Alfred Brittain

“ In the Capitol Museum there is a seated figure of Agrippina. It is one of the noblest pieces of statuary in the world. In it is seen none of that feminine sweetness which endeared the young wife of Germanicus to the hearts of the Roman legions; but there is that proud consciousness of moral dignity which Livia could not rival and that imperial manner which Tiberius could not cow. It is a sad, strong-hearted woman. One could fancy that a composite of all the noblest Roman matrons might have made just such a picture. ”

“ For this reason her marriage to Antony was as great a failure in the purpose for which it was intended--the winning of the triumvir from his infatuation--as it was a misfortune to herself. That a woman like Octavia should be united to such a man as Mark Antony did not seem to the ancients such a tragedy as it appears to us; and probably the sister of Octavius endured with an unconcern incomprehensible to us the knowledge that her husband had been the lover of many women, some even of the most abandoned sort. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am aware that it will appear fabulous that any human beings should have exhibited such recklessness of consequences; and that, in a city where everything was known and talked of, anyone, much more a consul-elect, should have met the emperor's wife, on a stated day, in the presence of persons called in to seal the deeds, and that she should have heard the words of the augurs, entered the house of the husband, sacrificed to the gods, sat down with the guests at the nuptial banquet, and in every way comported herself as though she had been given away in a marriage entirely lawful. ”

“ It is impossible to reproach the Roman art of portraiture with flattery. It gave what the Romans insisted on--rigid fidelity to nature. It made no exception in favor of the Cæsars and their house, not even for the women. Proofs of this almost repulsive fidelity to nature are to be found. An empress, arrived at a more than mature age, is to be represented as Venus. It is possible that she would be glad to decline the honor. She belongs to that period in life when old ladies drape their withered beauties; but she has duties as Cæsar's spouse, and must resign herself to her fate. ”

“ During the reign of the dissolute emperors, the virtue of women was but little respected. Nero denied that any person was sincerely chaste. If a woman of any social prominence in those days desired to retain her honor, her beauty was her greatest misfortune. No ties or obligations, not even the sanctity of the Vestals, were respected by the lustful tyrants. If a man rejoiced in a beautiful and modest wife, she might any day be requested to appear at the palace; and the husband, if he would preserve his life, was compelled to bear the dishonor in silence. ”

“ All this time, Claudius, ignorant of the conduct of his wife,--a fact which must be attributed to the complete subjection under which he was held by Messalina and the freedmen,--was exercising the functions of moral censor and rebuking the people for the immorality of their conduct. What a spectacle to men, not to speak of the ancient deities, must have been the Roman government of those days! It is easy to see the connection between the licentiousness of the times and the decline of the State. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the time of Commodus to that of Constantine, Rome had no better government than that which was inspired by the genius and ability of Mammæa; and if the organization and the subordination which existed in the time of Trajan had still prevailed, the rule of this remarkable woman would have equalled in uprightness and beneficence that of any period in the history of the Empire.
The care of Mammæa in the education of her son was rewarded by its good effect upon his character. Virtue for him never lost its charm, and a fearless advocacy of the right made him respected by all. ”

“ Human life is not rendered felicitous solely by the abundance of the things which a people possesses; there must be the power to make the most of and enjoy them. It is with the life of a nation as it is with that of an individual--the happiest age is that immediately previous to the beginning of decadence; prior to that, the attention and energy are wholly taken up with the process of acquiring. The Roman Empire was now, as it were, balanced and resting on the summit of its greatness. ”

“ 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"? ”

“ History has not individualized the woman of the common people; literature has dressed her up in all her finery, and has posed her in natural but unusual situations. Delia, Nemesis, and Neaera, women whose love and whose loss Tibullus sang in such passionate strains, though human enough, as is attested by their fickleness, are credited with those charms which have their existence only in the imagination of a poet and in a lover's fancy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every home, however modest, had about it much of the artistic; every public building was a magnificent example of architecture. Nothing was purely utilitarian, for life was not sordid. With an ample supply of the necessaries and luxuries of existence, and perfect protection through wise and beneficently administered laws, this added grace and beauty which pervaded everything lacked little to make the life of women in the days of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines broader and happier than it has been in any other period, ancient or modern. ”

“ Such sober-minded people as had survived the reign of Nero hailed the tyrant's death as a deliverance, though they had no guaranty of the inauguration of a better state of things. No conceivable change could be otherwise than for the better. At first sight, it seems marvellous that the better class of Romans endured so long and with such supineness a shameful monstrosity like the government of Nero; but it must be remembered that no government is other than the majority of the people desire, or better than they deserve. ”

“ Preceding them, lighting the way, are four married women carrying torches. The bride is directly attended by three boys, in selecting whom the important thing to be borne in mind is to take only those who have both parents living, otherwise it would be an extremely bad omen. Two of these support her by the arms, while the other carries a flambeau of white pine before her to dissipate all lurking enchantments and dispel all evil incantations. Then follow maid-servants with a distaff, a spindle, and wool, intimating that she is to labor at spinning, as did the Roman matrons of the old time. ”

“ As has been said, Roman society was not wholly corrupt, even though an adulterous Messalina, an unprincipled Poppæa, or a cruel and ambitious Agrippina, shared the throne. Contemporary with these were women who still with pure hands and sincere hearts invoked the ancient goddess of chastity. There were those who had mother love for their children, but were free from deadly ambition. Among the more ordinary homes were many that were graced with the same family loyalty and tender affection as beautify our homes to-day. ”

“ It was with Agrippina the Second as it had been with Livia, every political aspiration was concentrated upon one object--the elevation of her own son to the imperial rule, and all the activities emanating from her energetic, resourceful nature were employed in hewing a path for Nero's advancement. Woe befell the persons who stood in that path or seemed likely at any time to have it in their power and inclination to impede that advancement. They were ruthlessly cut down in that unrelenting manner of which only an ambitious woman is capable. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Messalina, in the gardens of the palace, was enacting a Bacchanalian scene. Men were treading the grapes and wine was flowing into casks; women in the scant attire of Bacchantes were dancing around them; and Messalina, with the symbolic thyrsus in her hand, joined in the revelry, accompanied by Silius, who was crowned with ivy. The utmost licentiousness of speech and action was the order of the day. At last, Vettius Valens, who himself had been a lover of the empress, climbed to the top of a high tree. ”

“ It was an age in which all the experiences of life were intensified. Human life of the period can only be pictured in high lights and deep shadows; everything must be shown in strong relief. The fortune of nearly all the good women of this time whose names we know was to suffer patiently and die heroically.
Like Acte, 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 ”

“ The chief banqueting room was circular, and revolved perpetually, night and day, in imitation of the motion of the celestial bodies. The baths were supplied from the sea and from Albula. Upon the dedication of this magnificent house, when finished, all Nero said in approval of it was: 'Well, now at last I am housed as a man should be!'"
Amidst this magnificent splendor, Poppæa lived. We will endeavor to recount her manner of living as closely as we may, in order that we may know what was the ideal existence in the estimation of the majority of the women of her time. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the domestic life of the common people of Rome we have only the most meagre information. We know that they inhabited huge tenements, in which small apartments were rented at excessive rates. Housekeeping in these tenements must have been conducted on a very simple scale, as one of the comic writers pictures a poor family moving to other quarters and carrying all their effects in their hands at one journey. Yet the men who issued thence wore the toga of the Roman citizen, tattered though it might be and having no other significance than the mere fact that its wearers were not slaves. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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.... ”