History of Rome, Vol III by Titus Livius

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48. Finding horses in readiness at a spot where he had ordered, he
traversed by night a district which the Africans denominated Byzacium,
and arrived, in the morning of the following day, at a castle of his
own between Acholla and Thapsus. There a ship, ready fitted out and
furnished with rowers, took him on board. In this manner did Hannibal
leave Africa, lamenting the misfortunes of his country oftener than
his own. He sailed over, the same day, to the island of Cercina, where
he found in the port a number of merchant ships, belonging to the
Phoenicians, with their cargoes; and on landing was surrounded by a
concourse of people, who came to pay their respects to him; on which
he gave orders that, in answer to any inquiries, it should be said
that he had been sent as ambassador to Tyre. Fearing, however, lest
some of these ships might sail in the night to Thapsus or Adrumetum,
and carry information of his having been seen at Cercina, he ordered
a sacrifice to be prepared, and the masters of the ships, with the
merchants, to be invited to the entertainment, and that the sails and
yards should be collected out of the ships to form a shade on shore
for the company at supper, as it happened to be the middle of summer.
The feast of the day was as sumptuous, and well attended, as the time
and circumstances allowed; and the entertainment was prolonged, with
plenty of wine, until late in the night. As soon as Hannibal saw an
opportunity of escaping the notice of those who were in the harbour,
he set sail. The rest were fast asleep, nor was it early, next day,
when they arose from their sleep, full of the illness of intoxication;
and then, when it was too late, they set about replacing the sails in
the ships, and fitting up the rigging, which employed several hours.
At Carthage, those who were accustomed to visit Hannibal met in a
crowd, at the porch of his house; and when it was publicly known that
he was not to be found, the whole multitude assembled in the forum,
eager to gain intelligence of the man who was considered as the first
in the state. Some surmised that he had fled, as the case was; others,
that he had been put to death through the treachery of the Romans;
and there was visible in the expression of their countenances, that
variety which might naturally be expected in a state divided into
factions, whereof each supported a different interest. At length
intelligence was brought, that he had been seen at Cercina.

49 The Roman ambassadors represented to the council, that "proof had
been laid before the senate at Rome, that formerly king Philip had
been moved, principally by the instigation of Hannibal, to make war on
the Roman people; and that lately, Hannibal had, besides, sent letters
and messages to king Antiochus, that he had entered into plans for
driving Carthage to revolt, and that he had now gone no whither but to
king Antiochus. That he was a man who would never be content, until
he had excited war in every part of the globe. That such conduct ought
not to be suffered to pass with impunity, if the Carthaginians wished
to convince the Roman people that none of those things were done
with their consent, or with the approbation of the state." The
Carthaginians answered, that they were ready to do whatever the Romans
required them.

Hannibal, after a prosperous voyage, arrived at Tyre; where, as a man
illustrated by every description of honours, he was received by those
founders of Carthage, as if in a second native country, and here he
staid a few days. He then sailed to Antioch; where, hearing that the
king had already left the place, he procured an interview with his
son, who was celebrating the solemnity of the games at Daphne, and
who treated him with much kindness; after which, he set sail without
delay. At Ephesus, he overtook the king, who was still hesitating in
his mind, and undetermined respecting a war with Rome: but the
arrival of Hannibal proved an incentive of no small efficacy to the
prosecution of that design. At the same time, the inclinations of the
Aetolians also were alienated from the Roman alliance in consequence
of the senate having referred to Quinctius their ambassadors, who
demanded Pharsalus and Leucas, and some other cities, in conformity
with the first treaty.

BOOK XXXIV.

_The Oppian law, respecting the dress of the women, after much
debate, repealed, notwithstanding it was strenuously supported
by Marcus Porcius Cato, the consul. The consul's successes in
Spain. Titus Quinctius Flamininus finishes the war with the
Lacedaemonians and the tyrant Nabis; makes peace with them,
and restores liberty to Argos. Separate seats at the public
games, for the first time, appointed for the senator. Colonies
sent forth. Marcus Porcius Cato triumphs on account of his
successes in Spain. Further successes in Spain against the
Boians and Insubrian Gauls. Titus Quinctius Flamininus,
having subdued Philip, king of Macedonia, and Nabis, the
Lacedaemonian tyrant, and restored all Greece to freedom,
triumphs for three days. Carthaginian ambassadors bring
intelligence of the hostile designs of Antiochus and
Hannibal._

