gods and goddesses who presided over the national interests, over war and peace, prosperity and chastisement, counsel and justice; there were the divinities who were to be depended upon for the natural phenomena, the seasons, the weather, germination, and harvest; there were also minor spirits upon whose pleasure depended the success of every human action.

According to the Roman conception, nothing took place without the assistance of some special divinity whose province it was to further that particular form of activity. It is said that Varro, at the close of the era of the Republic, was able to enumerate thirty thousand of these gods and goddesses. Roman life, public and private, was never for a moment dissociated from religion. The Senate met for deliberation in the temple of Jupiter; an important part of the general's duty on the battlefield was to invoke the god of war; the infliction of punishment on wrong-doers was a sacrifice to offended deity; all public entertainments were held in honor of the gods; all the ordered events in an individual's life were religious ceremonies; for even a family meal was not supposed to be partaken of without a portion being set apart for the household gods; and always on entering a house reverence was first made to the Lares. Hence it necessarily followed that the part woman took in religion was commensurate with her part in Roman life. It can hardly be said that her position in this respect was a subordinate one. If Mars, the god of battle, was the central object of Roman worship, an equal devotion was paid to Vesta at the communal hearth which symbolized the existence and the well-being of the city; and as it was more particularly the province of men to invoke the warlike deity, so from among the women, who were the home-keepers, were selected the honored guardians of the sacred fire. It is also important to observe another fact. Though there were priests appointed to conduct the ceremonies of public worship, they were in no sense intermediaries. Every suppliant addressed himself directly to the divinity. He might consider it to his advantage to consult the professional men, who were skilled in the knowledge of how most persuasively to approach the gods; but the act of intercession was each person's own affair, and did not need the intervention of a proxy. Therefore, the women were as free to address the gods as were the men; and, in fact, in the many matters which concerned their sex particularly, and in other things in which it seemed fitting, they alone could properly do so.

Bespeaking the favor of a particular deity consisted in paying that god more or less extra attention; generally it was a very simple process. There is in existence a painting, found at Rome, which represents two women offering incense to Mars, their husbands probably being absent with the army. Each of these matrons has brought a portable altar, and into the rising flames, before a small figure of the deity, they are dropping the fragrant oblation. This sacrifice may have taken place in the open air; probably in the Forum. Thus easy was it for women to pay their devotions and to invoke protection for those in whose welfare they were interested. The practical Romans looked upon their relations to the deities as partaking somewhat of the nature of commerce; for a certain amount of attention they were justified in expecting a corresponding amount of protection. They even practised what might truly be called pious frauds upon the powers whom they worshipped. In certain cases, it seemed to them that, inasmuch as the gods could not make use of the reality, an inexpensive substitute might well take its place. For instance, it is a relief to know that the yearly sacrifice of men which the Vestals made to Father Tiber from the Sublician Bridge had nothing in it more human than representations of men made out of osiers; but when we read of the heads of poppies and even onions being presented to Jupiter, in order that he might practise his thunderbolts upon them, instead of upon the heads of the citizens, the instinct of self-preservation is more apparent than is the reasoning faculty which they attributed to the god. The Romans studied economy in their religion. Their meat offerings constituted the family meal; and a pig seemed to them the more proper object to sacrifice to the gods, in that its flesh was a favorite article of diet with themselves.

In many instances, the Romans committed, as they believed, the fortunes of the State to the religious zeal of the women. There were several divine protectresses whose worship was the exclusive duty of the gentler sex. The most important of all was Vesta; to permit her sacred flame to expire was one of the greatest of public calamities. The fact that these offices held by women were looked upon by the Romans as of exceeding importance could but reflect a dignity upon womanhood and enhance the respect in which the sex was held. In fact, though women held no recognized place in civil and State affairs, in religion they attained much nearer to equal rights with the men. If a man were a priest, his wife was a priestess. So firmly did women assert the authority gained through possession of religious office, that in the reign of Tiberius it was deemed necessary to pass a law that in things sacred the priestess of Jupiter should be subject to her husband.

One of the most interesting features of Roman religion was the worship of Vesta and the institution of an order of virgins devoted to her service. Nothing more clearly illustrates than this the fact that Roman religion was suggested by racial customs. A study of the earliest history of the Aryan race shows that during the migrations of the tribes it would naturally fall to the duty of the young girls to kindle the camp fire whenever their people stopped to rest; and as the primitive method of procuring fire by rubbing together dry sticks rendered this no easy matter, it was important to preserve the flame when once it was produced. Then, too, the camp fire signified much; it stood for comfort, sustenance, health, family, and social community; it was either the source or the representation of the best in primeval life. The bright flame was to the tribesmen a beneficent deity, a goddess, of course; for by it the work of women was especially furthered--a chastity-loving goddess, for what so pure as fire? Hence the idea that virgins, such as those who enkindle the useful flame, should attend the communal hearth consecrated to the honor of the divinity and symbolical of the life of the tribe.

Numa Pompilius, the second of Rome's legendary kings, is said, as already mentioned, to have instituted the college of the Vestal Virgins and to have formulated the rules of the life to which they were bound. It seems probable, however, that the order was more ancient than even the city itself; reaching back, as has been indicated, to the prehistoric time when the ancestors of the Latin tribes migrated from the common Aryan home. At first the Roman Vestals were four in number, two for each of the original Roman tribes, the Ramnes and the Tities; after the addition of the Luceres, the number was increased to six. Maidens were made Vestals when between six and ten years of age. Whenever a vacancy occurred, the chief pontiff chose twenty girls from the patrician order, care being taken to select only those who were in perfect health, free from the least physical blemish, and showing promise of future beauty. Then the casting of lots was resorted to, in order that the goddess herself might have an opportunity to designate which of the number should be selected as her priestess. The maiden to whom fell this fortune gave her right hand to the pontiff, who said: "I take thee; thou shalt be priestess of Vesta, and shalt perform the sacred rites for the safety of the Roman people." Then the girl was conducted to the house of the sacred virgins, who cut off her hair and clothed her in the white robes of the order. The ceremony in many respects corresponded to that of the modern nun in taking the veil. The term of consecration was thirty years, thus giving the votaries ten years in which to learn their duties, ten for the practice of them as serving members, and ten in which they governed the order and enjoyed the highest honors in its gift. After thirty years, the Vestals were at liberty to return to their families, or to marry, if they so desired; but advantage was rarely taken of this permission, they preferring the service of the goddess to whom they had vowed their virginity.

The principal duty of the Vestals was to preserve the fire which burned day and night on the altar of their divinity. If through rare mischance it became extinguished, it was the rule that the sacred flame might only be rekindled by rubbing together pieces of wood from a particular tree which was resorted to with great and solemn ceremony. Later, however, there was adopted the method of concentrating the rays of the sun in a vase of burnished metal. The Vestals had other important functions, chief of which were the offering of certain sacrifices and the protection of records and important documents as well as of the venerable relics of the city. These were preserved in the most secret part of the temple; and among them were the fetiches which were said to have been brought to Troy by Dardanus, and from Troy to Italy by Æneas. These were believed by the Romans to be the guaranties for the existence of the Empire. No one but the Chief Vestal was permitted to enter the inner sanctuary, where they were kept. It is no wonder that, as the functions committed to their charge were believed to be fraught with such tremendous import to the State, to these priestesses was paid a respect as great if not greater than any Roman official might claim. They were most carefully guarded against insult or offence, anyone offering such being punished with death. Whenever a Vestal appeared in public, she was preceded by a lictor, before whom everyone made way, even the highest officer of the State. The fasces were always lowered in her presence. She was free from that guardianship by male relatives to which all other Roman women were subject. Consequently, a Vestal not only could receive legacies, but also enjoyed an untrammelled right in the disposal of her property. In a court of justice she could make a deposition without being required to take the oath. At all public games and religious banquets she had the seat of honor. If a criminal, even on the way to execution, met her by accident in the street, he was immediately set free.

On the other hand, if their privileges were great, the discipline was severe. If they transgressed the minor rules of the order, chastisement was administered by the Chief Vestal. If she herself were the offender, or if the offence were something of so serious a nature as permitting the extinction of the sacred fire, the delinquent maiden was stripped and then scourged by the chief pontiff in the gloom of a darkened room. If a Vestal broke her vow of chastity, a horrible death awaited her. In a place called campus sceleratus--the accursed field--an underground chamber was prepared. This chamber was carefully furnished with a bed, a lamp, a small quantity of oil, bread, water, and milk. The victim was placed upon a bier and borne with funeral pomp to the place of doom. There, in the presence of the multitude, after the priest had uttered certain prayers, the Vestal descended into her living tomb. The vault was quickly covered, and then roofed with brick; the earth was replaced and carefully levelled; thus all traces of the death chamber were obliterated, and the unfortunate victim was left to her fate. The witnesses of the execution turned away from the spot in the belief that the death of the criminal would avert dire evils from themselves and their families.

Though it may be they are not sufficiently well attested to preclude the doubt that the innocent were sometimes sacrificed, it is interesting to note that there are occasions on record when Vesta came to the rescue of her servants. Dionysius relates how, when Æmilia was about to be punished for intrusting the sacred fire to a novice, who let it go out, the Vestal, having first prayed to the goddess, tore a strip from her robe and cast it upon the ashes, when the fire immediately blazed up. Tuccia, who was accused of violating her vow of continence, appealed to the goddess and said: "O Vesta, if I have ever approached thee with clean hands, grant me a sign to prove my innocence." Then, as though by inspiration, she took a sieve, and going to the Tiber brought it back full of water, thus showing that miracles are never lacking in any religion when its votaries in after ages have sufficient faith to believe in them. This occurrence was made the subject of the engraving on the seal of the order, a specimen of which has been preserved to the present time. In the fourth century before Christ, Postumia was charged with a like offence. She succeeded in proving her innocence without summoning the gods as witnesses; but the chief pontiff, "by the instruction of the college, commanded her to refrain from indiscreet mirth, and to dress with more regard to sanctity than elegance."

The temple of Vesta stood at the east end of the Forum, the site being well authenticated by the ruins which remain. Tradition held that the first temple was built by Numa; this was destroyed in B.C. 390, when the city was burned by the Gauls. It was afterward rebuilt no less than four times, always on the exact site, the same form and size being adhered to. It was small and circular in shape, the domed roof being supported on columns which surrounded the inner wall. In the interior was the low, round altar where burned continually the sacred fire, to the care of which the virgin priestesses were devoted. The house in which the Vestals resided stood behind the temple, toward the Palatine hill. A few years ago, excavations were made in the accumulated soil at the foot of the hill, and a rich reward was gained in the discovery of this house, in a remarkably fine state of preservation. It has the large atrium, common to ancient Roman houses, and into which the rooms open from all sides. The stairs remain, and many of the rooms on the upper floor are still intact. That the Vestals lived in luxurious style is attested by the richness of the decorations and by the remains of bathrooms and hot-air flues. The latter were used for heating Roman buildings from a furnace, very much in the same manner as the method to which we are accustomed. That which interests us far more than anything else about this house, however, is the fact that there were found in it a large number of statues representing the Vestals themselves. Each statue originally stood upon a pedestal bearing the name and a dedicatory inscription. Presumably, the faces and the figures do not flatter the sacred maidens, for they are neither beautiful nor graceful; but they give us their names, and, what is perhaps of still greater interest, they represent the Vestal dress. This consisted of a long gown, with a cord around the waist, knotted in front. Over this there is a large mantle, so arranged as to be drawn over the head like a hood; this falls in great folds, with heavy tassels at the corners. Around the head is the characteristic diadem-like band of wool which always distinguished the Vestals, and was to them what the veil is to a nun. The feet are covered with boots of some soft material. The inscriptions on the pedestals are dated, the latest date being that of A.D. 364. This pedestal is particularly interesting because of the fact that the Vestal's name has been defaced, not, however, by an act of purposeless vandalism. It was evidently done with deliberate intent to obliterate the name; for the initial "C" has been left, in order that, though she were disowned, the identity of the offending virgin might not be forgotten. She was Claudia, who became a convert to the Christian faith.

The glorification of virginity in the Vestal order must have helped to sustain the high moral tone which prevailed among the women of early Rome. They constantly beheld, in the very centre of the civic life, a group of maidens who held a position of surpassing honor as a reward for absolute purity of character. Although celibacy was not esteemed for its own sake, nor in any instance save that of the votaries of Vesta and Ceres, in them it could but be effective as an example of virtue. And when to the sanctity essential to the office was added the personal reputation of those virgins whose fame for holiness was augmented by many years of devotion, the influence must have been all in favor of good morals. What need, it may pertinently be asked, had the Roman women to worship at the shrine of the goddess of chastity, when they had Occia, who, as Tacitus informs us, presided over the Vestals for fifty-seven years with the greatest sanctity? That such an example was not more effective than it really was must be attributed to the fact that the maids and matrons of Rome considered, as is quite consistent with human wont in all times, that the supererogatory virtue of the Vestals atoned for any deficiencies in their own. It may be that this attribution of a vicarious character thereto partly accounts for the high valuation set upon Vestal virginity. And though a time came when an untarnished reputation was contentedly dispensed with elsewhere, it was still rigidly demanded in the house of Vesta.

