The form of the elder Arria towers grandly above her fellows, but many other Roman wives in the days of the early Cæsars and of Domitian exhibited a very similar fidelity. Over the dark waters of the Euxine, into those unknown and inhospitable regions from which the Roman imagination recoiled with a peculiar horror, many noble ladies freely followed their husbands, and there were some wives who refused to survive them.(634) The younger Arria was the faithful companion of Thrasea during his heroic life, and when he died she was only persuaded to live that she might bring up their daughters.(635) She spent the closing days of her life with Domitian in exile;(636) while her daughter, who was as remarkable for the gentleness as for the dignity of her character,(637) went twice into exile with her husband Helvidius, and was once banished, after his death, for defending his memory.(638) Incidental notices in historians, and a few inscriptions which have happened to remain, show us that such instances were not uncommon, and in Roman epitaphs no feature is more remarkable than the deep and passionate expressions of conjugal love that continually occur.(639) It would be difficult to find a more touching image of that love, than the medallion which is so common on the Roman sarcophagi, in which husband and wife are represented together, each with an arm thrown fondly over the shoulder of the other, united in death as they had been in life, and meeting it with an aspect of perfect calm, because they were companions in the tomb. In the latter days of the Pagan Empire some measures were taken to repress the profligacy that was so prevalent. Domitian enforced the old Scantinian law against unnatural love.(640) Vespasian moderated the luxury of the court; Macrinus caused those who had committed adultery to be bound together and burnt alive.(641) A practice of men and women bathing together was condemned by Hadrian, and afterwards by Alexander Severus, but was only finally suppressed by Constantine. Alexander Severus and Philip waged an energetic war against panders.(642) The extreme excesses of this, as of most forms of vice, were probably much diminished after the accession of the Antonines; but Rome continued to be a centre of very great corruption till the influence of Christianity, the removal of the court to Constantinople, and the impoverishment that followed the barbarian conquests, in a measure corrected the evil.