In those times, not even the simplest farmstead was without its statuary; and we may well believe that, as Tertulla, in the courts of Phalacrine, superintended the education of the future builder of the Colosseum, she could point to examples of sculptured beauty to illustrate those ideas of art which were included in every Roman's training. In the great common room, where the work of the house was done, and where, on winter evenings, the slaves were kept busy with useful occupations, Polla presided, as had the matrons of the old days. In the atrium she entertained her rural neighbors in simple style; and there also she sometimes lectured her son, who greatly displeased her by his tardiness in putting off his boyish ways. She was ambitious for him, and longed to hurry him away to Rome, that in the stir of the city or the camp he might win renown for the Vespasian name. Polla little understood that the time her son spent, idly, as she supposed, watching the teams and cattle about the drinking troughs of the inner court, was fortifying him to withstand the moral dangers of a court of another sort. The rugged, straightforward, simple-mannered soldier, who honored festival occasions by drinking from a silver cup which he treasured as a keepsake from his grandmother, was such an emperor as the Romans had not before seen the like of. Flavia Domitilla was the wife of Vespasian; but she did not survive to participate with him in the imperial dignity. Of her life and character we know little. There is in existence but one likeness of her--a colossal head found near Puteoli and now preserved in the Campana Museum. This gives her the appearance of a strikingly handsome woman, with a suggestion of pride, but not too powerful to overcome the aspect of good nature. Suetonius says that she was at first the mistress of Statilius Capella, a Roman knight. It may seem strange that a man of Vespasian's character should marry a woman who had sustained such a former relation; but in those times, wives with a past history in which their present husbands had played no part were not so rare that they were even remarkable. Domitilla enjoyed by birth all the legal privileges of a Latin woman, but she was not a citizen of Rome until a suit had been brought by her father for her in the courts. Possibly this suit was instituted in regard to her inheritance of property; for the privileges of citizenship, as they related to women, consisted of the ability to receive legacies and bequeath property, and to form such matrimonial unions as would be held valid when brought into question in matters concerning property. It is very likely that the explanation of the fact that Domitilla is spoken of as the mistress rather than the wife of Statilius is to be found in the further fact that, he being a Roman knight and she not yet a citizen of Rome, legal marriage could not take place between the two. Suetonius tells us that after the death of