IV

It is needless to recall here the notorious women who followed in the

footsteps of Julia, and added to all her sins a cruelty which she had

not. The world is familiar enough with the crimes of Messalina, the

second Agrippina, Poppæa, and others whose names have become a by-word

and a reproach to womanhood. Men, and sometimes women, gravely tell

us that these moral monsters are a measure of Roman standards, and

a logical result of the culture of the feminine intellect. That two

things exist at the same time does not prove that one is the result of

the other. The facts in this case, indeed, prove quite the contrary.

It would be idle to say that the weaker half of the human family hold

a monopoly of the virtues, or that it is in the nature of things for

them to pass unscathed through the fiery ordeal of a corrupt age whose

supreme end lies in pleasures of sense. But even in Rome at its worst

there was a great deal of pure family life, and its conservation rested

with women. I have quoted elsewhere from the private letters of

distinguished Romans who have given us pleasant glimpses of refined,

accomplished, and learned women, as free from the taint of moral laxity

as our own; and this when men made no claims to morality themselves. To

the great body of Roman women a spotless virtue was among their most

cherished traditions. So far from finding their increased intelligence

a cause of the decline in morals, it is a fact that those of the

highest character and ability constantly suffered indignity and wrong,

because their presence was a restraint upon their unscrupulous masters.

Long domination had fostered the egotism of men to such an extent that

they could not brook opposition of any sort, and it was the ignorant

and flexible who bent the most easily to their will, even when it led

them to the last extreme of moral subservience. Only a fearless courage

and a strong conviction could venture to take high ground against the

fashionable sins of men in power. It is always more or less true that

when a dominant class lowers its moral standards, it likes to ostracize

those who even tacitly reflect upon it.

Examples of this in Roman life are so numerous that two thousand

years have not sufficed to hide them all. Of women in high places who

suffered death or banishment for their virtues, the list is a long

one. Caligula decreed the same honors to his grandmother, the pure and

high-minded Antonia, which had been given to Livia. But when this

dignified matron, worthy daughter of the gentle Octavia, presumed to

reprove him for his vices, he starved her to death. Vitellius banished

his mother, Sextilia, a woman of admirable character, because she wept

at his elevation to the throne. This was a reproach which he could not

brook, and, failing to break her heart by his cruelties, he took her

life, or made it so intolerable that she was forced to end it herself.

It was impossible for a good woman to stay in the palace, and the

Empress Galeria begged permission to retire to a modest dwelling on the

Aventine. Domitian ordered a vestal, charged with scandalous acts which

were denied and not proved, to be buried alive; but he consistently

marked virtue for persecution, hesitated at no crime, and declared

a woman to be “a natural slave, with man for her divinely appointed

master.” Carrying this to its logical conclusion, he made the Palatine

unsafe for any woman. That the great heart of Roman womanhood was on

the side of loyalty and virtue, and looked upon conjugal infidelity

as a sin to be frowned upon even in men, is shown by their attitude

toward Nero when he sent away his young, lovely, and innocent wife,

Octavia, to marry the most dissolute woman of the time. Many men

remonstrated, and women rose in a body to demand her return. For the

moment he thought it best to yield to the popular clamor, but he soon

invented a pretext to send her to the long silence from which there

is no return. Yet she was beautiful, of cloudless fame, and had lived

hardly twenty years! Roman history is full of instances of moral

heroism on the part of women, that had no counterpart among men, and

of feminine virtue held at the expense of life. Servilia, the youthful

daughter of Soranus, took upon herself a fault for which it was sought

to compass her father’s death, and not being able to save him, died

with him. Women in great numbers retired in sad dignity from a society

whose current of vice they were powerless to change. A stately and

pathetic figure is Pomponia Græcina, who wore mourning for forty years,

and never smiled after her friend Julia, the daughter of Drusus, was

murdered by Messalina. It was a pitiless world in which neither virtue

nor life was safe, but it had its heroines, and they were not few.

Nor can the number of divorces be placed to the account of women. When

a Julius Cæsar takes his tenderly loved daughter from her husband and

marries her to another man in the interest of his own ambitions; when

an Augustus makes laws against immorality, yet divorces an innocent

wife who objects to his own infidelities, and puts in her place a

beautiful woman of unsullied fame, whom he has taken from a worthy

man; when both of these rulers of the world compel good citizens to

divorce the consorts they possibly love, in order to dispose of one

or the other for personal ends or the good of the State--it is hardly

worth while to hold helpless women responsible for conditions made and

enforced by men in power, who are called wise and think themselves

passably good. The most that can be said is that women of knowledge and

character are less likely to bear wrong and abuse silently, but they

are more likely to uphold the dignity of the family and to ignore the

petty vanities and jealousies which are among the most prolific causes

of divorce. A cultivated intellect does not necessarily imply good

morals, but, other things being equal, an educated woman is less easily

led into wrong, as she has more resources and is better fitted to stand

on her own feet; unfortunately, this is precisely what her critics in

the past have not wished her to do.

