Roman history has described with great minuteness the extraordinary virtue and the excellent domestic habits of Lucretia, her sad fate, and the sympathy it awakened, and the indignation it aroused in the hearts of all good citizens. Her sacred regard for her own honor--that honor insulted by a corrupt nobleman, an unprincipled monarch--proved a death-blow to kingly power for a season in Rome. Whether the story of Lucretia be a cunningly-devised fable, or veritable, sober history, is not material, since it illustrates a principle well substantiated by all history and observation, that insults to female virtue and honor do not escape unavenged. Cleopatra, the beautiful and accomplished Egyptian queen, subdued successively the hearts of two stern Romans--heroes who had met the wildest shocks of battle undismayed, and who had never quailed with fear, nor scarce melted with pity. In her magic fingers hung, at an important crisis, the fate of the Roman empire. Her influence was as destructive as her presence was potential and commanding. These are marked instances of woman's influence, and of her characteristics. The reign of Octavius Cæsar was the golden age of Rome. At that period, the almost unlimited control of the civilized world was hers. Her colonies were planted on every shore of the known world--the Roman eagles triumphed in every clime. Three continents paid her tribute. One intervening sea washed their shores and wafted her fleets. Extensive sway and the contributions of wealthy nations had not only rendered her proud and insolent, but corrupt, and, in a measure, cruel. The principal distinctions in her society were those of wealth and power, rather than of talents, sobriety, and virtue. The corrupt and the vile were, for the most part, the esteemed and highly favored.