When so many women were engaged in business, occasions for lawsuits would naturally arise; we shall see next what power the woman had to sue.  It was a standing maxim of the law that a woman by herself could not conduct a case in court.[133] She had to act through her agent, if she was independent, otherwise through her guardian.  The supreme judge at Rome and the governor in a province assigned an attorney to those who had no agent or guardian.[134] But in this case again custom and the law were at variance.  Various considerations will make it clear that women who sued had, in practice, complete disposal of the matter.  I.—­A woman who was still under the power of her father must, according to law, sue with him as her agent or appoint an agent to act with him.  Nevertheless, a father could do nothing without the consent of his daughter.[135] Obviously, then, so far as the power of the father was concerned, a woman had practically the management of her suit.  II.—­The husband had no power.  If he tried to browbeat her as to what to do, she could send him a divorce, a privilege which she had at her beck and call, as we have seen; and then she could force him to give her any guardian she wanted.[136] III.—­That the authority of other guardians was in practice a mere formality, I have already proved (pp. 7 and 8).

From these considerations it is clear that the woman’s wishes were supreme in the conduct of any suit.  Moreover, the law expressly states that women may appoint whatever attorneys or agents they desire, without asking the consent of their legal guardians[137]; and thus they were at liberty to select a man who would manage things as they might direct.  There were cases where even the strict letter of the law permitted women to lay an action on their own responsibility alone:  if, when a suit for recovery of dowry was brought, the father was absent or hindered by infirmities[138]; if the woman sued or was sued to get or render an account of property managed in trust[139]; to avenge the death of a parent or children, or of patron or patroness and their children[140]; to lay bare any matter pertaining to the public grain supply[141]; and to disclose cases of treason.[142]

[Sidenote:  Instances of women pleading in public and suing.]

We read of many cases of women pleading publicly and bringing suit.  Indeed, according to Juvenal—­who is, however, a pessimist by profession—­the ladies found legal proceedings so interesting that bringing suit became a passion with them as strong as it had once been among the Athenians.  Thus Juvenal[143]:  “There is almost no case in which a woman wouldn’t bring suit.  Manilia prosecutes, when she isn’t a defendant.  They draw up briefs quite by themselves, and are ready to cite principles and authorities to Celsus [a celebrated lawyer of that time].”  Of pleading in public one of the celebrated instances was that of Hortensia, daughter of the great orator Quintus Hortensius, Cicero’s