Yet, despite all this care, the order was not entirely immune from the counteracting influence of the times. As Roman morals relaxed, it became a less infrequent thing for scandals derogatory to the reputation of the Vestals to be whispered through the city. Toward the close of the Republic, an intrigue with one of these maidens was considered by the young nobility as all the more attractive on account of the difficulty and danger accompanying it; and there is evidence to support the belief that the attempt was not always unsuccessful. When Rome became infected with the turpitude which marked its decadence, the college of Vesta did not escape. There were occasions, however, down to the latest pagan times, when the priestesses were violently brought to a consciousness of the requirements of their office; as when Domitian severely punished them for delinquencies which, strange to say, had been overlooked by Vespasian and Titus.

Another cult closely affecting the feminine portion of Roman society was the worship of Ceres, one of the twelve great deities of the Capitol. She was the goddess of corn and the harvest, the mythical daughter of Saturn and Vesta, and, like her divine mother, demanded a virgin priestess; and the women who were devoted to her service enjoyed privileges almost equal to those of the Vestals. The Romans paid her great adoration, and her festival, lasting eight days, was celebrated by the matrons every year during the month of April. They bore lighted torches, in commemoration of the myth which describes the goddess as lighting torches at the flames of Mount Ætna, to go in search of Proserpine, her daughter, who had been carried off by Pluto. It was required of all the matrons who took part in her mysteries that they should undergo an initiation; to attend the festival without first being initiated was punishable with death.

As the Roman women worshipped Vesta and Ceres, so they also paid reverence to Bona Dea, the good goddess, who blessed matrimonial unions with fruitfulness. In her character, as conceived in the earliest times, was exemplified that chastity which at first was estimated so highly and later abandoned so lightly. The myth regarding her states that, after her marriage, she was seen by no man except her husband. In allusion to this, her festival was celebrated at night by the Roman matrons, in the houses of the highest officers of the State. On such occasions, the man of the house left his abode in the evening, and with him was sent forth every male creature. All the statues of men that were in the house were carefully veiled, and for that night the women were in sole possession. As to the nature of the ceremonies, we have no very definite information; for, though they were not always safe from male intrusion, the matrons seem at least to have succeeded well in preserving the secret of their mysteries; but, as the Roman method of doing honor to the gods always included entertainment for the worshippers, we may take it for granted that the festival of Bona Dea consisted principally of banqueting, music, and games. It is alleged, however, that in later times these developed into practices far less innocent.

Juvenal says: "The secrets of Bona Dea are well known. When the music excites them and they are inflamed with it and the wine, these Mænads of Priapus rush wildly around, and whirl their locks and howl." Then he goes on to accuse the participators in these celebrations of the most depraved excesses. But Juvenal's shafts of satire are not so greatly characterized by the sharpness of their point as by the force with which they are launched; and it is very apparent that, in order to make his invectives tell, he never hesitated in resorting to exaggeration. While all authorities agree that the rites employed in the worship of Bona Dea were accompanied in later times by unlicensed conduct on the part of the matrons, history gives no very conclusive proof of the veracity of the accusation. There is the intrusion of Clodius in the house of Julius Cæsar on such an occasion; but to cite this as evidence does not materially substantiate the charge, for the only woman who seemed willing to consent to his presence was Pompeia, and she did not have an opportunity to meet him, as the others very promptly drove him from the house.

The continual degeneration of Roman morals will compel us later on to depict a social life in which there is little to relieve the monotony of misconduct; hence it is only giving the Roman woman the full advantage of everything that may be said in her favor, if we glance back at an incident which happened in the times when virtuous matrons were still the rule and not the exception. In B.C. 295, the Senate, in order to avert evils predicted by the omens, decreed that two days should be spent in religious devotions. Livy relates that at this time a disagreement arose among the matrons who were worshipping at the Temple of Patrician Chastity. It is illustrative of the fact that it is difficult for women--though possibly the criticism should not be confined to their sex--to be faultless in essentials without being censorious in indifferent matters. We will allow the Roman historian to tell the story in his own fashion. "Virginia, daughter of Aulus, a patrician, but married to Volumnius the consul, a plebeian, was excluded by the other matrons from sharing in the sacred rites, because she had married out of the patrician order. A short altercation ensued, which was afterward, through the intemperance of passion incident to the sex, kindled into a flame of contention. Virginia boasted with truth that she had a right to enter the Temple of Patrician Chastity, as being of patrician birth and chaste in her character, and, besides, the wife of one husband, to whom she was betrothed a virgin, and, moreover, she had no reason to be dissatisfied either with her husband, his exploits, or his honors. To her high-spirited words she added importance by an extraordinary act. She enclosed with a partition a part of her house, of a size sufficient for a small shrine, and there erected an altar. Then, calling together the plebeian matrons, and complaining of the injurious behavior of the patrician ladies, she said: 'This altar I dedicate to Plebeian Chastity, and exhort you that the same degree of emulation which prevails among the men of the State on the point of valor may be maintained by the women on the point of virtue; and that you contribute your best care that this altar may have the credit of being attended with a greater degree of sanctity and by chaster women than the other, if possible.' Solemn rites were performed at this altar under almost the same regulations as those of the more ancient one, no person being allowed the privilege of taking part in the sacrifices unless a woman of approved chastity, and who was the wife of one husband."

Livy goes on to relate that the plebeian shrine did not maintain the high standard set by its founder; for it afterward received women who were very far from living up to the rules originally laid down. It eventually passed out of existence; but that the patrician temple of chastity stood as a rebuke to the license of later generations is shown by Juvenal when he says: "With what sort of scorn Tullia snuffs the air when she passes the ancient altar of chastity."

The piety of the Roman women added many to the great number of temples erected for the worship of the gods, and sacred edifices consecrated to goddesses were numerous. Sometimes temples were built by the State for the especial use of women. After the wrath of Coriolanus was appeased by women's instrumentality, the Temple of Female Fortune was presented to them as a reward. Another temple was consecrated to Fortuna virilis. The function of this goddess at first was to preserve to wives the affections of their husbands; but, as times changed, the divinity also forfeited her former good character, and degenerated into a patroness of the most unprincipled coquettes. This temple is one of the ancient edifices which have been preserved and turned to modern uses; for over a thousand years it has served as a Christian church, under the name of Saint Mary of Egypt. It belongs to Armenians of the Roman Catholic faith who reside in Rome; and the thought suggests itself that that vicissitude is not entirely inappropriate which has brought to pass that the temple, where ancient courtesans sought the aid of the goddess of chance, is now dedicated to Mary, the famous penitent of Egypt.

It was customary in imperial Rome for temples to be erected in honor of the emperors, but the memory of only one woman was ever thus celebrated; and in this case the devotion of the husband, rather than worthiness on the part of his wife, is indicated. This was the temple of Faustina, built after her death by the noble Antoninus Pius. If the historians of the time can be relied upon in the matter, there were no qualities in Faustina save her beauty which her imperial husband could justly commemorate. But Antoninus thought differently; and, in the history of the emperors, there is certainly nothing so affecting as the sanctity in which, to the day of his death, he held her memory. However faulty Faustina may have been, surely she was as worthy of being deified as most of the emperors who received that honor. This, undoubtedly, was the thought of her husband, who was too much of a philosopher to believe seriously in any of the Roman deities, human or supernatural. He simply adopted the popular method in his desire to pay the highest honor possible to his wife. This temple, parts of which still remain, was also used as a church during the Middle Ages; but its chief interest at the present day is found in the numerous ancient scribblings that have been discovered upon its columns and their bases.

During the earlier years of the Republic, religion had an extremely good effect upon the morals of the people. Men dared not invoke the aid of Jove in an unjust cause; women could hope for favors at the hands of Vesta, Ceres, or Bona Dea only by pledging the rectitude of their conduct. But as the people lived continually in the fear of the gods, their religion was more effective as a police institution than it was productive as a source of comfort. As is inevitable with all religions, the spirit demanded new forms before the people became conscious that the old were outgrown; and the time came when Roman worship became nothing more than tiresome, uninteresting ceremonies, which were conducted with incredibly slavish care respecting niceties of ritual. This ceased to appeal to the heart, and could no longer commend itself convincingly to the mind. Hence, when foreign deities and new forms of worship came to Rome in the triumphal processions of the victorious generals, the people were ready to receive them with that hope which always welcomes untried possibilities.

A new deity ushered into their well-filled pantheon always seemed to the Romans a valuable acquisition. A god in Rome was a god for Rome; and to extend cordial hospitality to all known divinities was a part of the national policy. As the conquering armies carried the fame of Rome further in the world, the women at home had an ever-widening range of divinities at whose altars they might make supplication for the success of the warriors. The city at last became as cosmopolitan in its pantheon as in its population. If the matrons tired of, or were disappointed with, time-honored Vesta and Ceres, they might turn to the passion-exciting rites of the Syrian Astarte, to the weird ceremonies of the Phrygian Cybele, or to the more intellectual mysteries of the Egyptian Isis. When Veii was captured, the most highly valued spoil was the statue of Matuta; and as fortune had forsaken the city, the goddess seemed content to depart with it. So at least the Romans believed; for they asserted that when the deity was asked if she were willing to take up her abode at Rome, she assented with a perceptible nod of the head. This was considered a piece of good fortune of almost equal worth with the gain of the city. The worship of Matuta being more peculiarly the function of the women, the fact that they outdid the men in their rejoicing is thus accounted for, history informing us that they crowded the temples to give thanks even before the people were ordered to do so by the Senate. Only married women, and of these only the freeborn, were allowed in the temple of Matuta, except when they carried thither their children for the blessing of the goddess.

But the first marked deterioration of the ancient Roman worship through the influence of foreign rites occurred with the advent of the Idæan Mother. In B.C. 203, the Romans, at the command of the Sybilline oracles, sent to Asia Minor for the famous Phrygian deity Cybele, the mythical mother of the gods. The Senate was required to appoint the most virtuous man in the Republic to the duty of receiving the image of the goddess. This honor was awarded to Publius Scipio; but it was reserved to a matron to derive from the incident a more lasting fame and a greater present advantage. The women of Rome went to Ostia to escort the deity to the city. The legend narrates that the vessel bearing the image ran upon a shoal at the mouth of the Tiber, and all efforts to get it off proved ineffectual. One of the noblest of the matrons present was Claudia Quinta. Whether justly or otherwise, this lady had been brought under suspicion in regard to her conduct. Seeing in the predicament of the goddess a grand opportunity, she adventured her reputation upon a daring chance for vindication. Making her way to the side of the vessel, it being close to the bank, she supplicated the divine mother to bear witness to her virtue by following the persuasion of her chaste hands. Then she fastened her girdle to the prow of the boat, and, to the wonder of all and to the overthrow of her slanderers, the vessel easily yielded to her slight exertion. As a proof of the truth of this, following generations could point to the statue of Claudia which the men of the time erected at the door of the temple of Cybele.

Victor Duruy, commenting on the change wrought by these new divinities, says, "they gave a new cast to the religious convictions of people to whom a very crude form of worship had so long sufficed. Born in the scorching East, these deities required savage rites and pious orgies. Dramatic spectacles, intoxicating ceremonies, affected violently the dull Roman mind, and excited religious frenzy; for the first time the Roman felt those transports which, according to the character of the doctrine and the condition of the mind, produce effects diametrically opposite,--absolute purity of life, or the excess of debauchery sanctified by religious belief." Lucretius bears testimony to the truth of this in the vivid picture he draws of the extravagancies which characterized the festival of Cybele. He describes her attendants in their pageants through the streets, dancing with ropes, leaping about to the sound of horrid music, while blood streams from their self-inflicted wounds. How this affected the women may be gathered from Juvenal, who pictures this furious chorus entering a house, and the priest threatening the matron with coming disasters, which she willingly seeks to avert with costly offerings. In another place he refers to the temple of "the imported mother of the gods" as being frequented by the abandoned women, who took part in the orgies performed in her honor. That the women were more addicted than the men to the worship of foreign deities is perhaps suggested by a passage in Tibullus. The poet is away from Rome, and sick. He complains: "There is no Delia here, who, when she was about to let me go from the city, first consulted all the gods.... Everything prognosticated my return, yet nothing could hinder her from weeping and turning to look after me as I went.... What does your Isis for me now, Delia? What avail me those brazen sistra of hers so often shaken by your hand? Now, goddess, succor me; for that man may be healed by thee is proved by many a picture in thy temples. Let my Delia, dressed in linen, sit before thy sacred doors, performing vigils vowed for me; and twice a day, with hair unbound, let her recite thy due praises. But be it my lot to celebrate my native Penates, and to offer monthly incense to my ancient Lar."

But the most injurious of all the foreign superstitions was the Bacchanalian cult, which was introduced into Rome during the second century before Christ by a lowborn Greek from Etruria. He professed himself to be a priest in charge of secret nocturnal rites. By appealing to the very worst propensities of which human nature is capable, he soon gathered around him a large following of men and women, and these included representatives of the noblest families. They engaged in certain religious performances; but the chief attraction was an unrestrained indulgence in wine, feasting, and passion. Naturally, this organization also became a hotbed for every sort of crime, including murder and conspiracy. Owing to the pledge of secrecy extorted from the initiates, the contagion had spread to a prodigious extent before it came to the notice of the Senate. In the manner of its discovery, we have an interesting drama which throws light, not only upon the matter itself, but also reveals somewhat of the position of a certain class of Roman women, of which history takes little personal account.

