THE HISTORY OF ROME. BOOK XXXIV. The Oppian law, respecting the dress of the women, after much debate, repealed, notwithstanding it was strenuously supported by Marcus Porcius Cato, consul. The consul's successes in Spain. Titus Quintius Flamininus finishes the war with the Lacedæmonians and the tyrant Nabis; makes peace with them, and restores liberty to Argos. Separate seats at the public games, for the first time, appointed for the senators. Colonies sent forth. Marcus Porcius Cato triumphs on account of his successes in Spain. Farther successes in Spain against the Boians and Insubrian Gauls. Titus Quintius Flamininus having subdued Philip, King of Macedonia, and Nabis the Lacedæmonian tyrant, and restored all Greece to freedom, triumphs for three days. Carthaginian ambassadors bring intelligence of the hostile designs of Antiochus and Hanaibal. B.C.195. I. AMID the serious concerns of so many important wars, some scarcely ended, and others impending, an Y.R.557. incident intervened, which may seem too trivial to be mentioned; but which, through the zeal of the parties concerned, occasioned a violent contest. Marcus Fundanius and Lucius Valerius, plebeian tribunes, proposed to the people the repealing of the Oppian law. This law, which had been introduced by Caius Oppius, plebeian tribune, in the consulate of Quintus Fabius and Tiberius Sempronius, during the heat of the Punic war, enacted, that "no woman should possess more than half an ounce of gold, or wear a garment of various colours, 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." Marcus and Publius Junius Brutus, plebeian tribunes, supported the Oppian law, and declared, that they would never suffer it to be repealed; while many of the nobility stood forth to argue for and against the motion proposed. The Capitol was filled with crowds, who favoured or opposed the law; nor could the matrons be kept at home, either by advice or shame, nor even by the commands of their husbands; but beset every street and pass in the city; beseeching the men as they went down to the Forum, that in the present flourishing state of the commonwealth, when the public prosperity was daily increasing, they would suffer the women so far to partake of it, as to have their former ornaments of dress restored. This throng of women increased daily, for they arrived even from the country towns and villages ; and had at length the boldness to come up to the consuls, prætors, and other magistrates, to urge their request. One of the consuls, however, they found inexorable-Marcus Porcius Cato, who, in support of the law proposed to be repealed, spoke to this effect:— II. "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 unable to withstand each separately, we now dread their collective body. I was accustomed to think it a fabulous and fictitious VOL. IV. Frf tale, that, in a certain island, the whole race of males was utterly extirpated by a conspiracy of the women. But the utmost danger may be apprehended equally from either sex, if you suffer cabals and secret consultations to be held: scarcely, indeed, can I determine, in my own mind, whether the act itself, or the precedent that it affords, is of more pernicious tendency. The latter of these more particularly concerns us consuls, and the other magistrates; the former, you, my fellow-citizens. For, whether the measure, proposed to your consideration, be profitable to the state or not, is to be determined by you, who are to vote on the occasion. As to the outrageous behaviour of these women, whether it be merely an act of their own, or owing to your instigations, Marcus Fundanius and Lucius Valerius, it unquestionably implies culpable conduct in magistrates. I know not whether . it reflects greater disgrace on you, tribunes, or on the consuls on you certainly, if you have brought these women hither for the purpose of raising tribunitian seditions; on us, if we suffer laws to be imposed on us by a secession of women, as was done formerly by that of the common people. It was not without painful emotion of shame, that I, just now, made my way into 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 not have refrained from saying to them, 'What sort of practice is this, of running out 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 with your own? Although if females would let their modesty confine them within the limits of their own rights, it did not become you, even at : home, to concern yourselves about any laws that 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 be ever under the control of parents, brothers, or husbands. We, it seems, suffer them, now, to interfere in the management of state affairs, and to thrust 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 tribunes; others, contending for the repeal of the law? Will you give the reins to their intractable nature, and then expect that themselves should set bounds to their licentiousness, and without your interference! This is the smallest of the injunctions laid on them by usage or the laws, all which, women bear with impatience: they long for entire liberty; nay, to speak the truth, not for liberty, but 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 profligacy, and subjected them to their husbands; and yet, even with the help of all these restrictions, they can scarcely be kept within bounds. If, then, you suffer them to throw these off one by one, to tear them all asunder, and, at last, to be set on an equal footing with yourselves; can you imagine that they will be any longer tolerable? Suffer them once to arrive at an equality with you, and they will from that moment become your superiors. III. "But, indeed, they only object to any new law being made against them: they mean to deprecate, not justice, but severity. Nay, their wish is, that a law which you have admitted, established by your suffrages, and found in the practice and experience of so many years to be beneficial, should now be repealed; and that 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 to the greater part. If, because a law proves obnoxious to a private individual, it must therefore be cancelled and annulled, to what purpose is it for the community to enact laws, which those, whom they were particularly intended to comprehend, could presently repeal? Let us, however, inquire what this important affair is which has induced the matrons thus to run out into public in this indecorous manner, scarcely restraining from pushing into the Forum and the assembly of the people. Is it to solicit that their parents, their husbands, children, and brothers, may be ransomed from captivity under Hannibal? By no means: and far be ever from the commonwealth so unfortunate a situation. Yet, when such was the case, you refused this to the prayers which, upon that occasion, their duty dictated. But it is not duty, nor solicitude for their friends; it is religion that has collected them together. They are about to receive the Idæan Mother, coming out of Phrygia from Pessinus. What motive, that even common decency will allow to be mentioned, is pretended for this female insurrection? Hear the answer: That we may shine in gold and purple; that, both on festival 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, luxuand avarice those pests, which have ever been the ruin of every great state. These I dread the more, as the circumstances of the commonwealth grow daily more prosperous ry |