not be sundered from their wives: how indignant
Hersilia, the attendant of her daughter, who instituted for us all the
rites of marriage. Our fathers fought the Sabines to obtain marriages and
made peace through the intercession of their wives and children; they
administered oaths and made sundry treaties for this very purpose: you
are bringing all that labor to naught. Why is it? Do you desire to live
forever apart from women, as the vestal virgins live apart from men?
Then you should be punished like them if you break out into any act of
lewdness.

[-6-] "I know that my words to you appear bitter and harsh. But, first of
all, reflect that physicians, too, treat many patients by burning when
they can not recover health in any other way. In the second place, it is
not my wish or my pleasure to speak them; and hence it is that I have
this further reproach to bring against you, that you have provoked me to
this discourse. If you dislike what I say, do not continue the conduct
for which you are inevitably reprimanded. If my speech wounds any of you,
how much more do your acts wound both me and all the rest of the Romans.
If you vexed in very truth, make a change, that so I may praise and
reward you. You yourselves are aware that I am not irritable by nature
and that I have done, subject to human limitations, all the acts proper
for a good lawgiver. Never in old times was any one permitted to neglect
marriage and the rearing of children, but from the very outset, at the
first establishment of the government, strict laws were passed regarding
them: since then many decrees have been issued by both the senate and the
people, which it would be superfluous to enumerate. I have increased the
penalties for the disobedient in order that through fear of becoming
liable to them you may be brought to your senses. To those that obey I
have offered more numerous and greater prizes than are given for any
other display of excellence, that if for no other reason at least by
this one you may be persuaded to marry and beget children. Yet you, not
striving for any of the recompenses nor fearing any of the penalties,
have despised all these measures, have trodden them all under foot, as
if you were not even inhabitants of the city. You declare you have taken
upon yourselves this free and continent life, without wives and without
children. You are no different from robbers or the most savage [-7-]
beasts. It is not your delight in a solitary exi