Publius Æbutius was a young man of knightly rank, whose father was dead and whose mother, Duronia, had married again. His stepfather, having abused the property of Æbutius, and being unwilling to give an account, conspired with the unnatural mother so to manage that her son would not be in a position to demand an accounting. They agreed that the Bacchanalian rites were the only way to effect the ruin of the young man. Accordingly, his mother informed him that during his sickness she had vowed that, if through the kindness of the gods he should recover, she would initiate him into the rites of the Bacchanalians. She instructed him for ten days how to prepare himself, and promised that on the tenth she would conduct him to the place of meeting. The youth very innocently agreed to this, thinking that it was only the due of the gods by whose favor he enjoyed his restored health. All would have gone as his mother desired, had it not been for the fact that he had formed a strong attachment for a courtesan named Hispala Fecenia. This young freedwoman was of a character far superior to the mode of life into which she had been forced while still a slave. Hispala knew more of the world than did Æbutius; and when he informed her that he was about to be initiated into the rites of the Bacchanalians, she declared that it would be better for him and also for her to lose their lives than that he should do such a thing. She told him that when she was a slave she had been taken to those rites by her mistress, though since her emancipation she had been exceedingly careful to avoid the place. She said that she knew it to be the haunt of all kinds of debauchery. Before they parted, the young man gave her his solemn promise that he would keep clear of those rites. The result of his adherence to this was that his mother and stepfather drove him from home, and he was goaded into telling the whole affair to the Consul Postumius, after first taking counsel with his aunt Æbutia.

After certain inquiries, Hispala was brought into the presence of the consul, to whom she gave a full account of the origin of the mysteries. She said that, at first, the rites were performed only by women. No man was admitted. At that time, they had three stated days in the year on which persons were initiated, but only in the daytime. The matrons then used to be appointed priestesses in rotation. Paculla Minia, a Campanian, when priestess, rearranged the whole system, alleging that she did so by the direction of the gods. She introduced men, the first being her own sons; she changed the time of celebration from day to night; and instead of three days in the year, appointed five days in each month for initiation. From the time that the rites were made thus common, and the licentious freedom of the night was added, there was nothing wicked, nothing flagitious, that had not been practised among them. To think nothing unlawful was the grand maxim of their religion.

After Hispala had made this revelation, Postumius proceeded to lay the whole matter before the Senate. A vigorous prosecution of the Bacchanalians ensued; and it was found that over seven thousand men and women had taken the oath of the association, thus proving that the rapid growth of a religion gives no assurance of the truth of its doctrines or the purity of its principles. Those who were found to be most deeply stained by evil practices were put to death; many put an end to themselves, so as to avoid punishment at the hands of the authorities; the others were imprisoned. The women who were condemned were delivered to their relations, or to those under whose guardianship they were, to be punished in private; but if there did not appear any proper person of the kind to execute the sentence, the punishment was nevertheless inflicted, but in private and by a person appointed by the court.

The Senate also passed a vote, on the suggestion of the Consul Postumius, that the city quæstors should give to both Æbutius and Hispala a certain goodly sum of money out of the public treasury, as a reward for discovering the iniquitous Bacchanalian ceremonies. Æbutius was exempted from compulsory service in the army; and to Hispala it was granted that she should enjoy the unique privileges of disposing in any way she chose of her property; that she should be at liberty to wed a man of honorable birth, and that there should be no disgrace to him who should marry her; and that it should be the business of the consuls then in office, and of their successors, to take care that no injury should ever be offered to her.

Though the Bacchanalian abuses were thus strenuously dealt with by the Roman authorities, this and other like parasitical growths which fastened themselves upon the religious instincts of the people were not to be shaken off. Among the many noxious developments that crept over and eventually choked the life out of the sturdy ancient stock, we find every vicious substitute for religion known to the ante-Christian world. During the decadence of Rome, the ancient national religion became disintegrated and almost wholly superseded. Many of the empresses patronized the foreign orgiastic cults; and, taking the many-sided development of Roman religion as a whole, the strange spectacle is presented of a remarkable improvement in philosophy accompanying a great deterioration in morals. On the one hand, there were those who were struggling to a conception of the transcendental nature of the deity and the unity of nature; on the other hand were those who were doing in the name of the gods everything that is considered unworthy of humanity. And in all the evil fructification of base conceptions of religion, as well as in the knowledge of the higher philosophy, woman had her full share. No Roman woman was irreligious, however great the obliquity of her moral character, though sometimes her piety took a form so bizarre that the fact outruns imagination. Agrippina the Younger, for an example, was created priestess to the deified Claudius, whom she had cajoled into marrying her despite the fact that he was her uncle.

It must not be imagined, however, that because Roman religion developed these excesses through the infusion of Oriental superstitions, it came to be devoid of those uplifting influences which are the province of faith in the divine. There were never wanting those who, loving the good, the beautiful, and the true, supported their aspirations by their belief in the providence of deity; and the doctrine of a future life, though held only with much vacillation by the philosophers, was continually resorted to for comfort by the multitude. How widespread were these ideas, and how greatly similar to our own were the thoughts of those ancient Romans, are matters lost sight of by people who need no further reason for dismissing a religion from their consideration than the mere fact that it is pagan. Plutarch, who defended the dogma of the unity of God, of His providence, and of the immortality of the soul, wrote to his wife: "You know that there are those who persuade the multitude that the soul, when once freed from the body, suffers no inconvenience nor evil." The more positive, though less philosophical, faith of the people is illustrated by the words a mother carved upon the sepulchre of her child: "We are afflicted by a cruel wound; but thou, renewed in thy existence, livest in the Elysian fields. The gods order that he who has deserved the light of day should return under another form; this is a reward which thy goodness has gained thee. Now, in a flowery mead, the blessed, marked with the sacred seal, admit thee to the flock of Bacchus, where the Naiades, who bear the sacred baskets, claim thee as their companion in leading the solemn processions by the light of the torches." Except for somewhat of the imagery, and the pagan names, this woman's faith might easily be accepted as Christian.

IV

THE PASSING OF OLD ROMAN SIMPLICITY

With the spread of her foreign conquests, Rome herself was subjugated by a rapid revolution in thought and habit. From the middle of the second century before Christ, we look in vain for the old Republic. Religion, manners, morals, occupations, amusements--all have changed. The old-time Roman character is passing away, like a tide, through the narrowing channel of the ever-decreasing number of those who cling to the ancient ideals. Morality has started upon that ebb of which the days of Caligula and Nero saw the lowest mark to which a civilized people ever fell. The Romans could not withstand the temptations incidental to conquest. Physically invincible, they were not armed against the onset of foreign vices. The State grew inordinately wealthy by pillage and exaction; a single campaign yielded booty to the value of nine million six hundred thousand dollars. Scipio wept when he took Carthage; for well he knew that his people were in no way prepared to assume such extensive dominion, except at the cost of national character. Polybius says that after the conquest of Macedon men believed themselves able to enjoy in all security the conquest of the world and the spoils thereof.

But wealth was not the sole constituent of the harvest gathered in by Roman swords. After the transmarine wars, new ideas and Greek learning became common among a people who were not adapted, as the Greeks, to mere theorizing, but carried out their thoughts, whether for good or ill, to the full extent of their powers. The consequence was that Rome plunged with deadly earnestness into newly acquired vices; and the novel teachings of Hellenism, instead of elevating the minds of the people, served only to create indifference to the ancient divinities. "You ask," says Juvenal, "whence arise our disorders? A humble life in other days preserved the innocence of the Latin women. Protracted vigils, hands hardened by toil, Hannibal at the gates of Rome, and Roman citizens in arms upon her walls, guarded from vice the modest dwellings of our fathers. Now we endure the evils of a long peace; luxury has fallen upon us, more formidable than the sword, and the conquered world has avenged itself upon us by the gift of its vices. Since Rome has lost her noble poverty, Sybaris and Rhodes, Miletus and Tarentum, crowned with roses and scented with perfumes, have entered our walls." All the ancient writers agree upon the same verdict. The old austerity of life was more the result of poverty than of conscience; the simple habits of the first centuries of the Republic were cherished only so long as there were no means to render them more luxurious. Had wealth come to Rome through industry, the slower process, which alone develops the power of appreciation, would have fitted the people to make good use of their better fortune.

But riches surprised them; and we see ostentatious depravity quickly taking the place of a pure, though meagre, life. To quote again from Polybius, who himself was carried from Macedon to Rome as a prisoner of war: "Most of the Romans live in strange dissipation. The young allow themselves to be carried away by the most shameful excesses. They are given to shows, to feasts, to luxury and disorder of every kind, which it is too evident they have learned from the Greeks during the war with Perseus." Cato calls attention to the new manners with that bitter scorn which was so strong in the old Roman. "See this Roman," he says; "he descends from his chariot, he pirouettes, he recites buffooneries and jokes and vile stories, then sings or declaims Greek verses, and then resumes his pirouettes." Imitation of the Greeks was zealously adopted in the education of the young. Scipio Æmilianus says: "When I entered one of the schools to which the nobles send their sons, great gods! I found there more than five hundred young girls and lads who were receiving among actors and infamous persons lessons on the lyre, in singing, in posturing; and I saw a child of twelve, the son of a candidate for office, executing a dance worthy of the most licentious slave." The school here referred to must not be understood as the regular institution for the imparting of knowledge to Roman children; the purpose of that described seems to have been the cultivation of what the Romans had come to regard as genteel accomplishments. There were other schools for instruction in reading, writing, and the usual branches of knowledge. These schools also were as free of access to girls as to boys, and were always conducted as private enterprises rather than by the State.

The remarkable revolution in thought and manners which Hellenism introduced into Rome could not fail profoundly to affect the existence of woman. That she was not far behind man in "running to every excess of riot" is abundantly shown by the historians and other writers of the time. In that city which was once remarkable for the purity of its morals, houses of ill repute became plentiful. These were occupied principally by women who had been slaves, but had gained their liberty by the sacrifice of their honor. Houses of this character are the scenes of nearly all the comedies of Plautus and Terence, who found all their material in Rome, though they located the brothels of which they write at Athens and used Greek names for their characters. Prostitution, however, was not confined to the freedwomen; women of all classes were necessarily drawn into the vortex of degeneracy. Notwithstanding the fact that in B.C. 141 the Senate made a serious effort to resist the increasing looseness of morals, going so far as to build a temple to Venus Verticordia, the Venus who was supposed to convert women's hearts to virtue, the character of the times devoted the whole sex too zealously to Aphrodite for anything noteworthy to result from the appeal to her nobler namesake.

Yet it must not be imagined that all the new impulses which came from victorious contact with foreign lands had no other than a detrimental effect upon the life of the women of Rome. The changes which were taking place provided a door to liberty, though to very many it meant nothing else but an egress to unrestrained license. In any case, the horizon of the Roman woman's outlook became greatly extended; her mind expanded as it busied itself about an increasing number of subjects, and the range of her activities was materially widened. As her husband now had other interests besides those of the warrior, the citizen, and the agriculturist, in the last of which she had alone been allowed a recognized part, a larger field was now provided in which she might be his companion; henceforward she became less an appendage and more an equal. Not, however, because new laws were passed in her favor; indeed, the laws were framed rather with the purpose of overcoming the results of those circumstances which were effecting her emancipation. But it is impossible to overcome a development which is the natural result of conditions that are welcomed by the people; so, in the new society by which the old order was superseded in Italy, women soon learned how, by means of legal fictions, they might accomplish ends which were still illegal. It is altogether a new woman that we find in the last century of the Republic, taking the place of the old-time matron. She drives about the city in an equipage befitting her wealth and position; she entertains in her sumptuous home learned men, with whom she studies the Greek authors; she brings such influence to bear on the Senate as to cause laws to be passed in her favor; she frequently intrigues in matters political; she is not unaccustomed to divorce and remarriage; and, thus engaged, she leaves the spinning of wool, the occupation from time immemorial esteemed honorable by matrons, entirely to her domestics and her slaves.

These great changes in the status of woman did not take place without a protest. They were the occasion of serious contentions in the Senate and of bitter reproaches on the part of the lovers of the old-fashioned ways, Hellenism being blamed for the mischief, on one occasion all Greek philosophers were driven from the city; but that was like removing the old seed after the well-matured plant had grown to depend upon its own roots. The people of Rome were in reality divided into three classes in respect to the new order of things. There were the younger men and women of the nobility, who welcomed the change, but who were intoxicated with the novel pleasures to which wealth gave them access, and into which they rushed with an utter disregard of propriety. Among them, however, were some thoughtful souls,--a class of a better character,--who, while they most cordially entertained that which Hellenism had to teach them in regard to a broader style of life, knew how to winnow the chaff from the grain and to feed their minds with the latter. These found their best representatives in the Scipio family, all of whom were zealous patrons of Greek learning. As we have noticed in a previous chapter, Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, maintained her house at Misenum in a most liberal manner, making it a centre of erudition and gathering around her many of the learned men of her time. In opposition to both these classes were men whose type may be found in all ages, who were uncompromising in their conservatism and who could see nothing but a presage of national disaster in every change from the old methods of life. Their complete idea of what a woman should be and do was expressed in the formula: "She is virtuous; she stays at home; she spins wool." This party was ably headed by Cato the Censor, who was entirely incapable of understanding why the women of his day should desire anything other than that which satisfied their feminine antecedents in the poverty-pinched times of the early Republic.

