In the history of Roman women, down to the period which we have now reached, there has been no opportunity to ascertain what the combined influences of culture and peace might accomplish. In the ancient Republic, culture of any appreciable degree was absent and life was continuously strenuous. In later days, when Roman hardihood was first touched by Greek civilization, and the love of letters began to find a place in woman's life, the Roman matron, though admirable and statuesque, was too heroic in her virtue to be altogether attractive. A writer of a later day--than whom none more keenly regretted the ancient purity--felt this. "Let her be more chaste than any single Sabine that, with hair dishevelled, rushed between the combatants and brought the war to a close; let her be a very phoenix upon earth, rare as a black swan; who could tolerate a wife in whom all excellencies are concentrated! I would rather, far rather, have a country maiden from Venusia than you, O Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, if along with your estimable virtues you bring as part of your dower a haughty and disdainful brow, and reckon as a portion of your fortune the triumphs of your house! Away, I beg, with your Hannibal and Syphax conquered in his camp, and march with all your Carthage!" Equally unconducive to a feminine life combining sweetness with nobility were those later times, when danger was always imminent from a tyrant's lust or jealousy. Agrippina, travelling with Germanicus in expeditions against the Teutonic tribes, might earn the title "Mother of the Camps"; menaced by Tiberius, she might strengthen her mind in anticipation of the inevitable storm with the stern fortitude becoming to a Roman matron of the house of Augustus; but with years and affliction comes an unamiable sourness of disposition. Livia, Agrippina, and Antonia were women of the most unquestionable virtue; but they were ungentle in their manner and capable of extreme harshness in their methods. We know them fairly well; but there is no indication of their interesting themselves in any such womanly work as those public charities which graced the reign of Trajan, and with which we may be reasonably certain that Plotina, his noble consort, actively sympathized. With assured security of life, woman's heart expanded and her sympathies widened. Faustina, the wife of Aurelius, may not have been irreproachable; but she is represented in the position of the Lady Bountiful by the side of her husband in the public distributions. Under these noble emperors, a social conscience was developed; and there was nothing to prevent or disturb any of the genial graces of the home life, which are only possible when women are respected and happy.