is life, she would also have him die in her arms; but lest they
should fail, and should quit their hold in the fall through fear, she
tied herself fast to him by the waist, and so gave up her own life to
procure her husband's repose. This was a woman of mean condition; and,
amongst that class of people, 'tis no very new thing to see some examples
of rare virtue:

"Extrema per illos
Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit."

["Justice, when she left the earth, took her last
steps among them."--Virgil, Georg., ii. 473.]

The other two were noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarely
lodged.

Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a consular person, was the mother of
another Arria, the wife of Thrasea Paetus, he whose virtue was so
renowned in the time of Nero, and by this son-in-law, the grandmother of
Fannia: for the resemblance of the names of these men and women, and
their fortunes, have led to several mistakes. This first Arria, her
husband Caecina Paetus, having been taken prisoner by some of the Emperor
Claudius' people, after Scribonianus' defeat, whose party he had embraced
in the war, begged of those who were to carry him prisoner to Rome, that
they would take her into their ship, where she would be of much less
charge and trouble to them than a great many persons they must otherwise
have to attend her husband, and that she alone would undertake to serve
him in his chamber, his kitchen, and all other offices. They refused,
whereupon she put herself into a fisher-boat she hired on the spot, and
in that manner followed him from Sclavonia. When she had come to Rome,
Junia, the widow of Scribonianus, having one day, from the resemblance of
their fortune, accosted her in the Emperor's presence; she rudely
repulsed her with these words, "I," said she, "speak to thee, or give ear
to any thing thou sayest! to thee in whose lap Scribonianus was slain,
and thou art yet alive!" These words, with several other signs, gave her
friends to understand that she would undoubtedly despatch herself,
impatient of supporting her husband's misfortune. And Thrasea, her
son-in-law, beseeching her not to throw away herself, and saying to her,
"What! if I should run the same fortune that Caecina has done, would you
that your daughter, my wife, should do the same?"--"Would I?" replied
she, "yes, yes, I would: if she had lived as long, and in as good
understanding wi