This step for the better was due to the greater intelligence of the Roman women. Recognizing that the vast influence exerted by many courtesans over the prominent men of Hellas was not due solely to the beauty and grace of these women, but also to their refinement and knowledge of literature, music and art, the Roman ladies, to attach their husbands to their homes, eagerly endeavored to acquire similar merits. And so they devoted themselves to the culture of everything that makes life interesting and beautiful. We know the names of many Roman women, who in this way became real companions of their husbands. Hear, for instance, what Pliny, the famous naturalist, wrote about Kalpurnia, his wife, in one of his letters. Having praised her keen intellect, moderation and affection, he continues: "In addition to these virtues comes her deep interest in literature. My own books she not only possesses them, but reads them over and over again, until she knows them by heart. If I have to give a lecture, she sits close by behind a curtain, listening eagerly to the appreciation shown to me." In similar terms Plutarch speaks of the wives of Pompejus and Kato; Tacitus of the wife of Agricola, of Cornelia, the mother of the Graches, of Aurelia and Atia, the mothers of Cæsar and Augustus.

While such cultured women retained a strong sense of duty towards their home and family, the influence of Hellas, however, made itself felt also in other ways. Its universal corruption and immorality had made it easy for Rome to subjugate the whole country. But during the occupation of the country the Romans became acquainted with the luxurious life and lascivious debaucheries in which the rich Greeks indulged in full disregard of the dreadful distress of the lower classes. Many Roman officers, consuls and prefects, morally unfit to resist the allurements of such loose life, fell victims to all sorts of vices and crimes. And when, after several years, they returned to Italy, they generally took with them, besides enormous quantities of stolen valuables, numbers of courtesans and slaves.

With the expansion of the empire these evils increased accordingly. And so Rome became finally permeated with foreign elements, manners and vices.

Even religious life became demoralized. Not only the voluptuous worship of Aphrodite or Venus was transplanted to Roman cities, but also the obscene service of Astarte, the Phoenician goddess of the begetting agencies. The orgies, committed in the ostentatious temples of these deities, formed indeed a striking contrast against the chaste worship of Vesta.

By all these conditions the life of the Roman women became deeply affected. The works of contemporary writers abound with complaints about the growing emancipation of

the female sex, the neglect of their duties, and the ever increasing love of amusement. Comparing the women of his time with those of former days, Kolumella remarks: "Now, our women are sunk so deeply in luxury and laziness, that they are not even pleased to superintend the spinning and weaving. Disdaining home-made goods, they always seek in their perverted mania to extort from their husbands more elaborate ones, for which often great sums and even fortunes must be paid. No wonder that they regard housekeeping as a burden and that they do not care to stay at their country seats even for a few days. Because the ways of the former Roman and Sabine housewives are considered oldfashioned, it is necessary to engage a houskeeper, who takes charge of the duties of the mistress."

Young girls liked to stroll through the shady colonades of the temples and through the groves, that surrounded them. Here they met their beaus, who in the art of flirt were just as cunning as are the Lotharios of to-day. The ladies of the aristocrats or patricians enjoyed to be carried about in sedanchairs, as in these comfortable means of transportation they had full chance to show themselves to the public richly dressed and in graceful positions. As these sedan-chairs were always provided with costly canopies and curtains, and shouldered by fine-looking Syrian slaves, clad in red and gold, such a sight could not fail to attract general attention and to become the talk of the town.

That this mode of shopping and paying calls became a real fashion may be concluded from a remark of Seneca, who grumbles that those husbands, who forbid their wives to be carried about and exhibit themselves in such manner are considered as unpolished and contemptible boors.

As appears from the works of Juvenal, Sueton, Plutarch, Martial and others the growing passion for emancipation, notoriety and excitement, combined with the rage for gossip was responsible for the production of many unwomanly characters. We hear the complaint that scores of women boldly intrude into the meetings of men and often compete with them, in their drinking bouts. These authors also condemn that such females eagerly mix with officers and soldiers, to discuss with them the details and events of the war, while others try to spy out all domestic secrets, only to blab them out again in the street.

