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Table of Contents
1. Cover image
2. Title page
3. Table of Contents
4. Copyright
5. Dedication
6. Acknowledgments
7. Chapter 1: Introduction,
overview, and applications

1. Abstract
2. 1.1 Introduction
 3. 1.2 Why is this book
important?
4. 1.3 Organization of the
book
5. 1.4 Informatics
6. 1.5 Statistics for
analytics
7. 1.6 Algorithms for
analytics
8. 1.7 Machine learning
9. 1.8 Artificial intelligence
10. 1.9 A platform for
building a classifier
from the ground up
(binary case)
11. 1.10 A platform for
building a classifier
 from the ground up
(general case)
12. 1.11 Summary
8. Chapter 2: Ground truthing

1. Abstract
2. 2.1 Introduction
3. 2.2 Pre-validation
4. 2.3 Optimizing settings
from training data
5. 2.4 Learning how to
Learn
6. 2.5 Deep learning to
deep unlearning
7. 2.6 Summary
 9. Chapter 3: Experimental
design

1. Abstract
2. 3.1 Introduction
3. 3.2 Data normalization
4. 3.3 Designs for the
pruning of aging data
5. 3.4 Systems of systems
6. 3.5 Summary

10. Chapter 4: Meta-analytic

design patterns

1. Abstract
2. 4.1 Introduction
 3. 4.2 Cumulative
response patterns
4. 4.3 Optimization of
analytics
5. 4.4 Model agreement
patterns
6. 4.5 Co-occurrence and
similarity patterns
7. 4.6 Sensitivity analysis
patterns
8. 4.7 Confusion matrix
patterns
9. 4.8 Entropy patterns
10. 4.9 Independence
pattern
11. 4.10 Functional NLP
patterns (macro-
 feedback)
12. 4.11 Summary
11. Chapter 5: Sensitivity analysis
and big system engineering

1. Abstract
2. 5.1 Introduction
3. 5.2 Sensitivity analysis
of the data set itself
4. 5.3 Sensitivity analysis
of the solution model
5. 5.4 Sensitivity analysis
of the individual
algorithms
6. 5.5 Sensitivity analysis
of the hybrid
algorithmics
 7. 5.6 Sensitivity analysis
of the path to the
current state
8. 5.7 Summary
12. Chapter 6: Multipatch
predictive selection

1. Abstract
2. 6.1 Introduction
3. 6.2 Predictive selection
4. 6.3 Means of predicting
5. 6.4 Means of selecting
6. 6.5 Multi-path approach
7. 6.6 Applications
8. 6.7 Sensitivity analysis
9. 6.8 Summary
13. Chapter 7: Modeling and
model fitting

1. Abstract
2. 7.1 Introduction
3. 7.2 Chemistry analogues
for analytics
4. 7.3 Organic chemistry
analogues for analytics
5. 7.4 Immunological and
biological analogues for
analytics
6. 7.5 Anonymization
analogues for model
design and fitting
7. 7.6 LSE, error variance,
and entropy: Goodness
 of fit
8. 7.7 Make mine multiple
models!
9. 7.8 Summary
14. Chapter 8: Synonym-antonym
and reinforce-void patterns

1. Abstract
2. 8.1 Introduction
3. 8.2 Synonym-antonym
patterns
4. 8.3 Reinforce-void
patterns
5. 8.4 Broader
applicability of these
patterns
6. 8.5 Summary
15. Chapter 9: Analytics around
analytics

1. Abstract
2. 9.1 Introduction
3. 9.2 Analytics around
analytics
4. 9.3 Optimizing settings
from training data
5. 9.4 Hybrid methods
6. 9.5 Other areas for
investigation around the
analytics
7. 9.6 Summary
16. Chapter 10: System design
optimization

1. Abstract
2. 10.1 Introduction
3. 10.2 Module
optimization
4. 10.3 Clustering and
regularization
5. 10.4 Analytic system
optimization
6. 10.5 Summary

17. Chapter 11: Aleatory and

expert system techniques
 1. Abstract
2. 11.1 Introduction
3. 11.2 Revisiting two
earlier aleatory patterns
4. 11.3 Adding random
elements for testing
5. 11.4 Hyperspectral
aleatory approaches
6. 11.5 Other aleatory
applications in machine
and statistical learning
7. 11.6 Expert system
techniques
8. 11.7 Summary
18. Chapter 12: Application I:
Topics and challenges in
 machine translation, robotics,
and biological sciences

1. Abstract
2. 12.1 Introduction
3. 12.2 Machine
translation
4. 12.3 Robotics
5. 12.4 Biological sciences
6. 12.5 Summary
19. Chapter 13: Application II:
Medical and health-care
informatics, economics,
business, and finance

1. Abstract
2. 13.1 Introduction
 3. 13.2 Healthcare
4. 13.3 Economics
5. 13.4 Business and
finance
6. 13.5 Summary
7. 13.6 Postscript:
Psychology
20. Chapter 14: Discussion,
conclusions, and the future of
data

1. Abstract
2. 14.1 Chapter 1
3. 14.2 Chapter 2
4. 14.3 Chapter 3
5. 14.4 Chapter 4
6. 14.5 Chapter 5
 7. 14.6 Chapter 6
8. 14.7 Chapter 7
9. 14.8 Chapter 8
10. 14.9 Chapter 9
11. 14.10 Chapter 10
12. 14.11 Chapter 11
13. 14.12 Chapter 12
14. 14.13 Chapter 13
15. 14.14 The future of
meta-analytics
21. Index

List of tables

1. Tables in Chapter 1
 1. Table 1.1
2. Table 1.2
3. Table 1.3
4. Table 1.4
5. Table 1.5
6. Table 1.6
7. Table 1.7
8. Table 1.8
9. Table 1.9
10. Table 1.10
11. Table 1.11
12. Table 1.12
13. Table 1.13
14. Table 1.14
15. Table 1.15
16. Table 1.16
17. Table 1.17
18. Table 1.18
19. Table 1.19
20. Table 1.20
21. Table 1.21
22. Table 1.22
23. Table 1.23
24. Table 1.24
25. Table 1.25
26. Table 1.26
27. Table 1.27
28. Table 1.28
29. Table 1.29
30. Table 1.30
31. Table 1.31
32. Table 1.32
33. Table 1.33
34. Table 1.34
35. Table 1.35
36. Table 1.36
37. Table 1.37
38. Table 1.38
39. Table 1.39
40. Table 1.40
41. Table 1.41
42. Table 1.42
43. Table 1.43
44. Table 1.44
45. Table 1.45
46. Table 1.46
47. Table 1.47
48. Table 1.48
49. Table 1.49
50. Table 1.50
51. Table 1.51
 52. Table 1.52
53. Table 1.53
54. Table 1.54
55. Table 1.55
56. Table 1.56
57. Table 1.57
58. Table 1.58
59. Table 1.59
60. Table 1.60
61. Table 1.61
62. Table 1.62
63. Table 1.63
64. Table 1.64
65. Table 1.65
66. Table 1.66
67. Table 1.67
2. Tables in Chapter 2
 1. Table 2.1
2. Table 2.2
3. Table 2.3
4. Table 2.4
5. Table 2.5
6. Table 2.6
7. Table 2.7
8. Table 2.8
9. Table 2.9
10. Table 2.10
11. Table 2.11
12. Table 2.12
13. Table 2.13
14. Table 2.14
15. Table 2.15
16. Table 2.16
3. Tables in Chapter 3
 1. Table 3.1
2. Table 3.2
3. Table 3.3
4. Table 3.4
5. Table 3.5
6. Table 3.6
7. Table 3.7
8. Table 3.8
4. Tables in Chapter 4