The ultra-conservative ideal was, of course, incapable of realization, though there was still in the minds of the people a large residuum of sentiment which could be employed in its favor; but when the times are ready to change, the most powerful appeal is futile. The wiser course was taken by the Scipios and the Gracchi, who endeavored to steer the new movement in the way of betterment and reform. This, if successful, would have conserved the ancient principles by adapting them to the new conditions, and Rome would have maintained her moral greatness while still enhancing her material prestige; but the momentum given by the haste of the people to acquire what as yet they knew not how to enjoy carried Roman society past every turn in the right direction. Consequently, the mother of the Gracchi was honored as a prodigy of female excellence rather than, as she might have been, an example of what Roman matrons might become in the new liberty. Then began the loosening of moral restraint, by which Rome fell to a condition of savagery which was rendered all the more horrible by the presence of the material concomitants of civilization.

It must be remembered, however, that the common people of any age or country change their customs more slowly than do the more favored classes. Unfortunately, the historians have never regarded the lives of people of the ordinary populace as being worthy of record; hence, we have the names and the doings of only the women of the Roman nobility. Were it otherwise, it is probable that we should discover that among the matrons of the middle class in Italy there were in each generation many who maintained, in their quiet lives, the virtue of the ancient ideals, until the time came when their life principle was reinforced by new teaching, not from Greece, but from Galilee. Doubtless also, such as these were more greatly encouraged to perseverance by the stern conservatives who upheld the past--a model which they at least could comprehend--than they were by the high-minded progressivists, who led in paths which were as yet untried. For this reason, it may be well for us to take a glance at the home of Cato, who sturdily antagonized the new movement and was the uncompromising opposer of every effort to alter the fashion of female life. He was the valedictorian of ancient Roman simplicity. That the common people were in sympathy with him is shown by the fact that they erected his statue in the Temple of Health, and, instead of recounting his exploits in battle, simply placed upon the pedestal an inscription saying that he was Cato the Censor, who vigilantly watched over the moral health of the State.

If the house of Cato is to be regarded as an example of the ancient manner of life, the suspicion is forced upon us that the young Roman women of the time must have been thankful that in the great statesman's home they saw the last of the old régime. It was a small house, situated on the censor's lands in the Sabine country, where the luxuriousness of the city was unknown. Here his wife dwelt, superintending the agricultural and domestic activities, while her husband was absent at Rome or in the wars. We may be sure that Cato's wife remained at home; this her husband's antipathy to expense sufficiently guarantees. The man who sold his horse, which had carried him through a severe campaign, because he would not charge the State with the cost of conveying it from Spain, would doubtless, by reason of the extra expense, refrain from giving his wife an invitation to join him in his official residence at the metropolis. Moreover, detesting the growing profligacy of the times, he had no mind to bring her into contact with that luxury which, as censor, he strove so mightily to eradicate. For amusement, she was obliged to content herself with the rustic festivals, which were more cheerful than exciting, and knew nothing of the terrible scenes of the circus and the amphitheatre, which the fashionable ladies of the city were accustoming themselves to witness with a calmness unbecoming to their sex. Her religious devotions were performed before the household gods and in the simple country shrines, if not with as great satisfaction, certainly with as good effect as they might have been in the splendid temples at Rome. In the conduct of her house were observed the strictest rules of frugality. There was no waste; everything which the family could not use was sold, if only for a farthing.

Rectitude, justice, and thrift were the only ideals followed in this home. If Cato's wife possessed anything of the artistic in her temperament, she enjoyed little opportunity for its indulgence. Her husband was very far from the opinion that the gods and goddesses were more easily propitiated by devotions paid before beautiful Grecian statuary than when represented by the ill-shaped images of Roman creation. In the otherwise undecorated atrium were the Penates and the Lares--small and homely figures indeed, but endowed with all the accumulated glory of the family; for to them was attributed all the success of the past, and, if faithfully reverenced, as they were likely to be in such a household, they were pledges for the prosperity of the future. Religion must have been of especial value in Cato's family, for its offices were the only form of sentiment that was given any freedom of expression; all else was under the ban of the most arid practicality. There were no old retainers who, by many years of devoted service, had gained an established place in the affections of those upon whom they waited; and if the mistress had been inclined to cherish such natural regard, it was ruthlessly ignored, it being a rule with her husband to sell his slaves for anything they would bring, as soon as they became old and infirm. Even the bondwomen at whose breasts his children had been nursed had for him, no other than a monetary value. The signs of affection were, in his judgment, the marks of weakness. What a barren-hearted puritan he must have been who could expel an honored citizen from the Senate for no other reason than that he had kissed his own wife in the presence of their daughter! And what a husband, who could make his boast that he had never caressed his wife--presumably, he meant under circumstances where others might witness such flagitious conduct--except on the occasion of a severe thunderstorm, when he was obliged to resort to that means of soothing her! This was evidently, however, an affectation; for Cato admitted that it was a pleasure to him when Jove thundered. It is apparent that his idea of the good old Roman manner of treating a wife did not recognize the need of indulgence; and it is not likely that one who himself took great pride in wearing the most inexpensive quality of clothing, and was, as we shall see, the inveterate enemy of costliness and changing fashion in woman's attire, ever gratified his wife with a present of wearing apparel from the city--unless she, like himself, could rate the worth of an article by the cheapness of the bargain. Yet it is on record that he was an excellent husband, and that he greatly appreciated his wife, whom he married for her noble nature, despite the fact that she brought him but a small dowry and was not of a family high in position. Doubtless his good qualities were appreciated by his wife, especially if she was meek enough in disposition to submit willingly to an unceasing surveillance and interference in the minutest household matters, even, as Plutarch informs us, to the bathing and dressing of the infants.

Such was the family of Cato. It was modelled after what he conceived to be the best traditions of Roman society before it became corrupted by the pernicious foreign influence. He governed his own household by those same stern principles which he sought by precept, example, and authority to enforce upon the Roman people of his time. But his home was the last survival of the old simplicity. An age had dawned when Roman matrons were to become more of a factor in public life and would no longer be satisfied to abide in the shadow of domestic routine. In their newly gained liberty they ran to the furthest extreme of unreasonableness; but Cato's ideas were too illiberal for nature.

During the early part of the second century before Christ, there was enacted around the Forum a scene such as never before had been witnessed or dreamed of in Rome. Crowds of matrons were there assembled to implore, and to gain by their importunity, the repeal of a law which curtailed their expenditure on dress. This was the Oppian law, which had been passed a few years previously, during the Second Punic War, when money was needed for the public service, and the people, not excluding the women, had responded with unbounded enthusiasm. The law in question decreed that "No woman should possess more than half an ounce of gold, or wear a garment of various colors, or ride in a carriage drawn by horses, in a city or any town or any place nearer thereto than one mile, except on occasion of some public religious solemnity." It is assumed by all writers that the half-ounce of gold to which the women were restricted put a restraint, beyond that limit, on the ornamentation of their dress; this is based on the very natural supposition that whatever of the precious metal they possessed would surely be displayed upon their persons. It is a little doubtful whether the decree concerning vehicles was inserted into the measure in order that the horses might be placed at the disposal of the army, or whether this was a crafty interpolation for the purpose of restricting the growing ostentation of the ladies. However, the law had been passed without any objection, so far as is known, from the women. But patient, uncomplaining submission on the part of the Roman women to their male guardians, whether collective or individual, was now becoming a thing of the past. They could neither make nor repeal laws; but they were no longer afraid to bring their influence to bear on those in whom lay that power. Champions of their cause were found in the two plebeian tribunes, and these moved in the Senate for the repeal of the Oppian law. Then ensued such a turmoil as if Hannibal were again menacing the gates of Rome, except that there was no unanimity of mind as to what should be done. This, however, only describes the attitude of the men; the women were united and, what is more, they were determined. They adopted what has become a common method in modern times; not that of forwarding to the legislators a numerously signed petition,--which is always a stronger protest than an effective influence,--but the more powerful one of pertinacious "lobbying." Crowds of women, reinforced by many who came in from the country towns and villages, thronged the streets leading to the Forum and importuned the men who were to decide the matter in which they were concerned. But they found an inexorable opponent in the redoubtable Cato. Livy gives us what he conceives the forceful orator to have said on the occasion:

THE "NEW" WOMAN IN ROME
After the painting by G. R. C. Boulanger

In the new society by which the old order was superseded in Italy, women soon learned how, by means of legal fictions, they might accomplish ends which were still illegal. It is altogether a new woman that we find in the last century of the Republic, taking the place of the old-time matron. She drives on the Appian Way and about the city in an equipage befitting her wealth and position; her naked African slaves wear silver collars and beat off the beggar boys, if she halts to purchase flowers; she entertains in her sumptuous home learned men, with whom she studies the Greek authors; she brings such influence to bear on the Senate as to cause laws to be passed in her favor; she frequently intrigues in matters political; she is not unaccustomed to divorce and remarriage; and, thus engaged, she leaves the spinning of wool, the occupation from time immemorial esteemed honorable by matrons, entirely to her domestics and her slaves.

"If, Romans, every individual among us had made it a rule to maintain the prerogative and authority of a husband with respect to his own wife, we should have less trouble with the whole sex. But now, our privileges, overpowered at home by female contumacy, are, even here in the Forum, spurned and trodden under foot; and because we are not able to withstand each separately, we now dread their collective body.... It was not without painful emotions of shame that I, just now, made my way to the Forum through the midst of a band of women. Had I not been restrained by respect for the modesty and dignity of some individuals among them, rather than of the whole number, and been unwilling that they should be seen rebuked by a consul, I should have said to them: 'What sort of practice is this, of running into public, besetting the streets, and addressing other women's husbands? Could not each have made the same request to her husband at home?. Are your blandishments more seducing in public than in private, and with other women's husbands than your own? Although, if the modesty of matrons confined them within the limits of their own rights, it did not become you, even at home, to concern yourselves about what laws might be passed or repealed here.' Our ancestors thought it not proper that women should perform any, even private, business, without a director; but that they should ever be under the control of parents, brothers, or husbands. We, it seems, suffer them now to interfere in the management of State affairs, and to introduce themselves into the Forum, into general assemblies, and into assemblies of election. For, what are they doing at this moment in your streets and lanes? What but arguing, some in support of the motion of the plebeian tribunes, others for the repeal of the law? Will you give the reins to their intractable nature, and their uncontrolled passions, and then expect that they themselves should set bounds to their lawlessness, when you have failed to do so? This is the smallest of the injunctions laid on them by usage or the laws, all of which women bear with impatience. They long for liberty, or rather, to speak the truth, for unbounded freedom in every particular. For what will they not attempt, if they now come off victorious?

"Recollect all the institutions respecting the sex, by which our forefathers restrained their undue freedom, and by which they subjected them to their husbands; and yet, even with the help of all these restrictions, you can hardly keep them within bounds. If, then, you suffer them to throw these off one by one, to tear them all asunder, and, at last, to set themselves on an equal footing with yourselves, can you imagine that they will be any longer tolerable by you? The moment that they have arrived at an equality with you, they will have become your superiors. But, forsooth, they only object to any new law being made against them; they mean not to deprecate justice, but severity. Nay, their wish is that a law which you have admitted, established by your suffrages, and confirmed by the practice and experience of so many years to be beneficial, should now be repealed; that is, by abolishing one law you should weaken all the rest. No law perfectly suits the convenience of every member of the community; the only consideration is, whether, upon the whole, it be profitable for the greater part.... I should like, however, to know what this important affair is which has induced the matrons thus to run out into public in this excited manner, scarcely restraining from pushing into the Forum and the assembly of the people.... What motive, that even common decency will allow to be mentioned, is pretended for this female insurrection? Why, say they, that we may shine in gold and purple; that, both on festal and common days, we may ride through the city in our chariots, triumphing over vanquished and abrogated law, after having captured and wrested from you your suffrages; and that there may be no bounds to our expenses and our luxury.

