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Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain · English · Gutenberg #32356 · 687,331 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Roman Women

Author: Alfred Brittain


        
Release date: May 12, 2010 [eBook #32356]

Language: English

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WOMAN

VOLUME II

In All Ages and in All Countries

ROMAN WOMEN

by

Rev. ALFRED BRITTAIN







Philadelphia
George Barrie & Sons, Publishers

Copyright, 1907 by George Barrie & Sons
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London




[Illustration 1:
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._]




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.

[Illustration 2:
_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:

[Illustration 3:
_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 

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