1. Table 4.1
2. Table 4.2
3. Table 4.3
4. Table 4.4
5. Table 4.5
6. Table 4.6
7. Table 4.7
 8. Table 4.8
9. Table 4.9
10. Table 4.10
11. Table 4.11
12. Table 4.12
13. Table 4.13
14. Table 4.14
15. Table 4.15
5. Tables in Chapter 5

1. Table 5.1
2. Table 5.2
3. Table 5.3
4. Table 5.4
5. Table 5.5
6. Tables in Chapter 6

1. Table 6.1
2. Table 6.2
3. Table 6.3
4. Table 6.4
5. Table 6.5
6. Table 6.6
7. Table 6.7
8. Table 6.8
9. Table 6.9

7. Table in Chapter 8

1. Table 8.1
 8. Tables in Chapter 9

1. Table 9.1
2. Table 9.2
3. Table 9.3
4. Table 9.4

9. Tables in Chapter 10

1. Table 10.1
2. Table 10.2
3. Table 10.3
4. Table 10.4

10. Tables in Chapter 11

 1. Table 11.1
2. Table 11.2
11. Table in Chapter 12

1. Table 12.1

12. Tables in Chapter 13

1. Table 13.1
2. Table 13.2

List of figures

1. Figures in Chapter 1

1. Fig. 1.1
 2. Fig. 1.2
3. Fig. 1.3
4. Fig. 1.4
5. Fig. 1.5
6. Fig. 1.6
7. Fig. 1.7
8. Fig. 1.8
9. Fig. 1.9
10. Fig. 1.10
11. Fig. 1.11
12. Fig. 1.12
13. Fig. 1.13
14. Fig. 1.14
15. Fig. 1.15
16. Fig. 1.16
17. Fig. 1.17
18. Fig. 1.18
 19. Fig. 1.19
20. Fig. 1.20
2. Figures in Chapter 2

1. Fig. 2.1
2. Fig. 2.2
3. Fig. 2.3

3. Figures in Chapter 3

1. Fig. 3.1
2. Fig. 3.2

4. Figures in Chapter 4

1. Fig. 4.1
 2. Fig. 4.2
3. Fig. 4.3
4. Fig. 4.4
5. Fig. 4.5
6. Fig. 4.6
7. Fig. 4.7
8. Fig. 4.8
9. Fig. 4.9
10. Fig. 4.10
11. Fig. 4.11
12. Fig. 4.12
13. Fig. 4.13
14. Fig. 4.14
15. Fig. 4.15
5. Figures in Chapter 10

1. Fig. 10.1
 2. Fig. 10.2
3. Fig. 10.3

Landmarks

1. Cover
2. Title page
3. Table of contents

1. iv
2. v
3. xiii
4. xiv
5. 1
6. 2
7. 3
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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 There still stands the little temple where the white-robed Vestals
watched over the holy Palladium and took care that the sacred fire
should never go out for eleven hundred years. Men on the heights of
power bowed to the authority of these consecrated women, who
occupied everywhere the place of honor, settled disputes, testified
without oath, and brought pardon even to a criminal who met them
by accident. All this, whether fact or legend, was a tacit recognition
of the judgment, purity, and insight of woman. It might not be
desirable to give her any rights civil or social, but, as a sort of
compensation, men quieted their consciences and gave themselves a
comfortable feeling of being just, if indeed they ever had any doubt
on that point, by offering her more or less theoretical honor, and a
shadowy place near the gods, where they could avail themselves of
her wisdom without any personal inconvenience. In addition to this,
they built her a little temple dedicated to the goddess Viriplaca,
Appeaser of Husbands, where she could solace her bruised heart by
confiding her wrongs and sorrows to this conciliatory divinity, who
seems to have been useful mainly as a repository of tears, though
her office was to compose differences. It has long since vanished,
but it speaks volumes for the helplessness of women that it ever
existed at all. It told the tragedy of many a Roman matron’s life.

