The laws of the Romans, though according a greater degree of freedom to woman than had hitherto been granted, were still not only imperfect, but were not properly carried out, in many instances, where it suited venal judges to side with wealthy libertines who might have it in their power to bestow a favor.  Professedly, each Roman had but one wife; but divorces, on most frivolous pretexts, were of frequent occurrence, granted in favor of one who wished to gratify his licentious passions without rebuke.  Slavery was yet in force; and it gave ample opportunity for the practice of this injustice, even upon the free-born Roman woman.  Every true Roman held his wife’s or his daughter’s honor sacred, and would resent to the death any attempt to violate it; but, by the connivance of corrupt officials, the protection of an upright father was rendered of no avail, by a perjurer being found who would appear before the proper tribunal and swear the maid or woman in question to be his slave.  The decision once given in the libertine’s favor, there was no longer hope for her—­she was lost forever.

Not always, however, would Roman freemen tamely brook open injustice, much less shame, without revenging it, though they died in doing so.  The case of Appius—­who was himself both the libertine and judge—­is in point.  Having set his licentious eyes upon the beautiful Virginia—­daughter of Virginius, a centurion of the army—­and having in vain sought to obtain possession of her person by tampering with the matron who conveyed her to and from her school, he induced an equally licentious individual, one Claudius, to claim her as his slave, and bring the matter before himself for decision.  In vain the anguished father asserted that Virginia was his child.  With an air of apparent impartiality, Appius decreed that she belonged to Claudius, who thereupon proceeded to remove her.  The father begged that they might at least be allowed to take leave of each other, which request was granted, on condition of their doing so in the presence of the oppressor.  Drawing the girl, now nearly dead from fright, toward himself, and also toward the shambles, adjoining which they were, he snatched thence a knife, and, before any suspected his intention, stabbed her to the heart, crying, “This alone can preserve your honor and your freedom."[E]

The fearful deed of the centurion is appalling; but remember his ideas of right and wrong were veiled in pagan darkness.  He took the life of his child to save her from a fate incomparably worse than that of death; and made his name historic by doing so.  Thousands of fathers have found their efforts to protect the innocence of their daughters as unavailing as did the unhappy Virginius, unless, like him, they shortened life.  The victims, too, are as little free-will agents in the matter as Virginia would have been; and many thousands of daughters have fallen, not by their father’s hand to save their honor, but by cruel deception, and died to all that was beautiful or pure on earth, and to every hope of heaven.