Of course these are first marriages. Let Gratia become a widow, or let her imitate so many of her friends and divorce her husband, and her second spouse will ordinarily be of quite her own choosing; and Calvus, of course, in selecting again, would be completely his own master. =52. A Betrothal in Wealthy Circles.=--Gratia’s daughter Junia is only ten, yet her parents are already beginning to think about betrothals; but only a block up the street there has just been the excitement of an actual wedding. Aulus Statilius Pomponius is only an eques, but the gods have blessed him with a hundred million sesterces ($4,000,000). He and his wife have a daughter who will inherit vast possessions, and wealth is a splendid substitute for lineage. They have found a young Gaius Ulpius Pollio, already in the Senate, who claims a distant cousinship to the Emperor himself. Pollio is none too wealthy and is already a widower, but Statilia and her mother are infinitely delighted at an alliance with the edges of an imperial house. Nothing has lacked, therefore, for an ultra-fashionable wedding, the talk of the entire capital. First came the betrothal, a great social concourse in Pomponius’s atrium, a throng of equites and senators with their wives, jewels flashing, countless tongues gossiping, with Statilia led in by her father to the center of the circle to meet the bridegroom-to-be. Statilia said not a word through the entire proceedings. All Pollio’s dealings were with her father, and in clear voice the two men exchanged the legal formulas: “Do you promise to give your daughter, Statilia to me, to be my wedded wife?” said the younger man. “The gods bring luck! I betroth her.” “The gods bring luck!” After that technically Statilia became a bride-elect; she was a _sponsa_. Either side had legally the right still to break the agreement, but it was socially ruinous to do so. Pollio presented Statilia with various valuable toilet articles, and especially with a ring to be worn on the third finger of the left hand, because everybody said that “a nerve ran directly from this particular finger to the heart.” It was the engagement ring of a later age almost precisely. =53. Adjusting the Dowry.=--Then followed weeks of frantic preparation: the women busy with the things which always have made women busy over weddings long before the days of Romulus and Remus; Pomponius and Pollio with wrestling over the very nice legal adjustments of Statilia’s dowry. How much would the old eques give in all, in cash, land, and banker’s securities? How much for his daughter’s special use? How much as _dos_, the funds which the new son-in-law could touch? How could the property be arranged so that if the marriage ended presently in a divorce (as spiteful wagers were already being laid that it might) the _dos_ could be given back to Statilia without grievous loss of principal?