women were thronging in the same direction, in spite of custom, which
would have kept them at home; in spite even of the commands of many of
their husbands, who were opposed to their frequenting public
assemblies. Not only on one day did the women pour out into all the
avenues leading to the forum, but once and again they thrust themselves
into the presence of the law-makers. Nor were they content to stand or
sit in quiet while their husbands and brothers argued and made eloquent
speeches; they actually solicited the votes of the stronger sex in
behalf of a motion that was evidently very important in their minds.

Of old time, the Romans had thought that women should keep at home, and
that in the transaction of private business even they should be under
the direction of their parents, brothers, or husbands. What had wrought
so great a change that on these days the Roman matrons not only
ventured into the forum, but actually engaged in public business, and
that, as has been said, in many instances, in opposition to those
parents, brothers, and husbands who were in those old times their
natural directors? We shall find the reason by going back to the days
when the cost of the Punic wars bore heavily upon the state. It was
then that a law was passed that no woman should wear any garment of
divers colors, nor own more gold than a half-ounce in weight, nor ride
through the streets of a city in a carriage drawn by horses, nor in any
place nearer than a mile to a town, except for the purpose of engaging
in a public religious solemnity. The spirited matrons of Rome were ever
ready to bear their share of the public burdens, and though some
thought this oppressive, but few murmurs escaped them as they read the
Oppian law, as it was called, when it was passed, for the days were
dark, and the shadow of the defeat at Cannæ was bowing down all hearts,
and their brothers and parents and husbands were trembling, strong men
that they were, at the threatening situation of the state. Now,