The Romans, who borrowed most of their customs from the Greeks, also
followed them in that of endeavoring to conciliate love by the power of
philtres and charms; a fact of which we have not the least room to
doubt, as they are in Virgil and some other of the Latin poets so many
instances that prove it. But it depends not altogether on the testimony
of the poets: Plutarch tells us, that Lucullus, a Roman General, lost
his senses by a love potion; and Caius Caligula, according to Suetonius,
was thrown into a fit of madness by one which was given him by his wife
Caesonia; Lucretius too, according to some authors, fell a sacrifice to
the same folly. The Romans, like the Greeks, made use of these methods
mostly in their affairs of gallantry and unlawful love; but in what
manner they addressed themselves to a lady they intended to marry, has
not been handed down to us, and the reason we suppose is, that little or
no courtship was practised among them; women had no disposing power of
themselves, to what purpose was it then to apply to them for their
consent? They were under perpetual guardianship, and the guardian having
sole power of disposing of them, it was only necessary to apply to him.
In the Roman authors, we frequently read of a father, a brother, or a
guardian, giving his daughter, his sister, or his ward, in marriage;
but we do not recollect one single instance of being told that the
intended bridegroom applied to the lady for her consent; a circumstance
the more extraordinary, as women in the decline of the Roman empire had
arisen to a dignity, and even to a freedom hardly equalled in modern
times.