1. Amid the serious concerns of important wars, either scarcely
brought to a close or impending, an incident intervened, trivial
indeed to be mentioned, but which, through the zeal of the parties
concerned, issued in a violent contest. Marcus Fundanius and Lucius
Valerius, plebeian tribunes, proposed to the people the repealing of
the Oppian law. This law, which had been introduced by Caius Oppias,
plebeian tribune, in the consulate of Quintus Fabius and Tiberius
Sempronius, during the heat of the Punic war, enacted that "no woman
should possess more than half an ounce of gold, or wear a garment of
various colours, or ride in a carriage drawn by horses, in a city,
or any town, or any place nearer thereto than one mile; except on
occasion of some public religious solemnity." Marcus and Publius
Junius Brutus, plebeian tribunes, supported the Oppian law, and
declared, that they would never suffer it to be repealed; while
many of the nobility stood forth to argue for and against the motion
proposed. The Capitol was filled with crowds, who favoured or opposed
the law; nor could the matrons be kept at home, either by advice or
shame, nor even by the commands of their husbands; but beset every
street and pass in the city, beseeching the men as they went down to
the forum, that in the present flourishing state of the commonwealth,
when the private fortune of all was daily increasing they would suffer
the women to have their former ornaments of dress restored. This
throng of women increased daily, for they arrived even from the
country towns and villages; and they had at length the boldness to
come up to the consuls, praetors, and magistrates, to urge their
request. One of the consuls, however, they found especially
inexorable--Marcus Porcius Cato, who, in support of the law proposed
to be repealed, spoke to this effect:--

2. "If, Romans, every individual among us had made it a rule to
maintain the prerogative and authority of a husband with respect to
his own wife, we should have less trouble with the whole sex. But now,
our privileges, overpowered at home by female contumacy, are, even
here in the forum, spurned and trodden under foot; and because we are
unable to withstand each separately, we now dread their collective
body. I was accustomed to think it a fabulous and fictitious tale,
that, in a certain island, the whole race of males was utterly
extirpated by a conspiracy of the women. But the utmost danger may be
apprehended equally from either sex, if you suffer cabals, assemblies,
and secret consultations to be held: scarcely, indeed, can I
determine, in my own mind, whether the act itself, or the precedent
that it affords, is of more pernicious tendency. The latter of these
more particularly concerns us consuls, and the other magistrates:
the former, yourselves, my fellow-citizens. For, whether the measure
proposed to your consideration be profitable to the state or not, is
to be determined by you, who are about to go to the vote. As to the
outrageous behaviour of these women, whether it be merely an act of
their own, or owing to your instigations, Marcus Fundanius and Lucius
Valerius, it unquestionably implies culpable conduct in magistrates. I
know not whether it reflects greater disgrace on you, tribunes, or on
the consuls: on you certainly, if you have, on the present occasion,
brought these women hither for the purpose of raising tribunitian
seditions; on us, if we suffer laws to be imposed on us by a secession
of women, as was done formerly by that of the common people. It was
not without painful emotions of shame, that I, just now, made my way
into the forum through the midst of a band of women. Had I not been
restrained by respect for the modesty and dignity of some individuals
among them, rather than of the whole number, and been unwilling that
they should be seen rebuked by a consul, I should have said to them,
'What sort of practice is this, of running out into public, besetting
the streets, and addressing other women's husbands? Could not
each have made the same request to her husband at home? Are your
blandishments more seducing in public than in private; and with other
women's husbands, than with your own? Although if the modesty of
matrons confined them within the limits of their own rights, it did
not become you, even at home, to concern yourselves about what laws
might be passed or repealed here.' Our ancestors thought it not
proper that women should perform any, even private business, without
a director; but that they should be ever under the control of parents,
brothers, or husbands. We, it seems, suffer them, now, to interfere in
the management of state affairs, and to introduce themselves into the
forum, into general assemblies, and into assemblies of election. For,
what are they doing, at this moment, in your streets and lanes? What,
but arguing, some in support of the motion of the plebeian tribunes;
others, for the repeal of the law? Will you give the reins to their
intractable nature, and their uncontrolled passions, and then expect
that themselves should set bounds to their licentiousness, when you
have failed to do so? This is the smallest of the injunctions laid on
them by usage or the laws, all which women bear with impatience: they
long for liberty; or rather, to speak the truth, for unbounded freedom
in every particular. For what will they not attempt, if they now come
off victorious?

