ed that the son was alive and better, and very often, when he
asked how the boy was getting on, she answered, 'He has slept well,
and shown a good appetite.' Then, when the tears which she had so long
kept back proved too much for her, she used to leave the room and give
herself up to grief. When at last she had dried her eyes and composed
her countenance she returned to the room. When her husband had taken
part in an intended revolt against Claudius, he was to be carried as a
prisoner across the Adriatic to Rome. He was on the point of
embarking, when Arria begged the soldiers to take her on board with
him. 'I presume,' she said, 'you mean to allow an ex-consul a few
attendants of some kind, to give him his food, and to put on his
clothes and shoes. I will do all that myself.'" Her request being
refused, "she hired a fishing-smack and followed the big vessel in
this tiny one." When Claudius ordered the husband to put himself to
death, Arria took a dagger, stabbed herself in the breast, drew the
weapon out, and handed it to him with the words: "Paetus, it does not
hurt. It is what you are about to do that hurts."

Arria doubtless is a rare type of heroine. But also of the quiet
domesticated wife we have a description from the same writer.
Unfortunately the letter is one of the most priggish of all the rather
self-complacent epistles written by that thoroughly respectable and
estimable man; but that fact takes nothing from the information for
which we are looking. Pliny is writing to his own wife's aunt. "You
will be very glad to learn that Calpurnia is turning out worthy of her
father, of yourself, and of her grandfather. She has admirable sense
and is an excellent housekeeper; she is fond of me, which speaks well
for her character. Through her affection for me she has also developed
a taste for literature. She possesses my books and is always reading
them; she even learns them by heart. When I am to make a speech in
court, she is all anxiety; when I have made it, she is all joy. She
arranges a string of messengers to let her know what effect I produce,
what applause I win, and what result I have obtained. If I give a
reading, she sits in the next room behind a curtain and listens
greedily to the compliments paid to me. She even sets my verses to
music and sings them to the harp, with no professional to teach her,
but only love, who is the best of masters. I have therefore every
reason to hope that our harmony will not