"Often have you heard me complain of the profuse expenses of the women--often of those of the men; and that not only of men in private stations, but of the magistrates; and that the State was endangered by two opposite vices--luxury and avarice, those pests which have been the ruin of all great empires. These I dread the more, as the circumstances of the commonwealth grow daily more prosperous and happy. As the Empire increases, as we have now passed over into Greece and Asia, places abounding with every kind of temptation that can inflame the passions, so much the more do I fear that these matters will bring us into captivity, rather than we them. Believe me, those statues from Syracuse were brought into this city with harmful effect. I already hear too many commending and admiring the decorations of Athens and Corinth, and ridiculing the earthen images of our Roman gods that stand on the fronts of their temples. For my part, I prefer these gods--propitious as they are, and I hope will continue to be, if we allow them to remain in their own mansions.... When the dress of all is alike, why should any one of you fear lest she should not be an object of observation? Of all kinds of shame, the worst, surely, is the being ashamed of frugality or of poverty; but this law relieves you with regard to both; since that which you have not it is unlawful for you to possess. This equalization, says the rich matron, is the very thing that I cannot endure. Why do I not make a figure, distinguished with gold and purple? Why is the poverty of others concealed under this cover of a law, so that it should be thought that, if the law permitted, they would have such things as they are not now able to procure? Romans, do you wish to excite among your wives an emulation of this sort, that the rich should wish to have what none other can have; and the poor, lest they be despised as such, should extend their expenses beyond their means? Be assured that when a woman once begins to be ashamed of what she ought not to be ashamed of, she will not be ashamed of what she ought. She who can will purchase out of her own purse; she who cannot will ask her husband. Unhappy is the husband, both he who complies with the request, and he who does not; for what he will not give himself he will see given by another.... So soon as the law shall cease to limit the expenses of your wife, you yourself will never be able to do so. Do not suppose that the matter will hereafter be in the same state in which it was before the law was made on the subject. It is safer that a wicked man should never be accused than that he should be acquitted; and luxury, if it had never been meddled with, would be more tolerable than it would be when, like a wild beast, irritated by being chained, it is let loose. My opinion is that the Oppian law ought, on no account, to be repealed."

The women, however, were not without their champion. In a debate on some ordinary affair of State, Lucius Valerius the Tribune would have been an inconsiderable antagonist for Cato; but, on this occasion, what he lacked in oratorical prestige was atoned for in that he had by far the more reasonable side of the argument. The fact that it was the custom of the Roman historians to compose, rather than report, the addresses of their orators renders any comparison of these two Senatorial speeches on woman's rights entirely uninteresting. Valerius is made to say: "Shall our wives alone reap none of the fruits of the public peace and tranquillity? Shall we men have the use of the purple? Shall our children wear gowns bordered with the same color, and shall we interdict the use of it to women alone? Shall your horse, even, be more splendidly caparisoned than your wife is clothed?" An appeal to the sympathy of the voters is made, as the matrons of Rome are represented as "seeing those ornaments allowed to the wives of the Latin confederates, of which they themselves have been deprived. They will behold those riding through the city in their carriages, and decorated with gold and purple, while they are obliged to follow on foot.... This would hurt the feelings even of men, and what do you think must be its effect on weak women, whom even trifles can disturb? Neither offices of State nor of the priesthood, nor triumphs, nor badges of distinction, nor military presents, nor spoils, may fall to their share. Elegance of appearance, and ornaments, and dress--these are the women's badges of distinction; in these they delight and glory; these our ancestors called the women's world."

The Oppian law was repealed, and Cato, as if he wished to escape the sight of the resulting disasters which he anticipated, took the command of a fleet of war vessels and sailed away to Spain. How the new liberty affected his own wife we are left to surmise; which is not difficult, in view of the opening sentences of his address.

While we are on the subject of the extraordinary fight of the women for the repeal of this sumptuary law, it will not be inappropriate to take a glance at the female dress of the time. There is ample evidence to show that the women of ancient Rome were as prone to changing fashions as are the ladies of our own day; but for several centuries the various parts of their attire remained very much the same, the varying style affecting chiefly the material and the quality. The costume of a Roman lady consisted of three principal garment?,--the under tunic, the stola, and the palla.

The under tunic was simply a sleeveless chemise, which was worn next to the body. Stays, of course, were utterly unknown to the ancients, as is shown by their statuary, which in these times affords us our only opportunity of knowing what a naturally developed female figure is like. A bosom band, or, as it was called, a strophium, made of leather, was frequently worn above the tunic.

The stola was a white garment with sleeves, which covered only the upper part of the arm; it was fastened above the shoulder with a clasp. The stola hung in large folds reaching to and covering the feet; around the bottom was sewn a broad flounce, called the instita. Above this instita was a purple band, which was the only color, other than white, ever used for the stola, except a colored stripe or sometimes gold around the neck. Among the Romans, the stola had a serious significance, beyond its use as an article of attire. Only matrons of unsullied reputation were permitted to wear it. Women of tarnished character were obliged to wear a dark-colored toga, somewhat similar to that of the men; we find Horace speaking of the togata,--in contradistinction to the matrons, and Tibullus writes of the prostitute with her toga.

The palla, the out-of-doors garment, was to the women what the toga was to the men. This was a large, white, and probably square, robe, or mantle,--later on, colors became fashionable,--and the complex manner of wearing it may best be understood by an examination of Roman statuary. The feet were protected by sandals in the house, and shoes for street or public wear; these were greatly ornamented. The shoes were of various colors, generally white, but frequently green or yellow, and fastened with red strings.

The Roman ladies, like those of modern times, exercised great care in the dressing and arranging of their hair; and it is not to be denied that they frequently sought, by artificial means, to rectify mistakes which they deemed nature had made in the selection of color. In the time of Juvenal, blonde seems to have had the preference. The ordinary style was to carry the hair in smooth braids to the back of the head and there fasten it in a knot, as usually seen in the statues. In ancient Rome the curling iron was no less an intimate and indispensable friend of the lady of fashion than it is at present; by this and other means, too intricate for explanation by the uninitiated, marvellous creations were produced. The satirist says: "Into so many tiers she forms her curls, so many stories high she builds her head; in front you will look upon an Andromache, behind she is a dwarf,--you would imagine her another person." History reveals no age in which attention to personal adornment was not such an intimate characteristic of female nature that women, when unendowed with remarkable beauty, have been able to refrain from unwisely seeking to attract notice by disfiguring themselves.

The Roman women wore ornaments in considerable profusion. These consisted principally of necklaces, arm bands, finger rings, and ear rings. Generally they were of gold, set with precious stones, and the workmanship was often of a most exquisite character. A necklace was found at Pompeii which was made of a band of plaited gold; on each half of the clasp there is a well-executed frog, and on the edges where the clasp joined were rubies, one of which still remains in its setting; suspended to the necklace are seventy-one small, artistically shaped pendants. Very many specimens of the jewelry worn by the women of ancient Rome are still in existence, and they indicate fine artistic taste on the part of the wearers, as well as great ability in design and execution on that of the makers.

On the dressing table of the fashionable Roman lady there appeared a wealth and a variety of cosmetics and costly essences in boxes and receptacles delicately formed of ivory and precious metals, as well as many other appliances for the toilet; so that her advantages in these respects were probably in no way inferior to those of her fair successors in modern times. An age was drawing near which, among many other examples of its monstrous luxuriousness, gave birth to efforts to enhance feminine attractiveness--efforts which doubtless were as futile as they were foolish.

The time, however, had already come when, notwithstanding that their manners were under the eye of such a censor as Cato, the women of Rome had entirely and forever abandoned their old simplicity of life. In the Epidicus of Plautus, written at about the time of the disturbance over the Oppian law, the matrons were represented on the stage as though decked out with valuable estates; the cost of a cloak was the price of a farm.

The new woman had begun to make her appearance in Rome. This proverbial phenomenon, so greatly talked of in our own time, is by no means a modern discovery. She is a principal and an inevitable accompaniment of progress in every age and race. She is either a natural evolution or a monstrosity, according to the social conditions of her time. When progress is normal and national development healthy, a more enlightened and more sanely independent type of woman is continually appearing; but so naturally and so quietly does she step into the higher position for which she has been enabled to prepare herself that her coming is without observation. On the other hand, where society is decadent, where abnormal growths are favored by the heat of unrestrained passions, and where volcanic revolutions in a nation may exalt characters which belong to the shades of inferiority to positions of high conspicuity, there appear feminine wonders upon earth; and men's hearts fail them for fear, as they await with consternation the things which are shortly to come to pass. Rome, during the latter years of the republican period, was in a condition favorable to the production of anything bizarre and phenomenal. The new wealth, the new learning, the new idleness, and the new vices were fit soil for the production of a new woman who would astonish the world for all time with her capacity for every excess of moral insanity.

We do not, however, mean to allege that with the greater privileges and increased freedom which entered into woman's life the old virtues and time-honored excellences entirely disappeared. As Cornelia graced with her learning and dignity the Rome of Cato's day, so did Cæcilia with her charity and her goodness the Rome of Cicero. That orator was undoubtedly prejudiced in her favor on account of the great kindness she showed to Roscius, his client; but he could not have eulogized this matron as he did, had not public opinion concurred with him in setting her up as a model for all other women. "An incomparable woman," her accomplished relations had no less honor conferred on them by her character than she received by their dignity. Thus an unbroken chain of noble-minded matrons may be traced through the darkest days of Rome's decadent morality. Nevertheless, though virtue did not cease to be exemplified by the few, or to be extolled by the writers, the growing depravity of the times made it constantly easier for unprincipled and impudent women to find their conduct accepted as the ordinary rule of life.

One chief cause--perhaps it is more correct to call it an accompaniment--of the breaking-down of the ancient ideals is found in the increasing tendency to deprecate the indissolubleness of marital bonds. Divorce became common and easy, so that the student of Roman biography finds it increasingly difficult to trace his characters through the many involutions of their various matrimonial alliances. Pompey married five times. Concerning his first two wives, Plutarch makes the following comment: "Sylla, admiring the valor and conduct of Pompey, ... sought means to attach him to himself by some personal alliance, and his wife Metella joining in his wishes, they persuaded Pompey to put away Antistia, and marry Æmilia, the stepdaughter of Sylla, she being at that very time the wife of another man, living with him, and with child by him. These were the very tyrannies of marriage, and much more agreeable to the times under Sylla than to the nature and habits of Pompey, that Æmilia, great with child, should be, as it were, ravished from the embraces of another for him, and that Antistia should be divorced with dishonor and misery by him for whose sake she had just before been bereft of her father--for Antistius was murdered in the Senate because he was suspected to be a favorer of Sylla for Pompey's sake. Antistia's mother, likewise, after she had seen all these indignities, made away with herself, a new calamity to be added to the tragic accompaniments of this marriage; and that there might be nothing wanting to complete them, Æmilia herself died, almost immediately after entering Pompey's house, in childbed."

Down to a very late date, a divorce is not met with in the annals of Rome; but with what unconcern the undoing of the marriage knot came to be regarded is well illustrated in the life of Cato the Younger. Attilia, his first wife, was put away for misconduct. Then he married Marcia, against whose reputation no blighting wind of scandal ever raged. Among the dearest friends of her husband was Hortensius, known as a man of good position and excellent character. Evidently, as the sequel shows, in all seriousness he sought to persuade Cato that the latter's daughter Portia, who was married to a man to whom she had borne two children, might be given to him. His argument was that she, as a fair plot of land, ought to bear fruit; but that it was not right that one man should be provided with a larger family than he could support, while another had none. Cato answered that he loved Hortensius very well, and much approved of uniting their houses; but he could not approve of forcibly taking away his daughter from her husband. Then Hortensius was bold enough to request that Cato, who, he thought, had enough children, should relinquish to him his own wife. Cato, seeing that he was in earnest, consented to do this, stipulating first that his wife's father should be consulted. No objection being raised in that quarter, a marriage was performed between Marcia and Hortensius, Cato assisting at the ceremony. In all this there is no mention made of Marcia's consent being given or even asked. Some years afterward, Cato, wanting someone to keep his house and take care of his daughters, took Marcia again, Hortensius being now dead and having left her all his estate. Cæsar, upon this, reproached Cato with covetousness; "for," he said, "if he had need of a wife, why did he part with her? And if he had not, why did he take her again? unless he gave her only as a bait to Hortensius, and lent her when she was young, to have her again when she was rich." The historian answers this by quoting the verse of Euripides:

'To speak of mysteries-the chief of these

Surely were cowardice in Hercules.'

"For," he says, "it were much the same thing to reproach Hercules for cowardice and to accuse Cato of covetousness." The explanation of this singular action, the cold nature which Cato inherited from his grandfather the Censor being taken into consideration, seems to lie in the fact that the Roman idea of the necessary guardianship over women precluded any just conception of their rights in the disposal of their own persons. The giving and the taking of a woman in marriage was wholly the business of her father and her suitor; nothing was required of her in the transaction save thankful obedience. Cato was perfectly at liberty to give away his wife, if he so desired; this right was guaranteed to him by the simple fact that she was his property.

For the same reason, while chastity on the part of the wife was regarded as an absolute essential, the same virtue was by no means considered as necessary to the good character of the man. The demand for purity in the wife was largely based on the idea of proprietary rights which the husband had in her person; hence the man could divorce the woman for infidelity, but the reverse was not conceded. Plautus introduces upon the stage two matrons, one of whom complains of her husband, and the other consoles and exhorts her thus: "Listen to me. Do not quarrel with your husband; let him love whom, and let him do what, he pleases, since you have everything you want at home; keep in mind the fearful sentence: 'Begone, woman!'"

