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
rival. On an occasion when matrons had been burdened with heavy taxes
and none of their husbands would fight the measure, Hortensia pleaded
the case publicly with great success. All writers speak of her action
and the eloquence of her speech with great admiration.[144] We hear also
of a certain Gaia Afrania, wife of a Senator; she always conducted her
case herself before the supreme judge, "not because there was any lack
of lawyers," adds her respectable and scandalised historian,[145] "but
because she had more than enough of impudence."

Quintilian mentions several cases of women being sued[146]; Pliny tells
how he acted as attorney for some[147]; and the Law Books will supply
any one curious in the matter with abundant examples.[148] A quotation
from Pliny[149] will give an idea of the kind of suit a woman might
bring, and the great interest aroused thereby: "Attia Viriola, a woman
of illustrious birth and married to a former supreme judge, was
disinherited by her eighty-year-old father within eleven days after he
had brought Attia a stepmother. Attia was trying to regain her share of
her father's estate. One hundred and eighty jurors sat in judgment. The
tribunal was crowded, and from the higher part of the court both men and
women strained over the railings in their eagerness to hear (which was
difficult), and to see (which was easy)."

[Sidenote: Partiality of the law to women.]

There were many legal qualifications designed to help women evade the
strict letter of the law when this, if enforced absolutely, would work
injustice. Ignorance of the law, if there was no c