32 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



victim was deprived of her virtue upon the scaffold by 

 the executioner.^ The poets of the Augustan age sing 

 of love, but their passion is certainly not entitled to 

 rank with that of La Nouvelle Helo'ise. Let us glance 

 at the testimony they bear to the morals of the society 

 they lived in. Ovid instructs his mistress Corinna 

 in the art of deceiving her husband, but soon has the 

 mortification of feeling that his lessons are turned to 

 the advantage of a rival or rivals. Quarrels, reproaches, 

 blows, tears, and forgiveness ensue. Then he reflects 

 that he himself is as faithless as Corinna, but infideli- 

 ties on both sides are no bar to a renewal of the lovers' 

 transports. The poet's next grievance is that the lady's 

 husband is not sufficiently jealous. Presently this 

 hardship is remedied, but it soon gives place to another, 

 which is that Corinna does not even take the trouble 

 to disguise her numerous intrigues. And so forth. 

 Corinna is supposed to have been Julia, the daughter 

 of Augustus. The amours of Propertius are not less 

 chequered. He sings the praises of Cynthia, who was 

 a Ptoman lady named Hostia. Faithless himself, 

 Propertius has speedy reason to reproach his mistress 

 with the same failing. She goes off with a soldier ; 

 he weeps and trusts she may be happy. So much 



* Tliis occurred in the case of the daughter of Sejanus. 