II
We have seen a little of what these women were and what they
did. What they suffered can be better gathered from a glance at
their position and the share they had in the liberties they had done
so much to foster and save. Of freedom the Roman woman of earlier
times had none at all, though she was not secluded like her Athenian
sisters, and her place in the family was a better one. Her character
was formed, like that of our Puritan mothers, in times of toil and
danger, when she worked side by side with men for a common end,
and, in both, their strength of purpose and spirit of heroic sacrifice
lasted long after the hard conditions of primitive life had passed.
Besides, the natural talent for administration which shone through all
her limitations was to a certain degree recognized by her husband,
and she was often his counselor, as well as the instructor of his
children, even beyond the seven years prescribed. But all this did not
suffice to give her any liberty of thought or action, and she was to all
intents and purposes a slave, subject to the caprices of a master
who might choose to be kind, though, in case he did not, she had no
protection either in law or custom; and we all know how soon the
consciousness of absolute power warps the sensibilities of even the
gentlest. “Created to please and obey,” says Gibbon, “she was never
supposed to have reached the age of reason and experience.” She
was under guardianship all her life, first of her father, then of her
husband, and, at his death, of her nearest male relative. For
centuries she had no right to her own property, no control of her
own person, no choice in marriage, no recourse against cruelty and
oppression. “The husband has absolute power over the wife,” said
the stern old Cato; “it is for him to condemn and punish her for any
shameful act, such as taking wine or violating the moral law.” To
show what was possible in the way of surveillance, we are told that
he was in the habit of kissing her, when he came home, to satisfy
himself that she had not been drinking. One man who found his wife
sipping wine beat her to death; another dismissed his weaker half
because she was seen on the street without a veil; and a daring
woman was sent away because she went to the circus without leave.
Any man could spend his wife’s money, beat her, sell her, give her to
some one else when he was tired of her, even put her to death,
“acting as accuser, judge, jury, and executioner.” In the last case it
was better to call her friends into council, perhaps even necessary, if
they were powerful enough to ask for an explanation; but “a man
can do as he likes with his own” was sufficient to cover any injustice
or any crime. Even in the last days of the Republic, when the laws
were greatly modified, the younger Cato, a man noted for his stoical
virtues, gave his wife to his friend Hortensius, and after his death
took her back—with a dowry added. What she thought of the matter
signified little. It does not appear that she was even consulted. The
family was the unit, and the man was the family.
 It is fair to say that it was not women alone who suffered from
this peculiar phase of Roman society, as men had little more
freedom so long as their fathers lived; but it fell much more severely
on those who were, in the nature of things, more helpless. The best
they could hope for was a change of masters, which might be for
the worse; and who was to protect them from their irresponsible
protectors, even with all the safeguards supposed to be provided by
law? For this evidently put them where Terence did the philosophers,
along with horses and hunting-dogs, that were owned but not
necessarily considered.
It is said, in praise of the morals of Rome during its first centuries,
that there was not a divorce for five hundred years. The exact
nature of this merit is seen more clearly when we find that a woman
could not apply for a divorce, or expect a redress of any wrong,
whatever might befall her; while a man simply sent away his wife, if
she did not please him, without any formalities, and with slight, if
any, penalties. This did not release her from perpetual servitude,
though he was free to follow his inclinations, amenable to no law
and no obligation. It is true, however, that Roman matrons prided
themselves on their dignity. A certain respect was exacted for them,
and familiarity in their presence was a punishable offense. They took
every occasion also to show appreciation of their defenders. They
mourned a year for Brutus, who died in avenging Lucretia’s honor,
and did the same later for his upright colleague.
Many years afterward there was a temple of patrician chastity in
which women assembled for sacred rites, but they found as many
causes for contention as some of our societies do to-day. One noble
matron lost caste by marrying a plebeian, and was excluded. She
protested in vain. Her birth, her spotless fame, her devotion to her
husband, counted for nothing so long as that husband did not
belong to the elect. There was no lack of spirited words, but the
matter did not end here. This slighted Virginia started another
association on her own ground, set apart a chapel in her house, and
erected an altar to plebeian chastity. The standards were to be much
higher. She called together the plebeian ladies, and proposed that
they emulate one another in virtue, as men did in valor. No woman
of doubtful honor or twice married was admitted. Unfortunately, this
organization in time opened its doors too wide, and shared the fate
of many others.
On another occasion Quinta Claudia, one of the leading matrons of
Rome, played so conspicuous a part that she won immortality and a
statue of brass. She was at the head of a delegation appointed to
meet the Idæan Mother, who was expected at Terracina, and whose
coming was of great importance, as various strange happenings
showed conclusively that Juno was angry and needed propitiation. It
was decided that the most virtuous man in the State should
accompany the matrons, but it was only after much tribulation that
the Senate found one fit to be intrusted with the office, and this was
a young Scipio. Unfortunately, the vessel containing the image went
aground, and the augurs declared that only a woman of spotless
character could dislodge it. Quinta Claudia was equal to the
occasion. She seized the oar, with a prayer to Cybele; the boat
moved from its place as if by magic, and was safely carried to its
destination. The lady’s fair fame, which had been a little clouded,
was forever established by a direct interposition of the gods. The
matrons acquitted themselves with honor and, it is to be hoped, to
the satisfaction of the goddess, who was duly installed in her
temple.
All this goes to prove that the women of twenty centuries ago
often combined in the interest of religion and morals, and were quite
capable of managing public as well as private affairs; also that great
value was attached to the austere virtues. The wise Cato is said to
have erased the name of a Roman from the list of senators because
he kissed his wife in the presence of his daughters—a worse penalty
than the old Blue Laws imposed on the man who kissed his wife on
Sunday. It is a pity that this crabbed censor, of many theoretical
virtues and a few practical ones set in thorns, failed to appreciate
the dignity and decorum of the Roman matron. It was this same
rigid Cato who, in spite of the fact that he “preferred a good
husband to a great senator,” was so inconsistently shocked that a
Roman lady should presume to be a companion to her noble lord. He
looked upon a wife as a necessary evil, and declared that “the lives
of men would be less godless if they were quit of women.”
There was no question of love or inclination in arranging a Roman
marriage. It was simply a contract between citizens, a State affair
intended solely to perpetuate the race in its purity, and to preserve
family and religious traditions. In its best form it was for centuries
restricted to patricians, who alone were privileged to take the mystic
bread together. This constituted a religious marriage, and only this
could give their children pure descent or admission to the highest
functions of the State. There were two lower grades of civil
marriage, but each gave a man supreme control of his wife, without
the dignity of consecration. Whatever cruelty and suffering might
result from this one-sided relation,—and the possibilities were
enormous,—a woman was expected to love the husband chosen by
her friends, for himself alone, and a bridegroom’s presents were
limited by custom, so that she might not be tempted to love him for
what he could give her. She must go out to meet him, submit
patiently to any indignities he might offer, and mourn him in due
form when he died. Her death he was not required to mourn at all.
His infidelities she must never see, as any complaint was likely to
meet with a dismissal, and she knew that even her father would say
it served her right for interfering in any way with a man’s privilege of
doing as he liked.
That a woman ever did love her husband under such conditions
proves that her heart was as tender as her capacity for self-sacrifice
was great; also that men were by no means as wicked or tyrannical
as they had the power to be. We know that liberty is not always
insured by an edict, nor does cruelty or injustice invariably follow the
lack of a decree against it. There are many notable instances of the
devotion of Roman women and the affection of Roman men; indeed,
it is quite certain that there was a great deal of happy domestic life.
Men naturally accepted the traditions of a society into which they
had been born, and women did not question them unless their
burdens became intolerable, and even these they considered a part
of their destiny, as good women had done before them—and have
done since. But power is a dangerous gift for the best of us, and
without some strong safeguard, moral or legal, brute force inevitably
asserts itself over helplessness. In modern times a sentiment grown
into a tradition has done much toward tempering the condition of
women even under arbitrary rule, though their own increased
intelligence has done more. Sentiment, however, was not a quality of
the average Roman character. Men were masterful and passionate,
eager of power and impatient of contradiction. To offset this, they
often had a strong family feeling and a certain sense of justice,
besides a natural love of peace in the home; but this did not suffice
to curb the violence and cruelty of the wicked, nor to render the
position of the high-spirited wife a possible one. The stuff out of
which Lucretias and Cornelias are made is not the stuff to bear
habitual oppression silently, beyond a certain point.
It was doubtless this oppression that was responsible for a
