sent. What,
think you, was the reason? That for which our ancestors made no
provision by law on this subject: there was no luxury existing which
needed to be restrained. As diseases must necessarily be known before
their remedies, so passions come into being before the laws which
prescribe limits to them. What called forth the Licinian law,
restricting estates to five hundred acres, but the unbounded desire
for enlarging estates? What the Cincian law, concerning gifts and
presents, but that the plebeians[1] had become vassals and tributaries
to the senate? It is not therefore in any degree surprising, that no
want of the Oppian law, or of any other, to limit the expenses of the
women, was felt at that time, when they refused to receive gold and
purple that was thrown in their way, and offered to their acceptance.
If Cineas were now to go round the city with his presents, he would
find numbers of women standing in the public streets to receive them.
There are some passions, the causes or motives of which I can no
way account for. For that that should not be lawful for you which
is permitted to another, may perhaps naturally excite some degree of
shame or indignation; yet, when the dress of all is alike, why should
any one of you fear, lest she should not be an object of observation?
Of all kinds of shame, the worst, surely, is the being ashamed of
frugality or of poverty; but the law relieves you with regard to both;
since that which you have not it is unlawful for you to possess. This
equalization, says the rich matron, is the very thing that I cannot
endure. Why do not I make a figure, distinguished with gold and
purple? Why is the poverty of others concealed under this cover of
a law, so that it should be thought that, if the law permitted, they
would have such things as they are not now able to procure? Romans,
do you wish to excite among your wives an emulation of this sort,
that the rich should wish to have what no other can have; and that
the poor, lest they should be despised as such should extend their
expenses beyond their means? Be assured, that when a woman once begins
to be ashamed of what she ought not to be ashamed of, she will not be
ashamed of what she ought. She who can, will purchase out of her own
purse; she who cannot, will ask her husband. Unhappy is the husband,
both he who complies with the request, and he who does not; for what
he will not give himself, he will see given by another. Now, they
ope