The Empress Domitia seems to have survived her husband many years; for an inscription, the date of which corresponds with the year 140, mentions that one of her freedmen, after building a temple to her, offers the _decuriones_ of Gabii fifteen thousand sesterces, the income of which was to be spent in keeping the building in repair and in celebrating the birthday of his mistress. The period of Roman history which we have traversed in our study of woman shows the ancient pagan Empire at its best materially and at its worst morally. We are about to enter upon a new epoch. We shall speedily begin to notice premonitions of decline, but we shall not again witness such an absolute and all-prevalent abandonment of the requirements of morality. From the days of Cæsar Augustus down to the end of the reign of Domitian, all that is recorded of Roman women, with a few noble exceptions, is little more than a wearisome repetition of instances of astonishing sensuality. Why was it that the women of this period indulged to such an unnatural and unrestrained degree the grosser appetites? It was not because they were unacquainted with the most emphatic precepts of morality. Their ancestors had idealized feminine chastity as it has been exalted among no other people in the history of the world. The virtue of temperance was taught by their philosophers in the most eloquent language; and the diatribes of their satirists are evidence that the Roman conscience was not wholly at rest in regard to the excesses which were prevalent. How then are we to account for this monotonous orgy of libidinosity?