startling epidemic of husband-poisoning in the fourth century before
Christ. The women who prepared the drugs were betrayed by a
maid, and one hundred and seventy matrons—some of them
patricians—were found guilty. The leaders were forced to take their
own poisons, and died with the calmness of Stoics. Two hundred
years afterward there was another epidemic of the same sort, and
many eminent men paid the penalty of their cruelties with their lives.
This mode of redressing wrongs became too common to be passed
to the account of individual crime. It was the protest of helpless
ignorance that had found no other weapon.
About this time, however, the Roman matrons took a more
civilized and rational method of asserting their rights. It was an
innovation to claim any, but they were too proud to accept the
hopeless vassalage of the Athenian woman. Indignant at the
inferiority of their condition, without recourse or refuge against
cruelty and injustice, hampered by needless and petty restrictions,
they rebelled at last.
 III
One sees little clearly through the mists of two thousand years,
and we know few details of what seems to have been the first
concerted revolt on the part of women. The visible cause was a
trivial one, but it was the proverbial last drop, and served at least to
bring dismay into the councils of men, and afterward, possibly,
reflection. The Roman woman was patriotic and quite ready, at
need, to give all and ask nothing. When money was required to
carry on the Punic wars, she poured out her jewels and personal
treasures with lavish generosity; nor did she murmur when the
Oppian law decreed that she must no longer wear purple or many-
colored robes, that her gold ornaments must weigh no more than
half an ounce, and that she must walk if she went out, as the use of
a carriage in the city was a forbidden luxury. These were small
privileges, but they were about all she had, and when the crisis was
past, she asked a repeal of the decree. She met the usual rebuff of
those who seek to regain a lost point. Men saw in such a request
only an “irruption of female emancipators,” dangerous alike to
religion and the State. Cato, the austere, refused a petition which he
regarded as a subversion of order and a rebellion against lawful
masters. He said that the claim of women to any rights or any voice
in public affairs was a proof that men had lost their majesty as well
as their authority; such a thing could not have happened if each one
had kept his own wife in proper subjection. “Our privileges,” he
continues, “overpowered at home by female contumacy, are, even
here in the forum, spurned and trodden under foot”; indeed, he
begins to fear that “the whole race of males may be utterly
destroyed by a conspiracy of women.” He rails at the matrons, who
throng the forum, for “running into public and addressing other
women’s husbands.” It “does not concern them what laws are
passed or repealed.” He bewails the “good old days” when women
were forced to obey their fathers, brothers, or husbands. “Now they
are so lost to a sense of decency as to ask favors of other men.”
“Women,” he says, “bear law with impatience.” They long for liberty,
which is not good for them. With all the old restrictions, it is difficult
to keep them within bounds. “The moment they have arrived at
equality they will be our superiors”—a dangerous admission surely.
He calls the affair a sedition, an insurrection, a secession of women.
But the matrons had some able defenders. Lucius Valerius, who
had asked the repeal of this obnoxious law, spoke for them. He
objects to calling a natural request by such hard names, and quotes
from antiquity to prove that it is not a new thing for Roman matrons
to come out in public, as they have often done so in the interest of
the State, and “always to its advantage.” He recalls the various times
when they saved Rome, and refers to the generosity with which they
invariably responded to a call for help. No one objected when they
appeared for the general good; why should they be censured when
they asked a favor for themselves? In reply to the accusation of
extravagance, he says: “When you wear purple on your own robe,
why will you not permit your wife a purple mantle?”... “Will you
spend more on your horse than on your wife?” Then he asks why
women who have always been noted for modesty should lose it now
through the repeal of a law that has not been in existence more
than twenty years. One is tempted to quote at length from these
speeches, because they show us how the Romans discussed certain
questions that are familiar to-day. To be sure, it was only a woman’s
privilege of dressing as she chose that they were considering, but it
really involved her right to ask anything which her lord and master
did not freely accord. We hear practically the same arguments, the
same fears, the same special pleadings on both sides, at each new
step in the social advancement of women.
The Roman matrons, however, were not discouraged by criticism.
They flocked to the forum in greater numbers than ever. Women
came in from the towns and villages to aid them. The senators were
so astounded at their audacity that they solemnly implored the gods
to reveal the nature of the omen. They stigmatized the leaders as
“androgynes” or “he-women,” a term of contempt so freely applied
in this country, less than fifty years ago, to those who bravely
presented the claims of their sex to larger consideration, and who,
silver-haired and venerable, are so widely honored to-day. We do not
hear that there were any congresses or conventions, but these
Roman ladies held meetings, went into the streets for votes, and
appealed to nobles, officials, and strangers alike. They sought the
tribunes in their houses, and used all their arts of persuasion. There
were fair-minded men then as now, and the spirited rebels won their
cause, though Cato revenged himself for his defeat by imposing a
heavy tax on the dress, ornaments, and carriages of women. It is
said that they put on their gay robes and jewels at once, and
celebrated their victory by dancing in the legislative halls.
Not far from this time, possibly a little before, a dowry was set
apart for women. But there was a growing jealousy of their
increasing independence, and, a few years later, it was proposed to
take away from them the right of inheritance. It was feared that too
much property might fall into their hands, as had been the case in
Sparta; also, that their taste for elegant living might lead to
degeneracy of manners and morals. The irrepressible Cato again
came to the front and declaimed against the arrogance and tyranny
of rich women. After bringing their husbands a large dowry, he said,
they even had the presumption to retain some of their own money
for themselves and ask payment if they lent it to their masters! Men
could not be expected to tolerate such insufferable insolence on the
part of their “reserved slaves.” And so the decree was passed. But it
was more honored in the breach than in the observance, and
became a dead letter, as men themselves thought it unjust.
How far the gradual change in the laws was due to the efforts of
women and how far to the justice of men, it is not easy to
determine; but the astonished attitude of the latter when they felt
that their time-honored supremacy was in peril shows better than
anything else the real significance of the movement which was
precipitated by so slight a cause. It is quite safe to say that without
an emphatic protest there would have been no thought of justice.
Traditions are only broken from the inside where they press heavily.
In this case it was a daring and unheard-of thing to run against the
current of centuries of passive submission; but “it is the first step
that costs.” When the right of being heard had been once asserted,
grave statesmen and jurists took up the matter and solved it as best
they could, with an evident desire to be just and kind, as they
understood it. It could hardly be expected that half of the human
family would voluntarily relinquish the absolute ownership of the
other half, or even believe it to be good for the other half that they
should do so. Men are not so constituted. The institutions and
customs that had come to them from their fathers they felt bound to
pass on, as far as possible, intact. Besides, all vital changes must be
slow, unless they are to be chaotic. But the leaven of a new
intelligence worked surely, if not swiftly.
The masses of the Roman women never passed out of a condition
which we should call subjection, though they did secure at last the
use of their own fortunes, relative freedom in the marriage contract,
and a certain protection against money-hunting and spendthrift
husbands. In the reign of Augustus the wife was given a guaranty
for her own property, and the husband was forbidden to alienate the
dowry. The mother was in a measure freed from oppressive
guardianship, which later ceased altogether. Under Hadrian she was
permitted to make a will without consulting any one, also to inherit
from her sons. In many regards the Romans after the Antonines
were more just to women than are most of the civilized nations of
to-day. But these changes were the work of centuries, and it is
possible here to touch only upon a few essential points.
There was a second revolt more than a hundred years after the
first, when the triumvirs levied on the rich women of Rome a tax
which compelled many of them to sacrifice their jewels. They
appealed to Octavia to use her influence, also to the able mother of
Antony, both of whom favored them; but his wife, the Fulvia of
unpleasant fame, treated them with intolerable rudeness. Again they
thronged the forum; but they had made vast strides in intelligence,
and this time the eloquent daughter of a famous orator was chosen
to plead for them. It was no longer a simple matter of personal
injustice, but also a moral question upon which thoughtful women
had distinct opinions and the ability to express them. Hortensia
spoke for peace. “Do not ask us,” she says, “to contribute to the
fratricidal war that is rending the Republic.” Her appeal for justice
recalls a plea so often heard to-day, in a form that is but slightly
altered. “Why should we pay taxes,” she says, “when we have no
part in the honors, the commands, the statecraft, for which you
contend against each other with such harmful results?... When have
taxes ever been imposed on women?” Quintilian refers to this
address of a brilliant matron as worthy to be read for its excellence,
and “not merely as an honor to her sex.”
These spirited and high-born women were sent home, as the
others had been, but the people again came to their aid, and it was
found best to limit the tax to a few who could bear the burden
easily.