With so many conspicuous examples in high places, it is hardly strange

that divorces became deplorably common. “Does anybody blush at a

divorce,” says one, “since illustrious and noble women compute their

years, not by the number of consuls, but by the number of husbands they

have had?” We hear of a woman who was the twenty-first wife of her

twenty-third husband. The pretexts were often slight. It was said of

Mæcenas that he had been divorced a thousand times, though he had but

one wife, as he loved her and always married her over again. The woman

who had been but once married was honored as a _univira_. She

was too often, however, like a goddess worshiped from afar by men who

found both interest and pleasure in the number of their wives. Much of

the trouble was due to the fortune-hunters, who did not scruple to use

any means to get rid of a wife and retain her dowry, at the expense of

her fair name. Even good women were so wholly at the mercy of false

charges that Antoninus made a law that no man could bring suit against

his wife for immorality unless he could prove his own fidelity. We know

that wise and virtuous women were often forced to seclude themselves

from the aggressions of wicked men against whose machinations they were

unable to find protection.

There was one law, however, which might be considered to advantage by

some of our own legislators. It had been decreed that no one should

marry sooner than six months after a divorce. Augustus extended the

time to eighteen months. We talk much and with a fine consciousness

of superior virtue about the chaotic state of Roman marriages. What

will our fortieth-century moralist who reads present history, as

photographed from day to day in the blazing journals, say of the

decadence of a civilization in which people may marry two hours after

divorce, or find themselves some fine morning released from their

marriage bonds without knowing it? And we are an eminently moral people.

On the influence of the Roman women let the Romans speak for

themselves. It was proposed in the Senate that men should not be

permitted to take their wives into the provinces, as they had too much

power with the soldiers, interfered in settling business affairs, and

made another center of government--indeed, they sometimes “presided

at the drill of cohorts and the evolutions of the legions,” besides

dividing the homage. The majority of the senators objected to this

bill, and pronounced its author “no fit censor.” An able and eloquent

man, in reply to it, said that “much of the sternness of antiquity had

been changed into a better and more genial system.” A few concessions

had been made to the wants of women, but “in other respects man and

wife share alike.” There might be some scheming women, but were the

magistrates free from various unworthy passions, and was this a

reason why none should be sent to the provinces? If husbands were

sometimes corrupted by their wives, were single men any better? “It

is idle to shelter our own weakness under other names; for it is

the husband’s fault if the wife transgresses propriety.” This wise

orator was sustained by eminent men who gave their own fortunate

experiences, and the bill was lost. Such a tribute to the helpfulness

and strong character of the Roman woman may be commended to a few of

our enlightened thinkers who, curiously enough, use the low standards

of men who never pretended to be moral, and the frailties of dependent

women who were not permitted to be so, or of a class that has always

appealed to the weaknesses of men since the beginning of the world,

to prove the degeneracy of society under the influence of feminine

intelligence! It was never the woman of strong intellectual fiber and

serious interests that Rome had to fear. It was another class, that did

not, in any sense, represent her either in intelligence or character.

V

The wicked side of the Roman woman--and this was sometimes very wicked

indeed--has been sufficiently emphasized. It is more agreeable and

perhaps more profitable to consider her better side. Her talent was

essentially administrative, and we find many illustrations of it among

those who were conspicuous in public life. There were strong and wise

women who had great power; as a rule, it was held wisely. Many of

them, indeed most of them, brought moral questions to bear upon State

problems, with a keen discriminating insight into conditions that

troubled the hearts of wise men. Their number was small, as no woman

below the rank of an empress was eligible to the smallest position

of influence, aside from the religious offices, which were largely

perfunctory; but it was sufficient to show a quality of womanhood that

was not only strong, but intrinsically fine and noble.

Of these, as we have seen, the most striking representative was Livia.

Among those who followed more or less in her footsteps was Plotina,

the able and accomplished wife of Trajan. Trained in the philosophy of

the Stoics, her head was turned neither by prosperity nor misfortune.

She entered the palace, on her husband’s elevation to the throne, with

serene dignity, and said that she could leave it with equal calmness.