The new era which had dawned in Rome brought a certain freedom of circumstances and activity within the reach of women; but it did not give them in the marriage contract any more liberty than they had of old. The only women who were allowed the disposal of their own persons were the courtesans. There are many evidences that these were not regarded with the disrespect in which their class is held in modern times. For an example, Flora, who was famous in the last days of the Republic, received on account of her exquisite beauty the high honor of having her statue dedicated to the temple of Castor and Pollux; which may be regarded as a kind of precedent for artists who in an Italy of a much later date employed their mistresses as models for their Madonnas. That this class of women did not hesitate to place a high value upon themselves is proved by the instance of Tertia, to whom Verres presented a Sicilian city. Lucretius speaks of the cost of their favors, giving us also an interesting picture of the gayly dressed wanton:

"Amply though endowed.

His wealth decays, his debts with speed augment,

The post of duty never fills he more,

And all his sick'ning reputation dies.

Meanwhile rich unguents from his mistress laugh,

Laugh from her feet sott Sicyon's shoes superb;

The green-rayed emerald o'er her, dropt in gold,

Gleams large and numerous; and the sea-blue silk;

Deep-worn, enclasps her.

What his sires amassed

Now flaunts in ribbands, in tiaras flames

Full o'er her front, and now to robes converts

Of Chian loose, or Alidonian mould;

While feasts and festivals of boundless pomp,

And costliest viands, garlands, odors, wines,

And scattered roses ceaseless are renewed."

The Voconian law, which had been enacted in the days of the elder Cato, the purpose of which was the prevention of large accumulations of property in female hands, did not prevent women from becoming rich in the manner suggested above. A man might give away all his property while alive; the law only vetoed excessive legacies. By its provisions, no woman was allowed to receive by inheritance property exceeding the value of one hundred thousand sesterces. "Since with the growing power of the Empire the riches of private persons were increasing, fear was felt lest the minds of women, being rather inclined by nature to luxury and the pursuit of a more elegant routine of life, and deriving from unbounded wealth incentives to desire, should fall into immoderate expenses and luxury, and should subsequently chance to depart from the ancient sanctity of manners, so that there would be a change of morals no less than of the manner of living." These were the reasons for the enactment of this measure. It was the kind of law which was dear to the heart of the Censor, and it was with great delight that he lent his aid to its passage. The people were a little doubtful as to its justice; but Cato put an end to all hesitation by inveighing, with his usual asperity, against the tyranny of women and their insufferable insolence when opulent. He complained that oftentimes, when they brought a rich dowry to their husbands, they kept back a large part of the money, and then made loans to their husbands as though these were mere debtors. The historian says that this assertion, enforced with a loud voice and good lungs, moved the people to indignation, and they voted to pass the law. It was exceedingly characteristic of the sentiments of the ancient Romans to be convinced by Cato as he strenuously objected to that in women which he strongly advocated as a rule for men.

There are two feminine names which, though belonging to women who were contemporaries, well represent different aspects of the transition from the old Rome of uncultured simplicity to the new Rome of immoral refinement. One is Cornelia, who was the fifth wife of Pompey the Great; the other is Clodia, the sister of Clodius the Turbulent. One conjoined the new learning with the ancient purity of life, the other united luxurious living with an abandoned career; one was a worthy successor of her worthy namesake of a former generation, the other was a forerunner of the amazing female characters of the most depraved days of the Empire.

Cornelia, like the mother of the Gracchi, belonged to the renowned family of the Scipios. Though but a very young woman when she was married to Pompey, she had already been the wife of that son of Crassus who was slain in Parthia. That her first marriage was a happy one may be argued from the fact that when Pompey fell into misfortune, and she, for some sentimental reason, imagined herself as uniting him to woes which rightly belonged to her own fate, she reproached herself for not having followed the husband of her youth in his death, as she had designed.

Plutarch informs us that the young lady possessed other attractions besides those of youth and beauty. She was highly educated, as might be expected in a daughter of Metellus Scipio; she was an accomplished performer upon the lute; she understood geometry, and was accustomed to listen with profit and appreciation to lectures on philosophy. The historian takes great satisfaction in informing us also that, with all this, she had escaped that pretentiousness and unamiability which too frequently spoiled the effect of learning in women of unusual acquirements.

Owing to the terrible civil strife which afflicted Rome in the last days of the Republic, and to Pompey's leading share in it, Cornelia's home was frequently the martial camp of her husband. The Empire of Rome had grown to be the whole extent of civilization, and Cornelia's learning found ample opportunity, through her travels, to become reinforced by that liberality of mind which is the result of wide observation. She appears to have gained the high regard of her husband's army; for once, after a struggle with Cæsar, in which Pompey was for the moment victorious, some of the soldiers, of their own accord, sailed to Lesbos to carry to her the joyful tidings that the war was ended. Her pleasure in this news was of short duration; for it was soon to be her unhappy lot to accompany her husband to Egypt, in his flight from the all-subduing Cæsar. There she witnessed his assassination by the perfidious hands from which he sought protection.

It is unfortunate that the after career of Cornelia is lost sight of by history; but even this silence in a manner speaks in her favor; for, while the natural nobility of her character could not suffer by the quenching of the strong light which shone around Pompey, there is some warrant for assurance, in the very fact that her doings were not the subject of comment, that her life continued honorable.

Clodia was a woman of altogether different character. She was of the great Claudian gens; and no member of that powerful family ever lived so quietly as not to be the subject of discourse in Rome. To be one of the Claudii meant to be impetuous and dominant, either in good or in evil. It was a Vestal of this family who, when her father was refused a triumph by the Roman people, placed herself in his chariot so as to prevent his being interrupted in his progress through the city. Clodia, studied from the point of heredity, might have been either good or bad; but she would have contravened all precedents in her family had she not been extreme in one or the other. As it was, she made a fitting sister for that Clodius who stormed in Rome during the days of Cicero and kept the city by the ears, both on account of his ambitions and his ill-considered exploits.

Clodia was married to Quintus Metellus, to whom Cicero affords a most honorable tribute; but she did not allow the fact of her marriage to place any restraint upon the licentiousness of her conduct. Her luxurious house by the Tiber was a meeting place, not for men of learning, but for all the idle, fashionable, and dissolute young men of the city. Her reputation has been pilloried forever by the eloquent advocate in his defence of Marcus Coelius. This young man was accused of having attempted to poison Clodia, in order to rid himself of the necessity of paying back some gold he was said to have borrowed from her. The real truth appears to be that this prosecution was mainly instituted by Clodia, who considered herself slighted by Coelius, who had been her lover, but whose ardor was waning. The character and manner of life of this irrepressible young Roman matron may be gathered from the following arraignment of her in Cicero's oration. "If I am to proceed in the old-fashioned way and manner of pleading, then I must summon up from the Shades below one of those bearded old men,--not men with those little bits of imperials which she takes such a fancy to, but a man with that long, shaggy beard which we see on the ancient statues and images,--to reproach the woman, and to speak in my stead, lest she by any chance get angry with me. Let, then, some one of her own family rise up, and above all others that great blind Claudius of old time. For he will feel the least grief, inasmuch as he will not see her. And, in truth, if he can come forth from the dead, he will deal with her thus; he will say: 'Woman, what have you to do with Coelius? Why have you been so intimate with him as to lend him gold, or so much an enemy as to fear his poison? Was he a relation? A connection? Was he a friend of your husband? Nothing of the sort. What was the reason, then, except some folly? Even if the images of us, the men of your family, had no influence over you, did not even my own daughter, that celebrated Claudia Quinta, admonish you to emulate the praise belonging to our house from the glory of its women? Did not that Vestal Claudia recur to your mind, who embraced her father while celebrating his triumph, and prevented his being dragged from his chariot by a hostile tribune of the people? Why had the vices of your brother more weight with you than the virtues of your father, of your grandfather, and others In regular descent ever since my own time--virtues exemplified not only in the men, but also in the women? Was it for this that I broke the treaty which was concluded with Pyrrhus, that you should every day make new treaties of most disgraceful love? Was it for this I made the Appian Way, that you should travel along it escorted by other men besides your husband?'"

This reincarnation of the severe old ancestor ought to have been sufficient to strike terror and repentance into any woman's heart. But Cicero was more concerned with exonerating Coelius than he was about reforming Clodia, and doubtless he had more hope of convicting her of being a follower of undue courses than he had of converting her from her ways. So he goes on: "But if you wish me to deal more courteously with you, I will put away that harsh and almost boorish old man; and out of these kinsmen of yours here present I will take some one, and, before all, I will select your youngest brother, who is one of the best-bred men of his class, who is exceedingly fond of you, and who, on account of some childish timidity, I suppose, and some groundless fears of what may happen by night, always, when he was but a little boy, slept with you, his eldest sister. Suppose, then, that he speaks to you in this way: 'What are you making this disturbance about, my sister? Why are you so mad? You saw a young man become your neighbor; his fair complexion, his height, his countenance, and his eyes made an impression on you; you wished to see him oftener; you were sometimes seen in the same gardens with him, being a woman of high rank; you are unable with all your riches to detain him, the son of a thrifty and parsimonious father. He rejects you, he does not think your presents worth so much as you require of him. Try someone else. You have gardens on the Tiber, and you carefully made them in that particular spot to which all the youths of the city come to bathe. From that spot you may every day pick out people to suit you. Why do you annoy this one man who scorns you?'"

If the orator was just in all that he insinuates against her, Clodia, the wealthy, fashionable, and doubtless beautiful daughter of the great patrician family, was well qualified to be the high priestess of Aphrodite for the city of Rome.

V

ROMAN MARRIAGE

The position of woman in ancient Rome was always one of honor and respect. A Roman matron enjoyed many more social privileges and a much greater independence than did the Greek wife. In Athens the women were treated as children; and the more respectable their character, the more completely were they shut out from the social life and the public amusements of the men. In Rome, on the contrary, though the wife was subordinate to her husband and, as a rule, did not make herself conspicuous in public affairs, she was in no way secluded, and was everywhere treated with the highest respect. In the home, she was the mistress of the whole household economy, supervising the instruction of the children and governing the domestic slaves. She stood side by side with her husband, sharing in all his dignities, and in all matters pertaining to the family wielding an authority second only to his. Somewhere between the civilizations of Greece and Rome was the boundary line, starting from which the status of woman degraded to the Oriental or developed into the Occidental type. In the one case, subject to the jealous veil, the espionage of eunuch slaves, the debasing, soul-benumbing servilities of the harem; in the other, living in the open, the sole mate of one man, and, subject to her husband alone, clothed with all authority in her home. While Greece looked to the East, and subjected her women to some of those customs which characterized the harems of Babylon, Rome was essentially Western, and its women enjoyed a goodly portion of dignity and honor. Both Greeks and Romans were of the same branch of the great Aryan race, and the indications are that in the earliest times their women enjoyed equal freedom; but Greece, to a certain extent, fell under the influence of Semitic ideas, which saw in the wife a voluptuous possession to be jealously guarded. The Roman woman, on the other hand, was taught to prize and protect her own virtue.

The comparatively free and respected position of the matrons of republican Rome accounts in no small degree for the glory and greatness of the State. Where woman is treated as a slave, there is no genuine love of liberty. Great men can only be born of noble mothers; and nobility, feminine as well as masculine, can only flourish in freedom. Veturia and Cornelia were mistresses in their homes; they knew no restraint in their goings save the requirements of honor, they were respected by their husbands and reverenced by all men; therefore, in ways natural to such mothers, they were able to fit their sons for deeds worthy of men.

In the Roman house there were no secluded women's quarters corresponding to those of eastern nations; and the Roman women walked abroad, frequented the public theatres, and took their places at festive banquets with the men, Conelius Nepos, writing on this subject, says: "What Roman is ashamed to bring his wife to a feast; and does she not occupy the best room in the house, and live in the midst of company? But in Greece the case is far otherwise; for a wife is neither admitted to a feast, except among relations, nor does she sit anywhere but in the innermost apartment of the house, which is called the gynæconitis, and into which nobody goes who is not connected with her by near relationship." The most important room in the Roman house was the atrium. Here, in the midst of her slaves, the mistress pursued her domestic occupations; here was placed the lectus genialis or adversus, in ancient times the real, afterward the symbolical, bridal bed, her own proper seat of honor.

Notwithstanding this independent position of the women, Roman marriage, if it be judged by the strict letter of its laws and customs, was not very indulgent to the weaker sex. But, as we have indicated in preceding chapters, the power of the father of the family was much greater in theory than it was in reality. Roman wedlock was of two kinds: matrimonium justum and non justum; that is, marriage in due form, and marriage without the perfect ceremonies. The first required the right on either side to fulfil a lawful marriage according to the ancient rites. In the earliest times, equality of condition was demanded, patricians and plebeians being allowed to marry only in their own class. After B.C. 445, this restriction was removed; but it was still necessary that both parties to the contract should be citizens. But even in cases where the ancient rites were not permitted, marriage, if it took place, was regarded as none the less lawful and binding. Among the Romans, first cousins were not allowed to marry, though in the days of the emperors the restrictions of consanguinity were not strictly adhered to; Agrippina was married to Claudius, who was her uncle.