3. "Recollect all the institutions respecting the sex, by which
our forefathers restrained their undue freedom, and by which they
subjected them to their husbands; and yet, even with the help of all
these restrictions, you can scarcely keep them within bounds. If,
then, you suffer them to throw these off one by one, to tear them all
asunder, and, at last, to be set on an equal footing with yourselves,
can you imagine that they will be any longer tolerable by you? The
moment they have arrived at an equality with you, they will have
become your superiors. But, forsooth, they only object to any new
law being made against them: they mean to deprecate, not justice,
but severity. Nay, their wish is, that a law which you have admitted,
established by your suffrages, and confirmed by the practice and
experience of so many years to be beneficial, should now be repealed;
that is, that, by abolishing one law, you should weaken all the
rest. No law perfectly suits the convenience of every member of the
community: the only consideration is, whether, upon the whole, it be
profitable to the greater part. If because a law proves obnoxious to
a private individual, that circumstance should destroy and sweep it
away, to what purpose is it for the community to enact general laws,
which those, with reference to whom they were passed, could presently
repeal? I should like, however, to hear what this important affair
is which has induced the matrons thus to run out into public in this
excited manner, scarcely restraining from pushing into the forum and
the assembly of the people. Is it to solicit that their parents, their
husbands, children, and brothers may be ransomed from captivity
under Hannibal? By no means: and far be ever from the commonwealth so
unfortunate a situation. Yet, even when such was the case, you refused
this to their prayers. But it is not duty, nor solicitude for their
friends; it is religion that has collected them together. They
are about to receive the Idaean Mother, coming out of Phrygia from
Pessinus! What motive, that even common decency will allow to be
mentioned, is pretended for this female insurrection? Why, say they,
that we may shine in gold and purple; that, both on festal and common
days, we may ride through the city in our chariots, triumphing over
vanquished and abrogated law, after having captured and wrested from
you your suffrages; and that there may be no bounds to our expenses
and our luxury.

4. "Often have you heard me complain of the profuse expenses of the
women--often of those of the men; and that not only of men in private
stations, but of the magistrates: and that the state was endangered by
two opposite vices, luxury and avarice; those pests, which have
been the ruin of all great empires. These I dread the more, as the
circumstances of the commonwealth grow daily more prosperous and
happy; as the empire increases; as we have now passed over into Greece
and Asia, places abounding with every kind of temptation that can
inflame the passions; and as we have begun to handle even royal
treasures: so much the more do I fear that these matters will bring
us into captivity, rather than we them. Believe me, those statues from
Syracuse were brought into this city with hostile effect. I already
hear too many commending and admiring the decorations of Athens and
Corinth, and ridiculing the earthen images of our Roman gods that
stand on the fronts of their temples. For my part I prefer these
gods,--propitious as they are, and I hope will continue to be, if
we allow them to remain in their own mansions. In the memory of
our fathers, Pyrrhus, by his ambassador Cineas, made trial of the
dispositions, not only of our men, but of our women also, by offers of
presents: at that time the Oppian law, for restraining female luxury,
had not been made; and yet not one woman accepted a present. 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
openly solicit favours from other women's husbands; and, what is more,
solicit a law and votes. From some they obtain them; although, with
regard to yourself, your property, or your children, they would be
inexorable. So soon as the law shall cease to limit the expenses of
your wife, you yourself will never be able to do so. Do not suppose
that the matter will hereafter be in the same state in which it was
before the law was made on the subject. It is safer that a wicked man
should even never be accused, than that he should be acquitted; and
luxury, if it had never been meddled with, would be more tolerable
than it will be, now, like a wild beast, irritated by having been
chained, and then let loose. My opinion is, that the Oppian law ought,
on no account, to be repealed. Whatever determination you may come to,
I pray all the gods to prosper it."

[Footnote 1: Previous to the passing of the Cincian law, about ten
years before this time, the advocates who pleaded in the courts
received fees and presents: and as all or most of these were senators,
the plebeians are here represented as tributary to the senate. By the
above law they were forbidden to receive either fees or presents.]

5. After him the plebeian tribunes, who had declared their intention
of protesting, added a few words to the same purport. Then Lucius
Valerius spoke thus in support of the measure which he himself had
introduced:--"If private persons only had stood forth to argue for and
against the proposition which we have submitted to your consideration,
I for my part, thinking enough to have been said on both sides, would
have waited in silence for your determination. But since a person of
most respectable judgment, the consul, Marcus Porcius, has reprobated
our motion, not only by the influence of his opinion, which, had he
said nothing, would carry very great weight, but also in a long and
careful discourse, it becomes necessary to say a few words in answer.
He has spent more words in rebuking the matrons, than in arguing
against the measure proposed; and even went so far as to mention a
doubt, whether the matrons had committed the conduct which he censured
in them spontaneously or at our instigation. I shall defend the
measure, not ourselves: for the consul threw out those insinuations
against us, rather for argument's sake than as a serious charge.
He has made use of the terms cabal and sedition; and, sometimes,
secession of the women: because the matrons had requested of you, in
the public streets, that, in this time of peace, when the commonwealth
is flourishing and happy, you would repeal a law that was made against
them during a war, and in times of distress. I know that these and
other similar strong expressions, for the purpose of exaggeration, are
easily found; and, mild as Marcus Cato is in his disposition, yet in
his speeches he is not only vehement, but sometimes even austere. What
new thing, let me ask, have the matrons done in coming out into public
in a body on an occasion which nearly concerns themselves? Have
they never before appeared in public? I will turn over your own
Antiquities,[1] and quote them against you. Hear, now how often they
have done the same, and always to the advantage of the public. In the
earliest period of our history, even in the reign of Romulus, when the
Capitol had been taken by the Sabines, and a pitched battle was fought
in the forum, was not the fight stopped by the interposition of the
matrons between the two armies? When, after the expulsion of the
kings, the legions of the Volscians, under the command of Marcius
Coriolanus, were encamped at the fifth stone, did not the matrons turn
away that army, which would have overwhelmed this city? Again, when
Rome was taken by the Gauls, whence was the city ransomed? Did not
the matrons, by unanimous agreement, bring their gold into the public
treasury? In the late war, not to go back to remote antiquity, when
there was a want of money, did not the funds of the widows supply the
treasury? And when even new gods were invited hither to the relief of
our distressed affairs, did not the matrons go out in a body to the
sea-shore to receive the Idaean Mother? The cases, you will say, are
dissimilar. It is not my purpose to produce similar instances; it is
sufficient that I clear these women of having done any thing new. Now,
what nobody wondered at their doing in cases which concerned all in
common, both men and women, can we wonder at their doing in a case
peculiarly affecting themselves? But what have they done? We have
proud ears, truly, if, though masters disdain not the prayers of
slaves, we are offended at being asked a favour by honourable women.