IV
But the most serious conflict was on the marriage question. The
attitude of the Roman man has been already touched upon—an
attitude as old as the world. In theory, a woman might be as chaste
as Lucretia, as wise as Minerva, as near to divinity as the Vestals; in
fact, she was only the servant of men’s interests or passions, and
when she ceased to be a willing or at least a passive one, the
trouble began. So long as marriage gave a man added dignity and
somebody to rule over, with no special obligations that were likely to
be inconvenient, or that could not be shaken off at will, things went
smoothly enough on his side. But when he had to deal with a being
who demanded some consideration, perhaps some sacrifice, it was
another affair. His privileges were seriously curtailed. If he married
wealth, it was quite possible for the owner to become imperious and
exacting, as it was not so easy to put away a wife when one must
return her fortune. “I have sold my authority for the dowry I have
accepted,” says Plautus. As to marrying from inclination, a man had
little more freedom of action than a maiden, while his father lived. If
he was a patrician he must marry within a limited class, much as he
might like to go outside of it; and so long as this law continued to
exist, the penalty for violating it was too severe to be braved.
Besides, there were cares and restrictions in the marriage relation
for pleasure-loving men. Wives without fortunes might be less
exacting, but they were more expensive, which was worse, since
men preferred to spend their money on themselves—a state of
affairs toward which a certain class is rapidly drifting to-day, if it is
not there already. Statesmen began to be alarmed. “If it were
possible to do without wives, great cares would be spared us,” said
Metellus in an address to the Senate; “but since nature has decreed
that we cannot live without a wife, nor comfortably with one, let us
bear the burden manfully, and look to the perpetuity of the State
rather than to our own satisfaction.” It never seems to have occurred
to these consistent descendants of Adam to consider the burdens of
the woman at all. On her side, a rich woman hesitated to take a
master, if she was independent enough to have any choice, which
was rare, and without a dowry she was quite sure of finding a
capricious one, who would not scruple to neglect her. Some
guaranties she must have, and these men did not like to give. So
men and women alike combined against the existing order of things,
men for the right to do precisely as they pleased, women for the
right of choice in husbands and of breaking chains when they
became intolerable.
It has often been stated, by moralists over-anxious to make out a
case, that this aversion to marriage, on the part of men, was due to
the laxity of women. Of this I do not find any evidence. It was due in
part to the restrictions already mentioned, and in part to the
increasing luxury which, added to the long habit of absolute power,
led to impatience of any domestic obligations, and a riot of the
senses, as it has always done, before and since. Besides, there were
the brilliant Oriental women who began to flock to Rome, bringing
with them Hellenic tastes, with subtle fascinations that stole away
the hearts of men and threatened a state of affairs similar to that
which existed in Athens. This the spirited Roman women could not
tolerate. To be thrust by strangers into a secondary place was not to
be thought of by these proud patricians, who refused to put
themselves in a position where such neglect was possible. They
began to realize that the old virtues did not suffice to hold men’s
wandering fancies. It was very well to carve on a woman’s
tombstone, as a last word of praise, an epitaph like this: “Gentle in
words, graceful in manner; she loved her husband devotedly; she
kept her house, she spun wool.” But what availed it when this
husband left her to the companionship of her duties and her virtues,
while he gave what he called his affections to those who had fewer
virtues and more accomplishments? It was not laxity of morals, but
lack of intelligence and culture, that stood in the way of the Roman
woman in the days when Greek literature, Greek art, and Greek
refinement first came into fashion. That she protested against
traditions which made it superfluous, if not dangerous, to cultivate
her intellect, may fairly be assumed. But she had a powerful ally. On
this point the Romans showed far more wisdom than the Greeks.
When they saw their own daughters set aside for these fascinating
rivals, they began to educate them.
Just when the movement toward things of the intellect began
among Roman women, it is difficult to determine with any
exactness. It was after the Eastern wars and probably about the
time of the first revolt. It had not been long since men began to
catch the spirit of Greek culture. For five hundred years after the
foundation of Rome there was not a book written, nor even a poem
or a song. As soon as men began to study and think, women were
disposed to do the same thing. If they could not well fight, they had
the ability to learn. The pretensions of sex were not emphasized, but
individual attainment was not without recognition. We begin to find
women who were noted not only for strength, wisdom, and
administrative ability, but for literary taste and culture. The austere
virtues of Cornelia, who lived in the second century before our era,
are among the familiar facts of history. She has been often quoted
as the supreme exemplar of the crowning grace of womanhood, and
we know that she was honored at her death with a statue dedicated
to the “Mother of the Gracchi.” Of her refinement, knowledge, and
love of letters, less has been said, but it was largely because of
these that she was able to train great sons. Cicero, who pronounced
her letters among the purest specimens of style extant in his time,
dwells upon the fact that these sons were educated in the purity and
elegance of their mother’s language. Quintilian says that the
“mother, whose learned letters have come down to posterity,
contributed greatly to their eloquence.” Her passion for Hellenic
poetry and philosophy was well known. It was a part of her heritage
from her father, the illustrious Scipio, a great general with the tastes
and abilities of a great scholar. Cato found fault with him and said he
must be brought down to republican equality. This fiery radical and
economist, who hated luxury, reviled women who had opinions,
preached morals which he did not possess, whipped his slaves if
anything was lost or spoiled, sold them at auction when they were
sick or old, and put them to death if they did not please him,—this
censor who was so generally disagreeable that when he died a wit
said, “Pluto dreaded to receive him because he was always ready to
bite,”—could not tolerate a man of refinement who shaved every day
and patronized Greek learning, whatever glory he might reflect on
his country. We do not know what he said about Cornelia, but it may
be imagined, as he was the determined adversary of feminine
culture.
The woman who brought up the Gracchi, and was so proud to
show these “jewels” to her finery-loving friends, was no pedant, but
in her last desolate years, when she was left alone with all her
tragical memories, her hospitable home at Misenum was a center for
learned Greeks and men of intellectual distinction. She was a woman
of great force of character, and the composure with which she bore
her misfortune, and talked of the deeds and sufferings of her sons,
was sometimes thought to show a lack of sensibility. Plutarch, with
his usual insight and cordial appreciation of women, said it indicated
rather a lack of understanding on the part of the critics that they did
not know the value of “a noble mind and liberal education” in
supporting their possessor under sorrow and calamity. This heroic
mother of heroic sons, who “refused Ptolemy and a crown,” was the
first Roman matron of distinguished intellectual attainments of whom
we have any definite knowledge, and the finest feminine
representative of her age. Within the next century there were many
others more or less prominent in social life.
With the advance in education many of the obstacles to marriage
were removed, and the dangers that had lurked in the ignorance of
Athenian women were averted. But the problem never ceased to be
a troublesome one. With the increase of wealth men grew more self-
indulgent, and less inclined to incur obligations of any sort. The
despair of Augustus had its humorous side. He exhausted his wit in
devising means to induce men to marry. In vain he gave honor and
freedom to the married, exacted fresh penalties from bachelors, who
were forbidden to receive bequests, and made laws against
immorality. Fathers had precedence everywhere—in affairs, at the
theater, in public offices. “For less rewards than these thousands
would lose their lives,” he said. “Can they not tempt a Roman citizen
to marry a wife?” Some who wished the privileges without the
troubles compromised the matter by entering into formal contracts
with children four or five years of age. Others took a wife for a year
to comply with the law, and then dismissed her.
It is not the purpose here to pursue in detail this phase of Roman
life, nor to trace the slow and obscure changes in the laws that
followed the revolt of women from ages of oppression. This brief
outline suffices to show that the women of two thousand years ago
were far from accepting abject subservience without a protest; that
they had the spirit and intelligence to combine in their own defense;
that they won the privilege of virtually the same education which
was given to men, and so much consideration that the Romans of
the third and fourth centuries were more just to a woman’s rights of
property than were the Americans in the first half of the nineteenth.
Happily better counsels prevail here to-day; but it is a commentary
on the instability of human affairs that, even on the higher plane of
morals and intelligence from which we started, the battle had to be
fought over again.
THE “NEW WOMAN” OF OLD ROME

