Great attention was paid to the education of girls in Greek and Latin literature. Even those of the poorer class received this instruction; for such an accomplishment, especially if assisted by personal attractions, often availed in place of a rich dowry to secure a desirable match. Women also were not rare who, like Sempronia, could write verses of sufficient merit to be mentioned by the serious historians of their times, though unfortunately their productions have not been preserved to us. Mommsen, commenting on the flood of literature which characterized the period of the commencement of the Empire, assures us that "The female world also took a lively part in these literary pursuits; the ladies did not confine themselves to dancing and music, but by their spirit and wit ruled conversation and talked excellently on Greek and Latin literature; and when poetry laid siege to a maiden's heart, the beleaguered fortress not seldom surrendered likewise in graceful verses. Rhythm became more and more the fashionable plaything of the big children of both sexes." If it can be shown that the law of the "survival of the fittest" operates with any degree of inevitability in the preservation of books, we shall be obliged to conclude that few of the writings that owed their existence to the lady authors of ancient Rome were remarkable for their merit. It is difficult even to indulge a natural desire to be gallant by assuming that to the accidents of time may be attributed the loss of much that was worthy of preservation; for the number of female writers who are mentioned in contemporary works as having attained to any great degree of excellence in authorship is remarkably limited. Some, however, there are. Pliny says: "Pompeius Saturninus has lately read to me some letters he says are from his wife. I fancied myself listening to Plautus or Terence in prose. Whether they are his wife's, as he affirms, or his own, as he denies them to be, he is entitled to equal credit: in the one case, for producing such compositions; in the other, for transforming his wife, a mere girl when he married her, into such a learned and finished woman." Martial also tells of a young woman who, he says, had the eloquence of Plato, the austerity of the Porch, and composed verses worthy of a chaste Sappho. Sidonius Apollinaris recites a list of Latin poetesses; but of them all there is only one whose work may be read at the present time. We do not refer to Balbilla, who wisely engraved her verses and also her genealogy upon the leg of the statue of Memnon; the fact that these have endured is attributable solely to the lasting nature of the medium upon which they were written.