A contract of legal marriage was made in three different ways, called, respectively, usus, confarreatio, and coemptio. Us us, or usage, was when a woman, with the consent of her parents or guardians, lived with a man a whole year without dowry, whom he cannot portion off to anyone. And Horace says that "Queen Money, when she gives a spouse with an ample dowry, seems to give at the same time beauty, nobility, friends, and conjugal fidelity." Juvenal supposes someone to argue that Cesennia, a woman of his time, is, by her husband's showing, the best of wives. But he answers: "She brought him a thousand sestertia; that is the price at which he calls her chaste. It is not with Venus's quiver that he grows thin, or with her torch that he burns. It is from that his fires are fed; from her dowry it is that the arrows are sent. She has purchased her liberty; therefore, even in her husband's presence she may exchange signals, and answer her billets-doux. A rich wife, with a covetous husband, has all a widow's privileges."

In the early days of the Republic, dowries were very small. The daughters of the greatest men, says Valerius Maximus, often brought nothing in marriage save the glory of their fathers or of their families. Scipio, when commanding in Spain, petitioned the Senate to allow him to return, so that he might arrange the marriage of his daughter. The Senators, in order that the State might not be deprived of the services of so able a general, refused his request, but took upon themselves the duty of marrying the maiden. They chose for her a husband, and assigned to her from the public treasury a marriage portion of eleven thousand ases. This doubtless was at the time considered ample, though Seneca, in the later days of luxury, declared that it would not suffice to purchase a mirror for the daughter of a freedman. In those same early days, when wealth was reckoned in small figures, a woman called Megulla was surnamed Dotata, or "The Great Fortune," because she had fifty thousand ases, less than eight hundred dollars of our money. But as wealth increased, the marriage portions of the women became correspondingly great, until in the time of Martial a dowry equivalent to three-quarters of a million dollars was not uncommon. The wife's dowry was, of course, at the disposal of her husband; but his right to it ceased in case of the dissolution of the marriage, except when the wife sought divorce without just cause, in which case the husband was allowed to keep a sixth of the dowry for each of their children, to the amount of three-sixths. If, however, the wife died before her husband, and left no children, her dowry reverted to her father, so that he might not suffer the double affliction of losing both his money and his daughter. Sometimes the wife reserved to herself a part of the marriage portion, in order that she might have something to spend for which she had not to give account to her husband; occasionally also, there went with the bride a slave, who, it was stipulated, was not to be subject to the husband's disposal or command. The wife of Apuleius, who married him when she was a widow and possessed four million sesterces in her own right, transferred only three hundred thousand in the marriage settlement. This power of the wife to own personal property of a non-distrainable character afforded the Roman an opportunity, such as is frequently seized to-day by men on the verge of bankruptcy, to secure his assets by making them over to his wife.

It often happened, of course, that a maiden's family, though honorable, was not in such circumstances that she could base her hopes of marriage upon the tempting bait of a rich dowry. Then her personal qualities were her sole reliance. In the later days of the Republic, Roman parents seem to have been fully appreciative of the desirability of a liberal education for their daughters. Even in the most wealthy families, before the days when Roman society entered upon its decadence, the girls were zealously instructed in those domestic duties which would prepare them to become good housewives. In addition to this, they were thoroughly trained in both Greek and Latin literature, especial attention being given to the poets. Their accomplishments also included music, singing, and dancing; for these, says Statius, helped to procure a husband. But we may be certain that in those times, as in the present, the natural anxiety of many a mother caused her to resort to other arts besides that of music, in order to provide a good match for her none too much sought after daughter. If the comedies are to be credited, that which the father's wealth could not accomplish it was hoped might be attained through the mother's wiles. "Look at the mothers," says one of Terence's characters; "they are carefully occupied in lowering their daughters' shoulders, in drawing in their waists to make them look slender. Is there one of them who is inclined to be stout? The mother immediately exclaims, 'she is an athlete,' and diminishes the girl's meals until, in spite of constitutional tendencies, she has rendered her daughter as thin as a spindle."

A girl, by means of either her real or artificial qualities, has won the regard of some young Roman; let us witness, so far as they may be ascertained from the ancient authors, the ceremonies of her betrothal and nuptials. The consent of the parents of both parties must first be obtained. If the suitor is regarded with favor, the father of the maiden says: "I give up to you my dear daughter, and may it be happy for me, for you, and for her." Then the betrothal or espousal takes place. This is a family festival; everyone connected with the house makes it a holiday. The relatives are invited to share in the rejoicing and also to witness the contract of engagement. The Roman maiden did not engage herself to be married in the manner Ruskin complained of as characterizing modern times,--by moonlight, starlight, gaslight, candlelight, or anything but daylight. Her engagement was a solemnity which took place under the eyes of all her relatives and as many friends as her father cared and could afford to invite. The inevitable augurs are also present, in order that they may ascertain, by examining the entrails of some bird, whether or not the Fates will be propitious. Their verdict will largely depend upon the manner in which they are treated by the parties concerned; for Cato declared that he never could understand how two members of this profession could look each other in the face without laughing. One wonders if any Roman girl ever availed herself of the science of these gentlemen to escape an undesirable suitor; for in the minds of most of the people the superstition was so firmly implanted that if an augur could have been induced to perceive misfortune in the auspices, that would have been sufficient to prevent the engagement. But we will suppose that the signs are pronounced favorable. A stipula, or straw, is broken between the parties, signifying that a contract is made. The agreement is also put in writing, for the sake of future reference. The man gives the maiden a plain iron ring, which he places upon the finger next to the smallest on the left hand, there being a belief that a nerve runs from that finger directly to the heart. He also gives presents to those who have made themselves useful in helping to bring about the engagement, and he receives a present from the girl. The contract of betrothal was not irrevocable; but for either party to withdraw from it was much more likely to result in a suit at law than is the case at the present time; and the Roman had the advantage over the jilted man in our day, in that it was not considered that damages for a breach of promise were properly due only to a woman. Marriage engagements were frequently of long continuance among the Romans; for sometimes even infants were betrothed. The minimum age at which the marriage could legally take place was twelve for the girl and fourteen for the man.

The selection of the wedding day was a matter in which more than the inclination and the convenience of the parties concerned had to be considered; the important thing was to choose a fortunate day. Ovid says: "There are days when neither widow nor virgin may light the torch of Hymen; she who is married then will surely die." The Calends, the Ides, and the Nones were especially to be avoided. The whole month of May was considered particularly unfavorable, because it was devoted to the propitiation of the Lemurs, or the evil spirits. It was a common saying that no good woman would marry in the month of May. February was also avoided. June, on the contrary, of all the months in the year, was believed to be the most propitious for marriages, but not until after the Ides, or the thirteenth day. Ovid states, on the authority of the wife of the flamen dialis, that for a fortunate marriage it was necessary to wait until the refuse from the Temple of Vesta had been carried by the Tiber to the sea; and this was not supposed to be accomplished until the thirteenth of June.

The friends of our couple have decided upon a day which, in the common opinion, has no predilection for mischief. Everything necessary for the performance of the marriage ceremonies is provided. These ceremonies are of the nature of ancient usages rather than legal requirements. They are intensely symbolical, and are calculated to impress upon the minds of the bride and bridegroom a lively sense of the duties belonging to the new relationship into which they are entering.

This Roman bride is relieved of one grave anxiety which usually accompanies the anticipatory pleasure in an approaching modern wedding. It is not necessary for her to give any thought as to the color and fashion of her wedding dress. This was always the same among the Romans; and even if that worn by the maiden whose marriage is now being described should happen to be an heirloom from her great-grandmother, she need not fear that it is out of style. It consists of a long white robe, woven in a particular manner. If the circumstances of her family have improved, she may perhaps sew a purple fringe around the border; but that is absolutely the only change allowed. This robe will be fastened around her waist with a woollen girdle, white wool being always a symbol of chastity. This will be tied in a Hercules knot, to loose which, at the end of the ceremonies, will be the husband's privilege. Her hair, allowed to fall around her shoulders, on the wedding morn is parted with the head of a spear. Plutarch and other writers say that this custom had its origin in the rape of the Sabines, and betokened the fact that the first Roman marriages were brought about by capture, and that it accordingly also indicated that a wife should be in subjection to her husband. Over her head the bride wears a yellow or flame-colored veil, this hue being held to be of good significance. Her brow is also crowned with a chaplet of vervain, gathered and wreathed by her own hands, for this herb signifies fecundity. Her shoes are also of yellow, and so constructed as to make her appear taller than her real height.

Thus attired, the bridal party go first to the temple, for the purpose of offering sacrifice, as Virgil says, "above all, to Juno, whose province is the nuptial tie." The victim considered as most appropriate is a hog; and care is to be taken to throw the gall of the animal as far away as possible, with the hope that in like manner all bitterness will be put far away from this conjugal union. Then, if the ceremony of confarreatio is used, the couple, having returned to the bride's home, are seated side by side, with a sheepskin covering both chairs; by which it is signified that although the man and the woman occupy two different parts of the house, they are nevertheless united by a common bond. The chief priest now gives the wedded pair the sacred cake, which they eat together in token of the fact that they are henceforth to share with each other the necessaries of life. Although the modern wedding cake has developed into something far more elaborate than the simple Roman wafer of flour, water, and salt, the probability is that the former had its origin in the latter.

The appearance of the star Venus in the sky is the signal for the bride's departure to her new home. In a formal manner, her father hands her over to her husband's family, for he only can sever the bond which holds her to his guardianship. Henceforth her husband has the right by law to exercise over her that authority which has been held by her father. There is a pretence made of taking her by force from the arms of her mother or her sisters, in memory of the violent abduction of the Sabine women. Then the bridal party walk in procession to the husband's house. Preceding them, lighting the way, are four married women carrying torches. The bride is directly attended by three boys, in selecting whom the important thing to be borne in mind is to take only those who have both parents living, otherwise it would be an extremely bad omen. Two of these support her by the arms, while the other carries a flambeau of white pine before her to dissipate all lurking enchantments and dispel all evil incantations. Then follow maid-servants with a distaff, a spindle, and wool, intimating that she is to labor at spinning, as did the Roman matrons of the old time. After these comes a boy, who for this occasion is named Camillus; his office is to carry in an open basket other instruments for feminine work; and especially it has been remembered to include playthings and toys for the bride's prospective children. All the relatives and friends join in this festive procession. In place of the rice which in these days accompanies the adieus bestowed on a newly wedded pair, the Roman bride was the target for all the jests and raillery which the wit of the spectators might suggest. When she reaches her new home, the bridegroom, standing in the doorway, which is decked with garlands of flowers, inquires who she is. Her reply is: "Where thou art Caius, there am I Caia;" thus beautifully intimating that comradeship in all things which is the ideal of marriage. Then, after the bride has anointed the doorposts with the fat of swine in order to turn away all enchantments, she is lifted over the threshold, which, being consecrated to Vesta, it would be a bad omen for the bride to touch with her foot. Her husband now presents her with the keys, for she is henceforth to be intrusted with the management of his house. Both touch fire and water, in token that they together share these essentials of life and well-being. A yoke is placed about their necks, symbolizing that which they have taken upon themselves in their marriage; from this comes the word conjugium. The first joint act of the bride and bridegroom is to unite in the worship of the household gods, the husband thus introducing his wife to the guardian spirits of his home--the most sacred things of his family. She is henceforth to be associated with him in his domestic worship, and she has become a sharer in the inheritance of fame left by his ancestors, who are venerated in the adoration of their Manes. These solemn observances being ended, now follows the banquet. At this, the bride reclines on the same divan with her husband at the head of the table; for she is already hostess where he is host. Now has come the opportunity for boisterous hilarity. The solemnities are all completed, and the remaining time is wholly given up to the merriment which is always deemed a fitting accompaniment to the first adventure of a couple among the changes and chances of the marriage state. All the guests join in singing the Thalassius,--a chant in which every bridegroom is congratulated on being as fortunate in his lot as was that traditional Quirite who obtained the brightest flower of the Sabine maidens.

The banquet being ended, the bride is conducted by the matrons to the nuptial chamber, which is always the atrium, or the central room of the house. Here is placed the lectus genialis, richly adorned and covered with flowers. The bridegroom throws nuts among his former companions, as a sign that he is now forsaking the life of his boyhood for the responsibilities of man's estate. After his departure, the young people entertain the newly married couple by singing outside the door fescennine verses, in which is indulged a liberty of expression to which modern ears are unaccustomed.

