Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. PaulTucker, T. G. (Thomas George)
History
Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul
Tucker, T. G. (Thomas George)
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Rome -- Civilization; Rome -- Social conditions
But though there were many such Marcias, there were other women of a
very different character. There is, for instance, Flavia, who has a
perfect frenzy for "manly" sports, and practises all manner of
athletic exercises, wrestling and fencing like any man, and perhaps
becoming infatuated and practically running away with some brawny but
hideous gladiator. She also indulges frankly in mixed bathing. There
is Domitia, who is too fond Of promenading in the colonnades and
temples, where a _cavaliere servente_, ostensibly her business
man--though he does not look like it--may regularly be seen carrying
her parasol. When at home, she neglects her attire and plasters her
face with dough in order to smooth out the wrinkles, so that she may
give to anybody but her own family the benefit of her beauty. There is
the ruinously extravagant Pollia, whose passion for jewels and fine
clothes runs her deeply into debt, for which, fortunately, her husband
is not responsible. There is Canidia, who is shrewdly suspected of
having poisoned more than one husband and who has either divorced or
been divorced by so many that she has had eight of them in five years,
and dates events by them instead of in the regular way by the
consulships: "Let me see. That was in the year in which I was married
to So-and-So." There is Asinia, whose selfishness is so great, and her
affection so frivolous, that she will weep over a sparrow and "let her
husband die to save her lap-dog's life." All these women are most
likely childless, and many a noble Roman house threatens to become
extinct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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