beyond the region of sober fact. There was much to amend in the morals
of the Roman world. But we must not take the leader of a great moral
reformation as a cool and dispassionate observer." But this observation
amounts to nothing more than a cautionary word against mistaking evils
common to all times for special symptoms of excessive immorality.
Professor Dill practically concedes the truthfulness of contemporary
witnesses, including Jerome, when he says: "Yet, after all allowances,
the picture is not a pleasant one. We feel that we are far away from the
simple, unworldly devotion of the freedmen and obscure toilers whose
existence was hardly known to the great world before the age of the
Antonines, and who lived in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and in
constant expectation of the coming of their Lord. The triumphant Church,
which has brought Paganism to its knees, is very different from the
Church of the catacombs and the persecutions." The picture which Jerome
draws of the Roman women is indeed repulsive, and Professor Dill would
gladly believe it to be exaggerated, but, nevertheless, he thinks that
"if the priesthood, with its enormous influence, was so corrupt, it is
only probable that it debased the sex which is always most under
clerical influence."

But far graver charges cling to the memories of the Roman women. Crime
darkened every household. The Roman lady was cruel and impure. She
delighted in the blood of gladiators and in illicit love. Roman law at
this time permitted women to hold and to control large estates, and it
became a fad for these patrician ladies to marry poor men, so that they
might have their husbands within their power. All sorts of alliances
could then be formed, and if their husbands remonstrated, they, holding
the purse strings, were able to say: "If you don't like it you can
leave." A profligate himself, the husband usually kept his counsel, and
as a reward, dwelt in a palace. "When the Roman matrons became the equal