· Wickedness of Imperial Days ·

· The Reverse of the Picture ·
· Parallel between the Romans and Ourselves ·
· Their “New Woman” ·
· Her Political Wisdom · Her Relative Independence ·
· Literature in the Golden Age ·
· Horace · Ovid ·
· Tributes to Cultivated Women in Letters of Cicero ·
· Literary Circles · Opinions of Satirists ·
· Reaction on Manners ·
· Tributes in Letters of Pliny and Seneca ·
· Glimpses of Family Life in Correspondence of
Marcus Aurelius and Fronto ·
· Public Honors to Women ·
 I
A great deal has been said of the Roman women of imperial days.
Much of it is not to their credit, but the bad are apt to be more
striking figures than the good, and to overshadow them in a long
perspective. The world likes to put its saints in a special category,
and worship them from afar. It seems fitting that they should sing
hymns and pray for suffering humanity in a cloistral seclusion, but
they are rarely quoted as representative of their age. On the other
hand, it holds up its brilliant or high-placed sinners as examples to
be shunned; but it talks about them and lifts them on a pedestal to
show us how wicked they are, until in the course of centuries they
come to be looked upon as representing the women of their time,
when in fact they represent only its worst type. Two thousand years
hence, no doubt a few conspicuous women noted to-day for
brilliancy, beauty, or special gifts, rather than for flawless character,
will stand out in more luminous colors than the great mass of refined
and cultivated ones who have dazzled their generation less and
graced it more. Possibly they may even furnish a text on which some
strenuous moralist of the fortieth century will expatiate, with
illustrations from our big-lettered journals, to show the corruption of
our manners and the dangers that lie in the cultivation of feminine
intellect! And yet we know that the moral standards of the world
were never so high as in these days when the influence of women in
the mass is greater than ever before.
Of the colossal wickedness of imperial Rome there is no question,
and sinners were not rare among women. But the Julias and
Messalinas did not represent the average tone of Roman society, any
more than the too numerous examples of vice in high places reflect
the average morality of the great cities of to-day. A careful study of
those times reveals, beneath the surface of the life most
conspicuous for its brilliancy and its vices, a type of womanhood as
strong and heroic as we find in primitive days, with the added
wisdom, culture, and helpfulness which had grown out of the freer
development of the intellect.
The Romans of the last century of the Republic had, like
ourselves, their corrupt politicians, their struggles for office, their
demagogues, and their wars for liberty—meaning their own. They
had also their plutocrats, their parvenus, their love of glittering
splendor, their rage for culture, their patrons of art, who brought the
masterpieces over the seas, and, not least, their “new woman.” I use
the phrase in its best, not in its extreme, sense; the exaggeration of
a good type is always a bad one. This last product of a growing
civilization did not claim political rights or industrial privileges, as we
understand them; she did not write books of any note, or seek
university honors in cap and gown; nor did she combine in world-
wide organizations to better herself and other people: but she did a
great many things in similar directions, that were quite as new and
vital to the world in which she lived. If she did not say much about
the higher education, she was beginning to have a good deal of the
best that was known. The example of the learned as well as virtuous
and womanly Cornelia had not been lost. It was no longer sufficient
to say, in the language of an old epitaph, that a woman was “good
and beautiful, an indefatigable spinner, pious, reserved, chaste, and
a good housekeeper.” The conservative matron still prided herself on
these qualities which had so long constituted the glory of her sex,
but it was decreed that she must have something more. In the new
order of things, she shared in the cultivation of the intellect, and
ignorance had lost its place among the virtues. Girls were educated
with boys, read the same books, and studied the same subjects. To
keep pace with the age, a woman must be familiar with Greek as
well as Roman letters. She must also know how to sing and dance.
“This helps them to find husbands,” says Statius, who had little
money to give his daughter, but felt sure she could marry well
because she was a “cultivated woman.” The line of co-education,
however, was drawn at singing and dancing, where it began with us.
In earlier times these accomplishments and the knowledge of
various languages were among the attractions of the courtezan.
The new Roman woman did not live her life apart from men, any
more than did the women of the old régime. Probably it never
occurred to her that it would be either pleasant or desirable to do
so. She simply wished to be considered as a peer and companion.
Nor does she seem to have been aggressive in public affairs. If she
busied herself with them, it was in counsels with men, and her
influence was mainly an indirect one. She had freed herself from
some of the worst features of an irresponsible masculine rule, but
she was still in leading-strings, though the strings were longer and
gave her a little more freedom of movement. There were many
women of the newer generation who added to the simple virtues of
the home the larger interests of the citizen, and conspicuous political
wisdom as well as great intelligence. We first hear of them in
councils of State through the letters of Cicero, who gossiped so
agreeably, and at times so critically, of passing events. He speaks of
the companions and advisers he found with Brutus at Antium,
among whom were the heroic Portia, wife of the misguided leader,
his sister Tertulla, and his mother Servilia, a woman of high
attainments and masterful character, who had been the lifelong
friend of Cæsar. The influence of this able and accomplished matron
over the great statesman did not wane with her beauty, as it lasted
to the end, though she could not save him from the fatal blow dealt
by her son. The tongue of scandal did not spare her, but at this time
she was old and past the suspicion of seeking to gain her purposes
by the arts of coquetry. Cicero feared her power, as her force of
intellect and masculine judgment had great weight in the discussions
of these self-styled patriots. She even went so far as to engage to
have certain important changes made in a decree of the Senate,
which, for a woman, was going very far indeed. One is often struck
with the fact that so many great Romans chose their women friends
for qualities of intellect and character rather than for youth or
beauty. When ambition is uppermost it has a keen eye for those who
can minister to it, and a woman’s talents, so lightly considered
before, begin to have their due appreciation. To a friend who said to
Cæsar that certain things were not very easy for a woman to do, he
simply replied: “Semiramis ruled Assyria, and the Amazons
conquered Asia.” It is known that he paid great deference to his
mother, the wise and stately Aurelia, to whose careful training he
owed so much. Later, women publicly recommended candidates for
important offices. Seneca acknowledged that he owed the
questorship to his aunt, who was one of the most modest and
reserved as well as intelligent of matrons. “They govern our houses,
the tribunals, the armies,” said a censor to the Senate. If their
counsels were not always for the best,—and even men are not
infallible,—they were usually in the interest of good morals and good
government.
Nor was it uncommon for the Roman woman to plead her own
cause in the forum. There was a senator’s wife who appeared often
in the courts, and her name, Afrania, was applied to those who
followed her example. The only speech that has come down to us
was the celebrated plea of Hortensia for her own sex. This was
much praised, not only by great men of that day but in after times.
It showed breadth of intellect and a firm grasp of affairs. The
privilege of speaking in the forum was withdrawn on account of the
violence of a certain Calphurnia—an incident that might suggest a
little wholesome moderation to some of our own councils and too
zealous reformers. There were also sacerdotal honors open to
aspiring women. The Flaminica Augustalis offered sacrifices for the
people on city altars, and the services of various divinities were
always in the charge of women. There was no systematized
philanthropy such as we have to-day, but we hear of much private
beneficence. Women founded schools for girls and institutions for
orphans. They built porticos and temples, erected monuments and
established libraries; indeed, their gifts were often recognized by
statues in their honor. We hear of societies of women who discuss
city affairs and consider rewards to be conferred on magistrates of
conspicuous merit. The names of others appear in inscriptions on
tombs; but their mission is not clear. There were also women who
practised medicine; this, however, may not have implied great
knowledge in an age when science, as we understand it, was
unknown.

