This statement, however, applies more particularly to the city of Rome and to Italy. In the outlying parts of that country and in the provinces, the storm was hardly felt. Women who lived out of the sight of Nero and whose male friends did not hold office were secure from imperial cruelty and caprice. Their lives ran on in the ordinary manner of civilization. They were betrothed and married according to the ancient ceremonies; for customs changed slowly away from the metropolis. They worshipped the old gods, though they heard now and again of a certain sect of fanatical people who courted their own destruction from the officials, if not from Olympus, by denouncing the ancient worship. They managed their homes and their slaves, read their books, as we have seen in the case of Calpurnia, the wife of Pliny, and visited the amphitheatre. The only anxieties of the women who belonged to the unofficial class were those incidental to the rule of the proconsuls who were sent to govern them in the name of the emperor. Sometimes these men were lustful; frequently they were tyrannical; they were always rapacious. The people were oppressed to meet the demands of the tax collectors; but these were ills that were always with them and represented a condition of affairs that was normal. In his biography of his father-in-law, Agricola, who was himself a provincial, Tacitus says: "He married Domitia Decidiana, a lady of illustrious descent, from which connection he derived credit and support in his pursuit of greater things. They lived together in admirable harmony and mutual affection, each giving the preference to the other; a conduct equally laudable in both, except that a greater degree of praise is due to a good wife, in proportion as a bad one deserves the greater censure." What more touching expression of family affection can there be found than the words Tacitus wrote in respect to Agricola's death? Apostrophizing him, he says: "But to myself and your daughter, besides the affliction of losing a parent, the aggravating affliction remains that it was not our lot to watch over your sickbed. With what attention should we have received your last instructions, and graven them on our hearts! This is our sorrow. Everything, doubtless, O best of parents, was administered for your comfort and honor, while a most affectionate wife sat beside you; yet fewer tears were shed upon your bier, and in the last light which your eyes beheld, something was wanting." There is nothing in modern times superior to this in chaste and cultivated sympathy.