Ovid too expresses his disappointment about the changes going on in the life of the fair sex. "Disdaining matronly seclusion, our ladies patronize circus, theatre and arena, eager to see and to be seen. Like an army of ants or like a swarm of bees they hurry in elaborate attires. to the beloved plays, often in such crowds that I am utterly unable to guess their numbers."

This inordinate greediness for enjoyments grew in time into a real intoxication of the senses. Nothing indicates this more than the concentration of all thoughts, of the patricians as well as of the plebejans, of the men as well as of the women, of the free as well as of the slaves on the questions which party would win in the public games, how many hundred gladiators would fight each other, or how many thousands of wild beasts would be set loose in the arena.

When we read that such public shows sometimes lasted for weeks and months, and that all regions of the known world were ransacked in order to secure some new and more cruel feature, that would set people wild with excitement, it will be clear that the susceptible mind of women must have suffered most. And indeed with the increasing degeneration of social life the female sex became more and more demoralized. As among the foreign slaves as well as among the freed and enfranchised were many fine-looking and accomplished persons, unfaithfulness and adultery increased. Especially among the ladies of the upper classes the "nicely curled procurator," who managed the property of such women, served only too often as a "Cicisbeo," in which role he figures in many satires and comedies. Men and women met in the public bath houses as well as in watering-places like Bajae, an ill-reputed resort, where libertinism and dissipation flourished, and from which it was said, that no virgin, who went there, ever returned as a virgin.

Bajae and Rome were also the places where the mysterious rites of the Bachanalia found the greatest number of devotees. Originally a festival in honor of Dionysos, the Greek god of spring and wine, it degenerated into wild orgies after its introduction to Rome. This is what Livy writes about it: "The mysterious rites were at first imparted to a few, but were afterwards communicated to great numbers, both men and women. To their religious performances were added the pleasures of wine and feasting, to allure a greater number of proselytes. When wine, lascivious discourse, night, and the mingling of the sexes had extinguished every sentiment of modesty, then debaucheries of every kind were practiced, as every person found at hand that sort of enjoyment to which he was disposed by the passion most prevalent in his nature. Nor were they confined to one species of vice, the promiscuous intercourse of free-born men and women. From this storehouse of villany proceeded false witnesses, counterfeit seals, false evidences, and pretended discoveries. In the same place, too, were perpetrated secret murders and other unmentionable infamies. To consider nothing unlawful was the grand maxim of their religion."

It was in Bajae where Marcellus, the son-in-law of

Emperor Augustus, was poisoned by intriguing Livia; and here Agrippina, the mother of Nero, was clubbed to death after an attempt by her son to shipwreck and drown her during a cruise in a magnificent gondola had failed.

In time adultery, poisoning and murder prevailed among the Roman society to such an extent, that men became afraid to enter matrimony, and addicted themselves to illicit inter

course.

art.

This period of moral degeneration was, however, distinguished by a most wonderful rise of literature, science and At no time before so many beautiful temples, basilicas, theatres, arenas, public buildings, palaces and country-seats were erected. And all these buildings were adorned with an abundance of mosaics, mural paintings and works of sculpture. There were also numbers of brilliant writers, poets, dramatists, orators, law-makers and men who made themselves famous as naturalists or philosophers.

Of the philosophers the so-called Stoics, among them Seneca, Lucan, Epictetus and Musonius Rufus formed a school, which exerted a wide and active influence upon the world at the busiest and most important time in ancient history. This school was remarkable for its anticipation of modern ethical conceptions, for the lofty morality of its exhortations to forgive injuries and overcome evil with good. It also preached the obligation to universal benevolence on the principle that all men are brethren. Regarding virtue as the sole end, to be gained mainly by habit and training, the Stoics furthermore succeeded in reforming matrimonial life as well as the conceptions about women. In these efforts they were aided later on by an ethical movement of still greater power, namely Christianity.