II
But a clearer idea of the representative Roman woman on her
intellectual side, and of the estimation in which she was held, is
gathered through her relation to the world of letters, and in the
glimpses of a sympathetic family life which we find in the private
correspondence of some great men.
In the golden age of Augustus politics had ceased to be profitable
or even safe, and the educated classes turned to literature for
occupation and amusement, when they did not turn to something
worse. It was the fashion to patronize letters, and every idler prided
himself on writing elegant verses. In the words of Horace:
Now the light people bend to other aims;
A lust of scribbling every breast inflames;
Our youth, our senators, with bays are crowned,
And rhymes eternal as our feasts go round.
Even Augustus wrote bad epigrams and a worse tragedy. Public
libraries were numerous,—there were twenty-nine,—and busts of
great masters were placed beside their works. Authors were petted
and flattered, and they flattered their patrons in turn. These were
the days when Horace lived at his ease on his Sabine farm, gently
satirizing the follies and vices that were preparing the decay of this
pleasure-loving world, posing a little perhaps, and taking a lofty tone
toward the courtly Mæcenas and his powerful master, who honored
the brilliant poet and were glad to let him do as he liked. “Do you
know that I am angry with you for not addressing to me one of your
epistles?” wrote Augustus. “Are you afraid that posterity will
reproach you for being my friend? If you are so proud as to scorn
my friendship, that is no reason why I should lightly esteem yours in
return.” The epistle came, but the little gray-haired man, who saw so
clearly and wrote so wisely, went on his way serenely among his
own hills, stretching himself lazily on the grass by some ruined
temple or running stream, and sending pleasant though sometimes
caustic words to the friends he would not take the trouble to go and
see unless peremptorily summoned. Such was the relation between
the ruler of the world and those who conferred distinction on his
reign. Ovid discoursed upon love, and became a lion, until he forgot
to confine himself to theory, and went a step too far in practice.
Then he was sent away from his honored place among the gilded
youth who basked in the smiles of an emperor’s granddaughter, to
meditate on the vanity of life and the uncertainty of fame, by the
desolate shores of the Euxine.
In this blending of literature and fashion women had a prominent
place, though not as writers. No woman of the educated class could
write for money, and talent of that sort, even if she had it, would
have brought her little consideration. Whatever she may have done
in that direction was like foam on the crest of a wave. It vanished
with the moment. At a later period there were a few who wrote
poetry of which a trace is left. Balbilla, who was taken to Egypt in
the train of Hadrian and the good Empress Sabina, went out to hear
the song with which Memnon greeted his mother Aurora at dawn,
and scratched some verses on the statue in honor of her visit.
Possibly they were only the flattering trifles of a clever courtier, but
they were graven on stone and outlasted many better things. Of
wider fame was Sulpicia, the wife of a noted man in the reign of
Domitian, who wrote a poem on “Conjugal Love,” also a satire on an
edict banishing the philosophers, fragments of which still exist. She
had the old Roman spirit, but was less conciliatory than the eloquent
Hortensia of an earlier day, who was tired of the brutalities of war.
She mourned the degeneracy of the age, calling for “reverses that
will awaken patriotism, yes, reverses to make Rome strong again, to
rouse her from the soft and enervating languor of a fatal peace.” The
able but wicked Agrippina, of tragical memory, wrote the story of her
life which gave to Tacitus many facts and points for his “Annals.”
Doubtless there were other things that went the way of the passing
epigrams and verses of Augustus and his elegant courtiers. Twenty
centuries hence who will ever hear of the thousands, yes, millions of
more or less clever essays and poems written by men and women
to-day and multiplied indefinitely by a facile press? What will the
future antiquarian who searches the pages of a nineteenth-century
anthology know of us, save that every man and woman wrote, but
nothing lived, except perhaps a volume or two from the work of a
few poets, essayists, and historians, who can be counted on one’s
fingers? Oh, yes; there are the novelists whose value is measured by
figures and dollars, who multiply as the locusts do. Fine as we may
think them to-day, how many of their books will survive the sifting of
time? They may be piled in old libraries, but who will take the
trouble to dive into a mass that literally has no bottom? Will the
world forget that women did anything worth preserving? Yet our
women are educated; some of them are scholars, most of them are
intelligent; many write well, and a few surpassingly well.
But if women did not write, they used their influence to find a
hearing for those who did. Of the learning of the time they had their
share, though it may not have been very profound. Ovid tells us that
“there are learned fair, a very limited number; another set are not
learned, but they wish to be so.” He writes of a gay world which is
not too decorous or too serious, but in the category of a woman’s
attractions he mentions as necessary a knowledge of the great
poets, both Greek and Latin, among whom he modestly counts
himself. Women of fashion had poets or philosophers to read or talk
to them, even at their toilets, while the maids brushed their hair.
They discussed Plato and Aristotle as we do Browning and
economics. They dabbled in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris as we do
in theosophy and Buddhism; speculated on Christianity as we do on
lesser faiths, and began to doubt their falling gods. Philosophy was
“the religion of polite society,” but women have always been drawn
toward a faith that appeals to the emotions. Then there were the
recitations and public readings, in which they were actors as well as
listeners.
We have glimpses of the more seriously intellectual side of the
Roman woman in the private letters of Cicero, which show us also
the pleasant family life that gives us the best test of its value and
sincerity. The brilliant orator seems to have had a special liking for
able and accomplished matrons. In his youth he sought their society
in order to polish and perfect his style. He speaks in special praise of
Lælia, the wife of Scævola with whom he studied law, also of her
daughter and granddaughters—all of whom excelled in conversation
of a high order; he refers often to Cærellia, a woman of learning and
talent, with whom he corresponded for many years; and he says
that Caius Curio owes his great fame as an orator to the
conversations in his mother’s house. Many other women he
mentions whose attainments in literature, philosophy, and eloquence
did honor to their sex and placed them on a level with the great men
of their time. This was in the late days of the Republic, when
genuine talent was not yet swamped in the pretensions of
mediocrity.
The praise of his daughter Tullia is always on his lips. She was
versed in polite letters, “the best and most learned of women,” and
he valued her companionship beyond anything in life. It seems that
she was unfortunate in husbands, and they gave him a good deal of
trouble; but when she died the light went out of his world. His
letters are full of tears, and he plans the most magnificent of
monuments. He would deify her, and draw from all writers, Greek
and Latin, to transmit to posterity her perfections and his own
boundless love. But precious time was lost in dreams of the
impossible, and swift fate overtook him before any of them
crystallized. Instead of the splendid temple that was to last forever,
only a few crumbling stones of his villa on the lonely heights of
Tusculum are left to-day to recall the young, beautiful, and gifted
woman in whose “sweet conversation” the great statesman could
“drop all his cares and troubles.” Here she looked for the last time
across the Campagna upon the shining array of marbles, columns,
and palaces that were the pride of Rome in its glory, and went away
from it all, leaving behind her a fast vanishing name, the fragrance
of a fresh young life, and a desolate heart.
But if these charming pictures reveal a sympathetic side of the
intimate life of the new age, they give us also the shadows that
were creeping over it. The great man, who said so many fine things
and did so many weak ones, has always a tender message for the
little Attica, the daughter of his friend, but he fears the fortune-
hunters, and objects to a husband proposed for her, because he has
paid court to a rich woman who is old and has been several times
married. For his own wife, Terentia, he has less consideration. She is
not facile enough, and finds too much fault with his way of doing
things. Perhaps she presses her influence too far, and fails to pay
proper deference to his authority. To be sure, he calls her “my light,
my darling,” says she is in his thoughts night and day, praises her
ability, and trusts her judgment until his affairs begin to go wrong.
All this, however, does not prevent his sending her away after thirty
years of devotion, and marrying his lovely young ward, who is rich
enough to pay his debts. The latter is divorced in turn because she
does not sufficiently mourn the loss of his idolized daughter, and his
closing years are burdened with the care of restoring her dowry,
which draws from him many a bitter complaint. There is a strange
note of irony in the tone of the much-married, much-sinning, and
perfidious Antony, who publicly censures the “Father of his Country”
for repudiating a wife with whom he has grown old. But the high-
spirited Terentia solaced herself with his friend Sallust, and married
one or two others after his death. Evidently no hearts were broken,
as she lived some years beyond a century.
In the literary circles of a later generation we hear of noble ladies
of serious tastes meeting to converse about the poets. Juvenal and
Martial ridiculed them as Molière did the Précieuses centuries
afterward. “I hate a woman who never violates the rules of
grammar, and quotes verses I never knew,” says Juvenal. “A
husband should have the privilege of committing a solecism.” He
objects to being bored at supper with impertinent questions about
Homer and Vergil, or misplaced sympathy with the unhappy Dido,
who, no doubt, ought to have taken her desertion philosophically
instead of making it so unpleasant for her hero lover. He even
suggests that women blessed with literary tastes should put on the
tunics of the bolder sex and do various mannish things which are
sometimes recommended by the satirists of to-day. It is with a sigh
of regret that he recalls the “good old days of poverty and morals,”
when it was written on a woman’s tombstone that she “spun wool
and looked after her house.” “A good wife is rarer than a white
crow,” is his amiable conclusion.
All this goes to prove that in the first century women passed
through the same ordeal of criticism as they have in the nineteenth.
The satirists of to-day are no kinder to the Dante and Browning
clubs, and mourn equally over the “good old days” when they were
in no danger of a rival or a critic at the breakfast-table. Doubtless
that age had its little pretensions and affectations, as every other
great age has had—not excepting our own. There were women who
talked platitudes about things of which they knew nothing, and men
who did the same thing or worse on other lines laughed at them just
as men do now at similar follies, though often without the talent of a
Juvenal or a Martial, and, it is fair to say, without their incredible
coarseness. The coming of women into literature has made the latter
practically impossible.
But even Martial had his better moments. He speaks of a young
girl who has the eloquence of Plato, the austerity of the
philosophers, and writes verses worthy of a chaste Sappho. One
might imagine that his enthusiasm had run away with his prejudices,
if Martial could be supposed to have had enthusiasms, as he warmly
congratulates the friend who is to marry this prodigy. Possibly he
preferred her as the wife of some one else, as he stipulates for
himself, on another occasion, a wife who is “not too learned.”
There was a great deal to censure in this dilettante world. The
fashionable life of Rome had drifted into hopeless corruption, in spite
of the efforts of good men and women to stem the tide. Long
before, the Senate had ordered a temple to Venus Verticordia, the
Venus that turns hearts to virtue; but the new goddess was not
eminently successful among the votaries of pleasure, who preferred
to offer incense to the more beautiful and less respectable one. The
old patricians had their faults and sins, but the new moneyed
aristocracy was a great deal worse, as the noblesse oblige had
ceased to exist, and there were no moral ideals to take the place of
it. “First let us seek for fortune,” says the satirist; “virtue is of no
importance. Hail to wealth!” “His Majesty Gold” was as powerful as
he is to-day, and his worship was coarser. “He says silly things, but
money serves for intellect,” remarks a wit of the time. Literature
declined with morals. “These are only stores and shops, these
schools in which wisdom is sold and supplied like goods,” said one
who mourned over the degeneracy of the times. That women should
suffer with the rest was inevitable. They are not faultless; indeed,
they are very simply human. If they are usually found in the front
ranks of great moral movements, they are not always able to stand
individually against the resistless tide which we call the spirit of the
age.