[Footnote 1: Alluding to a treatise by Cato, upon the antiquities of
Italy, entitled "Origines," which is the word used here by Valerius.]

6. "I come now to the question in debate, with respect to which the
consul's argument is twofold: for, first, he is displeased at the
thought of any law whatever being repealed; and then, particularly,
of that law which was made to restrain female luxury. His former
argument, in support of the laws in general, appeared highly becoming
of a consul; and that on the latter, against luxury, was quite
conformable to the rigid strictness of his morals. There is,
therefore, a danger lest, unless I shall show what, on each subject,
was inconclusive, you may probably be led away by error. For while
I acknowledge, that of those laws which are instituted, not for any
particular time, but for eternity, on account of their perpetual
utility, not one ought to be repealed; unless either experience evince
it to be useless, or some state of the public affairs render it so; I
see, at the same time, that those laws which particular seasons have
required, are mortal, (if I may use the term,) and changeable with the
times. Those made in peace are generally repealed by war; those made
in war, by peace; as in the management of a ship, some implements are
useful in good weather, others in bad. As these two kinds are thus
distinct in their nature, of which kind does that law appear to be
which we now propose to repeal? Is it an ancient law of the kings,
coeval with the city itself? Or, what is next to that, was it written
in the twelve tables by the decemvirs, appointed to form a code of
laws? Is it one, without which our ancestors thought that the honour
of the female sex could not be preserved? and, therefore, have we also
reason to fear, that, together with it, we should repeal the modesty
and chastity of our females? Now, is there a man among you who does
not know that this is a new law, passed not more than twenty years
ago, in the consulate of Quintus Fabius and Tiberius Sempronius? And
as, without it, our matrons sustained, for such a number of years,
the most virtuous characters, what danger is there of their abandoning
themselves to luxury on its being repealed? For, if that law had been
passed for the purpose of setting a limit to the passions of the sex,
there would be reason to fear lest the repeal of it might operate as
an incitement to them. But the real reason of its being passed,
the time itself will show Hannibal was then in Italy, victorious at
Cannae: he already held possession of Tarentum, of Arpi, of Capua, and
seemed ready to bring up his army to the city of Rome. Our allies
had deserted us. We had neither soldiers to fill up the legions, nor
seamen to man the fleet, nor money in the treasury. Slaves, who were
to be employed as soldiers, were purchased on condition of their price
being paid to the owners at the end of the war. The farmers of the
revenues had declared, that they would contract to supply corn and
other matters, which the exigencies of the war required, to be paid
for at the same time. We gave up our slaves to the oar, in numbers
proportioned to our properties, and paid them out of our own incomes.
All our gold and silver, in imitation of the example given by the
senators, we dedicated to the use of the public. Widows and minors
lodged their money in the treasury. It was provided by law that we
should not keep in our houses more than a certain quantity of wrought
gold or silver, or more than a certain sum of coined silver or brass.
At such a time as this, were the matrons so eagerly engaged in
luxury and dress, that the Oppian law was requisite to repress such
practices; when the senate, because the sacrifice of Ceres had been
omitted, in consequence of all the matrons being in mourning, ordered
the mourning to end in thirty days? Who does not clearly see, that
the poverty and distress of the state, requiring that every private
person's money should be converted to the use of the public, enacted
that law, with intent that it should remain in force so long only as
the cause of enacting the law should remain? For if all the decrees
of the senate and orders of the people, which were then made to answer
the necessities of the times, are to be of perpetual obligation, why
do we refund their money to private persons? Why do we contract for
public works for ready money? Why are not slaves brought to serve in
the army? Why do not we, private subjects, supply rowers as we did
then?