because she had married out of the patricians, excluded by the matrons from sharing in the sacred rites:  a short altercation ensued, which was afterwards, through the intemperance of passion incident to the sex, kindled into a flame of contention.  Virginia boasted with truth that she had a right to enter the temple of patrician chastity, as being of patrician birth, and chaste in her character, and, besides, the wife of one husband, to whom she was betrothed a virgin, and had no reason to be dissatisfied either with her husband, or his exploits or honours:  to her high-spirited words, she added importance by an extraordinary act.  In the long street where she resided, she enclosed with a partition a part of the house, of a size sufficient for a small chapel, and there erected an altar.  Then calling together the plebeian matrons, and complaining of the injurious behaviour of the patrician ladies, she said, “This altar I dedicate to plebeian chastity, and exhort you, that the same degree of emulation which prevails among the men of this state, on the point of valour, may be maintained by the women on the point of chastity; and that you contribute your best care, that this altar may have the credit of being attended with a greater degree of sanctity, and by chaster women, than the other, if possible.”  Solemn rites were performed at this altar under the same regulations, nearly, with those at the more ancient one; no person being allowed the privilege of taking part in the sacrifices, except a woman of approved chastity, and who was the wife of one husband.  This institution, being afterwards debased by [the admission of] vicious characters, and not only by matrons, but women of every description, sunk at last into oblivion.  During this year the Ogulnii, Cneius and Quintus, being curule aediles, carried on prosecutions against several usurers; whose property being fined, out of the produce, which was deposited in the treasury, they ordered brazen thresholds for the Capitol, utensils of plate for three tables in the chapel of Jupiter, a statue of Jupiter in a chariot drawn by four horses placed on the roof, and images of the founders of the city in their infant state under the teats of the wolf, at the Ruminal fig-tree.  They also paved with square stones the roads from the Capuan gate to the temple of Mars.  By the plebeian aediles likewise, Lucius Aelius Paetus and Caius Fulvius Corvus, out of money levied as fines on farmers of the public pastures, whom they had convicted of malpractices, games were exhibited, and golden bowls were placed in the temple of Ceres.

24.  Then came into the consulship Quintus Fabius a fifth time, and Publius Decius a fourth.  They had been colleagues from the censorship, and twice in the consulship, and were celebrated not more for their glorious achievements, splendid as these were, than for the unanimity which had ever subsisted between them.  The continuance of this feeling I am inclined to think was interrupted by a jarring between the