ase in the earlier ages of Rome. Romulus even
permitted husbands to kill their wives, if they found them drinking
wine.

Fabius Pictor relates, that the parents of a Roman lady, having detected
her picking the lock of a chest which contained some wine, shut her up
and starved her to death.

Women were liable to be divorced by their husbands almost at pleasure,
provided the portion was returned which they had brought along with
them. They were also liable to be divorced for barrenness, which, if it
could be construed into a fault, was at least the fault of nature, and
might sometimes be that of the husband.

A few sumptuary laws, a subordination to the men, and a total want of
authority, do not so much affect the sex, as to be coldly and
indelicately treated by their husbands.

Such a treatment is touching them in the tenderest part. Such, however
we have reason to believe, they often met with from the Romans, who had
not learned, as in modern times to blend the rigidity of the patriot,
and roughness of the warrior, with that soft and indulging behavior, so
conspicuous in our modern patriots and heroes.

Husbands among the Romans not only themselves behaved roughly to their
wives, but even sometimes permitted their servants and slaves to do the
same. The principal eunuch of Justinian the Second, threatened to
chastise the Empress, his master's wife, in the manner that children are
chastised at school, if she did not obey his orders.

With regard to the private diversions of the Roman ladies, history is
silent. Their public ones, were such as were common to both sexes; as
bathing, theatrical representations, horse-races, shows of wild beasts,
which fought against one another, and sometimes against men, whom the
emperors, in the plenitude of their despotic power, ordered to engage
them.

The Romans, of both sexes, spent a great deal of time at the baths;
which at first, perhaps, were interwoven with their religion, but at
last were only considered as refinements in luxury. They were places of
public resort, where people met with their acquaintances and friends,
where public libraries were kept for such as chose to read, and where
poets recited their works to such as had patience to hear.

In the earlier periods of Rome, separate baths were appropriated to each
sex. Luxury, by degrees getting the better of decency, the men and women
at last bathed promiscuously together. Though this indecent manner of
bathing was