Let us return to Portia. There is a beautiful incident related of her final parting from Brutus in the island of Nisida. She was overcome with grief, but refrained from showing it for fear that it might shake her husband's fortitude. But in passing through a hall, a picture which she there saw accidentally betrayed her. It was a representation of Hector parting from Andromache when he went to engage the Greeks. He was in the act of giving his little son Astyanax into her arms, while she fixes her tearful eyes for the last time upon her husband. Portia could not look upon this piece, so suggestive of her own circumstances, without weeping; and every day, as long as she remained in the place, she went to gaze upon it. It was on one of those occasions that Acilius, a friend of Brutus, repeated from Homer the lines where Andromache speaks to Hector: "'But, Hector, you To me are father and are mother too, My brother, and my loving husband true.'" Brutus, sadly smiling, replied, "But I must not answer Portia, as Hector did Andromache: "'Mind you your loom, and to your maids give law.' For though the natural weakness of her body hinders her from doing what only the strength of men can perform, yet she has a mind as valiant and as active for the good of her country as the best of us." As to the time and manner of Portia's death, the ancient writers are not fully agreed? But the best authenticated account is that which is thus represented by Shakespeare: "BRUTUS.--O Cassius! I am sick of many griefs. CASSIUS.--Of your philosophy you make no use, If you give place to accidental evils. BRUTUS.--No man bears sorrow better; Portia is dead. CASSIUS.--Ha!--Portia? BRUTUS.--She is dead. CASSIUS.--How 'scap'd I killing, when I cross'd you so? O insupportable and touching loss!--Upon what sickness? BRUTUS.--Impatient of my absence, And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony Had made themselves so strong;--for with her death These tidings came.--With this she fell distract, And, her attendants absent, swallow'd fire." In Portia and Brutus we see that close and mutual sympathy, than which marriage in any period of the world's history has nothing better to show. The ancient historians took great delight in eulogizing her character and praising her qualities. They are a unit in the belief that, in all points, she was worthy to be the consort of him whom Antony justly honored as "The noblest Roman of them all." VII THE ROMAN WOMAN IN POLITICS