With less ambition than the first empress, she had a finer moral sense,

also the gravity and firmness of a matron of the old school. She loved

truth and justice better than the pageantry of courts, and ignored

the claims of an artificial society. A woman of brilliant intellect,

noble character, and exalted aims, she led a simple life in the midst

of luxury, and used her power not only to raise the tone of morals and

to foster a taste for letters, but to expose political corruptions,

suppress abuses, diminish unjust taxes, and promote financial reforms.

It was through her influence that Hadrian was adopted, a favor which he

recognized by extending her authority in his reign, and writing hymns

in her praise. The trace of asceticism in her character and manners did

not please the idlers who liked to bask in the sunshine of a gay and

luxurious court. She was censured and talked about, with little enough

reason as it seems, as no records have left a shadow on her reputation.

Her fault, in the eyes of bad men, lay in her moral force. To frown

upon vice, to oppose corruption in high places, was an unwarranted

interference with their natural rights. But good men sustained her. At

her death she was placed in the ranks of the gods and honored with a

temple dedicated to the “Mother of the People.”

A more conspicuous example of the ability of the women who figured

in the public life of Rome is found in Julia Domna, the Syrian wife

of Septimius Severus, who is said to have owed his success to her

wise counsels. She was not simply an ambitious woman who schemed for

place and power. To a genius for diplomacy she added the fascinations

of beauty, wit, and imagination. She had a knowledge of history,

philosophy, geometry, and the sciences of her time, was a patron of

art, and made her court a center of all that was left of literature

and culture in an age of decadence. Her husband evidently did not

object to a learned woman, as he had a special admiration for Arria

“because she read Plato.” Then this clever wife--who was called

“Julia the philosopher,” surrounded herself with savants, and loved

to discuss great subjects--put her versatile intellect to his service

and advancement. Her youth was not free from rumors of follies, but

no woman of note escaped these, even if she were pure as Diana. Her

father was a “priest of the Sun,” and she was always a student, with

a tendency toward Oriental mysticism. She ruled wisely and made the

fortune of her family. In her last years she sought refuge from many

sorrows in the resources of her intellect, but these failed to bring

her happiness. The wicked Caracalla, who did not profit by his mother’s

wisdom, killed his brother in her arms, and finally broke her heart.

Her sister, Julia Mæsa, shared her abilities, and, with the aid of

her daughters, secured the throne for her grandson. She was no doubt

ambitious, but was known as wise, just, and moderate. This family,

which ruled Rome for many years, was a remarkable one, but its credit

was sustained mainly by its women. One of the daughters of Julia Mæsa

was Soæmias, who was the first woman to take her place in the Senate

and attach her name to legislative decrees. She also presided over

the Little Senate, a sort of “woman’s club,” which regulated morals,

dress, etiquette, and other matters pertaining to her sex. It was

accused of gossip and scandal; but as this accusation has been made

against every association of women, from the coterie of Sappho to the

modern sewing-society and the last luncheon club, it cannot be taken

too seriously. Let the man who lounges about the clubs of to-day,--as

his Greek and Roman predecessors did about the porticos, gymnasia, or

baths,--and has never heard or repeated any gossip of his fellow-men

and -women, throw the first stone.

But Soæmias had a bad son, the Heliogabulus of infamous note, whom

she could not save or reform, and she was wise enough to pave the

way for the succession of her sister’s more reputable one, after his

death. This sister, Mamæa, was virtually regent during the minority

of Alexander Severus, whose purity of character and conduct she

guarded with the greatest care. She tried to apply the moral ideals

of womanhood to the men of the period, and found the task a difficult

and thankless one. Without assuming the trappings of power, she

administered the affairs of the empire with wisdom and judgment. An

able, humane, and thoughtful woman of conservative tendencies and

limited ambition for herself, she declined to sit in the Senate, but

chose a body of just and learned counselors to decide upon public

questions, while she discussed Christianity with her friend Origen,

founded a school for the free education of orphans, gave her son a

serious training for his future responsibilities, and worked for the

moral betterment of a world that did not wish to be bettered in that

way. Her standards were too high, and she reformed too much for people

who found license and corruption more to their interest and liking.

The Senate was jealous of her wise and just counselors, who could not

be used as tools for unscrupulous ends. Impatient, at last, of their

interference, and incensed at a woman who wished a moral government,

it passed a law excluding women from its ranks and “devoting to the

infernal gods the head of the wretch by whom this decree should be

violated.” With singular consistency, however, it voted her an

apotheosis after ridding itself of the restraining influence of her

virtues by practically sending her to a violent death.