She might go out freely; this she did generally in a litter.  She was never excluded from theaters, even though the Roman government tried as best it could for a long period to temper in its people the passion for spectacular entertainments.  She could frequent public places and have recourse directly to the magistrates.  We have record of the assembling and of demonstrations made by the richest women of Rome in the Forum and other public places, to obtain laws and other provisions from the magistrates, like that famous demonstration of women that Livy describes as having occurred in the year 195 B.C., to secure the abolition of the Oppian Law against luxury.

What more?  We have good reason for holding that already under the republic there existed at Rome a kind of woman’s club, which called itself conventus matronarum and gathered together the dames of the great families.  Finally, it is certain that many times in critical moments the government turned directly and officially to the great ladies of Rome for help to overcome the dangers that menaced public affairs, by collecting money, or imploring with solemn religious ceremonies the favor of the gods.

One understands then, how at all times there were at Rome women much interested in public affairs.  The fortunes of the powerful families, their glory, their dominance, their wealth, depended on the vicissitudes of politics and of war.  The heads of these families were all statesmen, diplomats, warriors; the more intelligent and cultivated the wife, and the fonder she was of her husband, the intenser the absorption with which she must have followed the fortunes of politics, domestic and foreign; for with these were bound up many family interests, and often even the life of her husband.

[Illustration:  Eumachia, a public priestess of ancient Rome.]

Was the Roman family, then, the reader will demand at this point, in everything like the family of contemporary civilization?  Have we returned upon the long trail to the point reached by our far-away forebears?

No.  If there are resemblances between the modern family and the Roman, there are also crucial differences.  Although the Roman was disposed to allow woman judicial and economic independence, a refined culture, and that freedom without which it is impossible to enjoy life in dignified and noble fashion, he was never ready to recognize in the way modern civilization does more or less openly, as ultimate end and reason for marriage, either the personal happiness of the contracting parties or their common personal moral development in the unifying of their characters and aspirations.  The individualistic conception of matrimony and of the family attained by our civilization was alien to the Roman mind, which conceived of these from an essentially political and social point of view.  The purpose of marriage was, so to speak, exterior to the pair.  As untouched by any spark