III
The changes which a century or so had wrought in the position
and education of women reacted on manners. The pagan virtues
were essentially masculine ones, and even women had always been
more noted for courage and stoical heroism than for the softer
Christian qualities which are called feminine. In the old days they
had been subservient because they were virtually slaves. For the
same reason they were expected to be blindly obedient. Their servile
attitude toward men was a duty; tradition gave it the force of a
sentiment. Nor did the fact that many Roman women had risen
above their conditions, and shown great dignity and strength, alter
this general relation. It was not in their nature, however, to be timid,
or tender, or clinging. Sensibility was a weakness and a trait of
inferior classes. Love was a passion, or a duty, or a habit, but not a
sentiment. The new woman of the golden age of Augustus was
strong, dignified, self-poised, and commanding. The fashionable set
accented this tone and became haughty, arrogant, and masculine in
manner. It looked upon the conservative matron who was disposed
to preserve old traditions as antiquated. The change, in its various
gradations, was quite similar to that which passed over Anglo-Saxon
women in the century that has just closed. We also have our golden
mean of poise and dignity, as represented by the conservative who
are yet of the new age in culture, breadth, and intelligence; we, too,
have a few of the emancipated who like to demonstrate their new-
found independence by a defiance of social conventions; then we
have our ultra-fashionable parvenus who fancy arrogance a badge of
position, and pronounced manners a sign of modish distinction. Of
these classes, the first and the last were the most defined in Roman
society, but it is mainly in the last that we find the degeneracy of
morals which made a large section of it infamous.
Of the women of the conservative ruling classes we have pleasant
glimpses in the letters of Pliny, which picture an intelligent and
sympathetic family life that constantly recalls our own. His wife,
Calphurnia, sets his verses to music and sings them, greatly to his
surprise and delight. She has a taste for books and commits his
compositions to memory. He says she has an excellent
understanding, consummate prudence, and an affection for her
husband that attests the purity of her heart. It is not his person but
his character that she loves, so he is assured of lasting harmony.
When absent, he entreats her to write every day, even twice a day.
If he has only his wife and a few friends at his summer villa, he has
some author to read to them, and afterward music or an interlude.
Then he walks with his family and talks of literature. The charming
little domestic traits, so unconsciously revealed in these letters, are
as creditable to himself as to the wife who adores him. There is a
touch of sentiment that we rarely find in pagan life.
These letters throw many side-lights on other households. Pliny
has a word of profound sympathy for the sorrow of a friend who
lived thirty-nine cloudless years with a wife whose virtues would
have made her “an ornament even in former times,” and was left
desolate by her loss. We find a touching allusion to the fortitude of
Fannia, who has the qualities of a “heroine of ancient story.” She was
banished for supplying materials for her husband’s “Life.” “Pleasing
in conversation, polite in address, venerable in demeanor,” she is
quoted as a model for wives. She was a worthy granddaughter of
the famous Arria, who refused to survive her husband when he was
condemned to death, and gave him courage by first plunging the
dagger into her own breast, saying, “Pætus, it does not hurt,” as she
drew it out and passed it to him. Another of his friends lost a
daughter of fourteen, who, he says, combined the wisdom of age
and the discretion of a matron with the sprightliness of youth and
the sweetness of virgin modesty. She was devoted to reading and
study, caring little for amusements. Pompeius Saturninus read him
some letters from his wife which were so fine that he thought he
was listening to Plautus and Terence in prose; indeed, he suspects
the husband of writing them himself, in spite of his denial, though he
considers him deserving of equal praise, whether he wrote them or
trained her genius to such a degree of perfection. It is worthy of
note that, while these letters show us the intelligent companionship
between husbands and wives which had taken the place of the old
relations of superior and inferior, as well as the fine attainments of
many women and the honor in which they were held, they also pay
the highest tribute to virtues that still shone brightly in an age when
it had become a fashion to speak of them as things of the past.
“Morals are gone,” said Seneca. “Evil triumphs. All virtue, all
justice, is disappearing. That is what was exclaimed in our fathers’
days, what they are repeating to-day, and what will be the cry of our
children.” If we may credit the history of that age, there was reason
enough for the cry, but there was another side to the dark picture.
This critical philosopher did not spare the vices and follies of the
great ladies of his time, and any tribute of his to the talents and
virtues of women is of value, as it is not likely to incline to the side
of flattery. In his letters of consolation to his mother, Helvia, he
mentions the fact that she is “learned in the principles of all the
sciences,” in spite of the old-fashioned notions of his father, who
“feared letters as a means of corruption for women.” More liberal
himself, he exhorts her to return to them as “a source of safety,
consolation, and joy.” To Marcia he writes in a tone that is
appreciative, though a trifle patronizing: “Who dares say that nature
in creating woman has gifted her less generously, or restricted for
her the sphere of the virtues? Her moral strength, do not doubt it,
equals ours.... Habit will render her, like us, capable of great efforts,
as of great griefs.” An incident of his own family life is worth
repeating, as it shows a pleasant and not uncommon side of
domestic relations at a period when Roman morals were at the
worst. His wife was solicitous for his health. “As my life depends
upon hers,” he says, “I shall follow her advice, because in doing so I
am caring for her. Can anything be more agreeable than to feel that
in loving your wife you are loving yourself?” The devotion on her
side was more heroic, if less reasonable. When he was politely
advised to take himself to some other world where he would be less
in the way of his civil superiors, she insisted upon dying with him. He
tried in vain to dissuade her, but, finding her persistent, he gave his
consent, saying: “Let the fortitude of so courageous an end be alike
in both of us, but let there be more in your death to win fame.” Her
veins were opened with his; but Nero did not need to get rid of her
just then, so the attendants quickly bound her wounds and saved
her. This devoted Paulina had only the satisfaction of sacrificing her
color, as she was noted for her extreme pallor to the end of her life.
We have other letters from a thinker and seer of the next century,
which give us as sympathetic an insight into the private life of the
Antonines as Cicero and Pliny give us into that of their own
contemporaries in the two preceding ones. Nowhere does Marcus
Aurelius appear in so human a light as in this correspondence with
Fronto, the distinguished master and philosopher, which came to us
at a late day out of the silence of ages. It reveals one of the rare
friendships of the world, and incidentally throws a pleasant light on
the family relations of the wisest and simplest of emperors.