THE WIVES OF THE t!J2SARS. 141 



and ferocity of Brennus;* subsequently to the massacre of Cannae, t 

 the same exalted spirit of a female achieved a service to the common- 

 wealth, commemorated and requited, at the same time, by the solemn 

 gratitude of senatorial decree. Such, indeed, was the effect of moral 

 habit in the women of the rising state, that the penal sanctions of do- 

 mestic law were obsolete; the power of life and death existed in the 

 husband ; yet the matron in her household exercised unlimited au- 

 thority ; the legal option of divorce, adapted to the manners of a dis- 

 solute community, was utterly repudiated by the continence and vir- 

 tue of an undebauched society ; and the ascendant of the Roman 

 females privately yet forcibly prevailed, till the restraints and safe- 

 guards of seclusion were removed, when the free communion of the sexes 

 introduced facilities of evil, and was gradually fatal to the common 

 chastity. In the progress of refinement, the distribution of domestic 

 offices effected an important alteration in the manners of the Roman 

 females ; the previous occupations of the matron devolved upon the 

 members of a menial establishment ; and the wives and daughters of 

 the wealthier citizens, engrossed no longer by the thrifty duties of a 

 simple household, sought, in the pleasures of external commerce, the 

 recreations and amusements of a rank exempted from the meaner 

 business of life. The inequality of ranks, the exorbitance of private 

 fortunes, and the ridicule in such a state of full-blown luxury 

 attached to primitive frugality, conduced to that consummate state of 

 dissolute profusion which rose and grew with the dominion of the 

 Caesars. But that which chiefly hastened the corruption of all orders 

 of the state, and more especially the depravation of the Roman 

 females, was their passion for the splendours of the theatre, and the 

 consequent rivalry that raged among them for pre-eminence in pub- 

 lic retinue, in brilliance of costume, and all the like various accessa- 

 ries of venal and ambitious beauty. The public spectacles were 

 thronged by audiences of gross licentiousness and open infamy. The 

 Roman wives unblushingly contested the possession of a player and 

 gloated on the prurient gestures of a lusty mime. Enormous patri- 

 monies were lewdly lavished on a plaver on the flute, whose hireling 

 vigour was suborned to furnish heirs to the descendants of the 

 Scipios and Jilmilii ; and such was the fecundity arising from this 

 shameful commerce, that the criminal causes of abortion were a com- 

 mon study. The languor of exhausted passion was stimulated by ex- 

 pedients of Asiatic usage ; eunuchs soon became the instruments and 

 ministers of odious enjoyment ; and a vitiated appetite, the conse- 

 quence of foul excess, luxuriated in varieties of sensual invention. The 

 vice of the community surpassed the powers and influence of laws. 



* " Mille pondo auri pretium populi gentibus mox imperaturi factum- Rei, 

 fiedissimee per se, adjecta indignitas est. Pondera ab Gallis allata iniqua, et 

 tribune rocusante, additus ab insolente Gailo ponderi gladius ; auditaque into- 

 leranda Jtomanis vox, ' Vse victis esse.' * * * Matronis gratise l actse, honosque 

 additus, ut earum, sicut virorum, post mortem solennis laudatio esset." Liv. 1. 

 5. c. 50. 



f Eos, qui canusium perfugerant, mulier Apula, nomine Busa, genere clara 

 ac divitiis, maeuibus, tantum tectisque acceptos, frumento, veste, viatico etiam 

 juvit ; pro qua ei munificentia postea, bello perfecto, ab senatu honores habiti 

 sunt." ?. 1. 22. c. 52. 