Commonly, the songs chanted at the celebration of Roman marriages had no literary merit whatever, and were chiefly characterized by their grossness; but sometimes these occasions inspired the genius of the best poets, from which resulted some of the most beautiful Latin verse. Catullus has three such pieces. In his Nuptial Song, youths and maidens are represented as contending with each other in improvised versification. Hesperus, the evening star, is reproached by the virgins and lauded by the young men as being the signal for the bride to leave her mother's arms for those of her husband. In the last chorus, both parties unite in exhorting the young wife to use complaisance with her husband, and not to "strive against two parents who have bestowed their own rights along with thy dowry on their son-in-law." The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, the longest of the poems of Catullus, may not have been intended to be sung at a wedding; though that is a question on which classic scholars are not agreed. It treats of marriage, however, in a very interesting and original fashion; and may throw some light on Roman customs, notwithstanding the fact that the characters introduced are the offspring of the gods. "The mansion, in every part of its opulent interior, glitters with shining gold and silver; white are the ivory seats; goblets gleam on the tables; the whole dwelling rejoices in the splendor of regal wealth. In the midst of the mansion is placed the genial couch of the goddess, inlaid with polished Indian tooth, and covered with purple dyed with the shell's rosy juice. This coverlet, diversified with figures of the men of yore, portrays the virtues of heroes with wondrous art." Then follows the principal part of the poem, which is a description of the pictures worked upon the tapestry of the bed. The subject of these is the history of Ariadne. We are to imagine the poet standing by the couch and pointing out the incidents portrayed, with their causes and consequences. This being concluded, the gods, and especially the Parcæ, are introduced to the marriage feast; and the latter, as they spin their thread, "utter soothsaying canticles."

Catullus has given us a veritable example of the Roman wedding song in his epithalamium on the marriage of Manlius and Julia. Of this Julia we know nothing further than that she was of the Cotta family; Manlius was of the illustrious lineage of the Torquati. If only there were historic warrant for believing that this couple were as charming in their personalities as they are described in this poem, and that all the good wishes therein expressed did really materialize, the marriage of Manlius and Julia might stand for all time as the summum bonum of wedded felicity. A few stanzas from Lamb's translation will serve to illustrate the character of the epithalamium, and will also fairly indicate the place and nature of sentiment in the Roman conception of the marriage relation.

"When Venus claim'd the golden prize,

And bless'd the Phrygian shepherd's eyes;

No brighter charms his judgment sway'd

Than those that grace this mortal maid;

And every sigh and omen fair

The nuptials hail, and greet the pair.

"Propitiate here the maiden's vows,

And lead her fondly to her spouse;

And firm as ivy clinging holds

The tree it grasps in mazy folds,

Let virtuous love as firmly bind

The tender passions of her mind.

"Ye virgins, whom a day like this

Awaits to greet with equal bliss,

Oh! join the song, your voices raise

To hail the god we love to praise.

O Hymen! god of faithful pairs;

O Hymen! hear our earnest prayers.

"Invoked by sires with anxious fear,

Their children's days with bliss to cheer;

By maidens, who to thee alone

Unloose the chaste, the virgin zone;

By fervid bridegrooms, whose delight

Is stay'd till thou hast bless'd the rite.

"Raise, boys, the beaming torches high!

She comes--but veil'd from every eye;

The deeper dyes her blushes hide;

With songs, with pæans greet the bride!

Hail, Hymen! god of faithful pairs,

Hail, Hymen! who hast heard our prayers.

"Riches, and power, and rank, and state,

With Manlius' love thy days await;

These all thy youth shall proudly cheer,

And these shall nurse thy latest year.

Hail, Hymen! god of faithful pairs!

Hail, Hymen! who hast heard our prayers.

"Oh! boundless be your love's excess,

And soon our hopes let children bless;

Let not this ancient honor'd name

Want heirs to guard its future fame;

Nor any length of years assign

A limit to the glorious line.

"Let young Torquatus' look avow

All Manlius' features in his brow;

That those, who know him not, may trace

The knowledge of his noble race;

And by his lineal brow declare

His lovely mother chaste as fair.

"Now close the doors, ye maiden friends;

Our sports, our rite, our service ends.

With you let virtue still reside,

O bridegroom brave, and gentle bride,

And youth its lusty hours employ

In constant love and ardent joy."

The bluntly practical disposition of the Romans reveals itself even in their attitude toward that phase of human life which preëminently furnished scope for romance. In their expressions concerning marriage, its physical basis is acknowledged with unnecessary frankness. No vestige is found among them of any pretence of belief in that exalted communion which, though it is probably nothing more than an imaginary refinement, is commonly talked of as Platonic love. There is no idealizing of the amatory emotions,--such as we are accustomed to in novels which are not "realistic"--thereby affording an opportunity to ignore the lower aspect.

A woman, after marriage, retained her former name; but it was joined to that of her husband, as, for example, Julia Pompeii, Terentia Ciceronis. She was also called domina, the mistress. On the day after her marriage, the Roman bride, by a sacrifice which she offered to the Lares, formally took possession of her position as mistress of the household. Then she assumed the control of the servants and slaves, setting them their tasks and taking upon herself the superintendence of all things in the home. By unwritten law, no servile work was required of the Roman matron, unless she were so poor as not to own a slave. She might spin, and, indeed, it was to her credit if she thus diligently employed herself, for this was an occupation which the most cherished traditions would not permit the noblest to despise. It was carried on in the atrium, where the matron sat surrounded by her husband's ancestral images and where she received her friends. When she went abroad, she was known to be a matron because of her stola; the inner side of the walk was given to her by every Roman citizen she might happen to meet; and if anything indecent was said or done in her presence, it was an offence which might be punished by law.

In the earliest times, the dissolution of the marriage bond was of extremely rare occurrence, for the praiseworthy reason that the manners of the people were such that there seldom arose an occasion for divorce. In those first ages, however, the laws concerning this matter were characterized by an exceeding severity and unfairness to the woman. In no case was she allowed to divorce her husband; though she might be put away by him, not only for conjugal infidelity and such crimes as using drugs to prevent the possibility of childbearing, or for deceiving him by the introduction of fictitious children, but even if she counterfeited his keys or surreptitiously drank his wine, and, in the earliest times, if she drank wine at all. Carvilius is said to have been the first Roman to put away his wife; but it is difficult to believe that, notwithstanding the fact that laws providing for such a proceeding existed from the time of the kingdom, no divorce really took place until B.C. 231. Probably certain circumstances connected with this divorce gave it such notoriety that it was the first which impressed itself upon the attention of the historians. It is said that Carvilius, though he loved his wife, divorced her on account of barrenness, he having, with many other citizens, made a vow to marry for the sake of offspring.

In later times, the women gained the right to secure divorce; and as morals began to show the signs of decadence, there was nothing so indicative of the terrible laxity which prevailed as the trivial causes for which husbands and wives were allowed to separate. Incompatibility of temperament was the common complaint. In the ancient and nobler times, there was a small temple dedicated to Viriplaca, the marital peacemaker; and when a difference occurred between husband and wife, they met and entered into explanations before the goddess, usually with the result of a restoration of harmony; but Viriplaca was gradually forgotten, and matrimonial chaos ensued.

When this laxity came to be the prevailing rule, the wife who was rich and, moreover, inclined to be in any way disagreeable held her husband at her mercy. If he divorced her without any considerable fault of hers, or if they parted by mutual consent, she took her dowry and left him with the children. If, as was very likely to be the case, he had married her for her property, he was obliged to be submissive. Plautus says: "The portionless wife is subject to her husband's will; wives with dowries are as executioners for their husbands." Martial, inveighing against a miserly woman who will not furnish her husband with a new cloak as a New Year's gift, says: "Why, Proculeia, do you cast off your husband in the month of January? This is not in your case a divorce; it is a good stroke of business." During the worst times, the law restricted the number of divorces obtainable by an individual to eight. If we are to believe Juvenal, there were women who were sufficiently enterprising to reach the limit in five years. The satirist describes them as leaving the doors only recently adorned, the tapestry used for the marriage festival still hanging on the house, and the branches still green upon the threshold. Seneca says that in his time it had come to such a pass that women reckoned the years, not by the names of the consuls, but by the husbands they had divorced.

Yet, notwithstanding--perhaps it would be more correct to say, on account of--this excessive willingness on the part of the women to enter into contracts of marriage, it became necessary in the time of the first empire to decree severe penalties against celibacy; and bonuses were awarded to those in whose families children were born. Even as early as B.C. 121, Metellus the Censor, complaining in the Senate of the increasing tendency to avoid the responsibilities of matrimony, said: "Could we exist without wives at all, doubtless we should rid ourselves of the plague they are to us; since, however, nature has decreed that we cannot dispense with the infliction, it is best to bear it manfully, and rather look to the permanent conservation of the State than to our own passing comfort."

In a condition of society in which the most conspicuous women were unrestrained by any worthy ideals of the responsibilities of wifehood, and where men were at liberty, and found abundant opportunity, to gratify their basest propensities with no fear of any reproof other than being made the subject of humorous allusion, it is not to be wondered at that the latter were inclined to shun the cares and the vicissitudes of marriage. Juvenal claimed that a good wife was rarer than a white crow; and Pliny held that celibacy alone afforded an unobstructed road to power and fortune. The former's terrible sixth satire was written as a warning against matrimony. "And yet you are preparing your marriage covenant, and the settlement, and betrothal, in our days; and are already under the hands of the master barber, and perhaps have already given the pledge for her finger. Well, you used to be sane, at all events! You, Postumus, going to marry! Say, what Tisiphone, what snakes, are driving you mad? Can you submit to be the slave of any woman, while so many halters are to be had? so long as high and dizzy windows are accessible, and the Æmilian bridge presents itself so near at hand?" The women are accused of every enormity known in that Rome where vice attained such proportions as have never been approached in any civilization in the history of the world. But it is contrary to the office of the satirist to present a true picture of the whole. Writing of vice, he sees nothing but iniquity; of the good he has nothing to say, for it is not in his province. That even then there were good women we know full well. Julia, the aunt of Cæsar; Octavia, faithful to her marriage vows despite the ill returns she received from Mark Antony; Agrippina, the beloved and faithful wife of the noble Germanicus; Livia also, the wife of Augustus, whose matrimonial fidelity--whatever may have been her character in other respects--no suspicion ever assailed. If these women, in their high stations, could exemplify all the best traditions of the matrons of the old time, we may be sure that there were innumerable good wives in the commoner ranks.

Out on the Appian Way, there is to be seen one of the strangest monuments that a grotesque fancy ever devised. It is the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, who was baker to the apparetores. The monument consists of a row of great cylinders representing measures for grain. Upon these, in three tiers, are huge kneading troughs, placed with their mouths turned outward. Above is a frieze representing various incidents connected with the baker's trade. There is evidence that originally there was a similar monument standing by the side of this, for an inscription was found which reads: Antistia was my wife; she was the best woman alive; of whose body the remains which are left are in this bread basket. Here was a man of the people who appreciated his wife. Doubtless Antistia was a good woman, and lived happily with the baker, just as there were myriads of other faithful pairs whose names are not recorded on monuments nor have any place in history.

And yet, even the highest Roman standards of morality were not such as have been evolved through many centuries of inculcation of Christian principles. Among the best of the pagan Romans, concubinage was looked upon as a defensible institution. The laws in regard to citizenship shut out a large class of women from the privilege of marriage with freeborn Romans; as, for instance, the daughters of foreigners who had not been naturalized. These could only become mistresses or enter into left-handed marriages. If a citizen who was unmarried wished to live with such a woman, of course no ceremony was needed; there was nothing binding about the union, and at the same time it was not considered to be in any wise indecent. On more than one tomb there is found an inscription to "the beloved concubine," Acte held this relationship with the Emperor Nero; and to her credit it surely must be allowed that she was the only person near him against whom he did not maliciously turn, and who seemed to have with him some slight influence for good. Antoninus Pius, one of the very best of the Roman emperors, when his beloved Faustina died, took a concubine. He would not marry again, because he did not wish to bring his four children under the uncertain care of a stepmother. And having before him the domestic history of more than one imperial family in which were exhibited the tender mercies of such a stepmother as was Livia the wife of Augustus, Antoninus may well be excused for his precaution. What was the name of the woman he took we do not know, nor are we informed as to her character; only, Marcus Aurelius says: "I am thankful to the gods that I was not longer brought up with my father's concubine."

VI

WOMAN UNDER JULIUS CÆSAR

Rome was now riven and torn by cataclysms of civil strife. The foundations of the Republic were shaken by the explosion of new social forces, the growth of which was naturally attendant upon the spread of conquest, and which could no longer be confined within the narrow limits of the old constitution. Marius, Sylla, Pompey, and Cæsar--these are the names around which gathers the history of the pains and death groans of the expiring Republic. Crimson was the color of each political party; and the blood of opponents was the means used for its exhibition. Rome had become too great for her ancient civic constitution: she was restlessly awaiting the arrival of a man who could thrust himself above all opposition, and in his own person unify the government. Imperialism or anarchy must necessarily follow such a Republic as Rome had become in the closing century of the pre-Christian era.

During those fierce political disturbances and bloody revolutions, how did woman fare? She was by no means secure in that quiet, unmolested round of conjugal duty and domestic life which had so long been hers by right. In the sanguinary civil wars and murderous proscriptions which resulted from the ambitions of the leaders, life for the Roman people was of extremely uncertain tenure. It is easy to surmise what the women of many Italian cities suffered when whole populations were put to the sword under the merciless Sylla. Death, outrage, and slavery became so common that there was developed in the Roman women that indifference to the sight of human suffering which appears to us as nothing less than monstrous. Under Sylla, wives were accustomed to being simultaneously robbed of their husbands and their sustenance; as in the case of that peaceful citizen who, finding his own name in the lists of the proscribed, exclaimed: "My Alban farm has informed against me," and was immediately thereafter slain.