Education kept pace with the changing character of the people. At first, children were brought up in habits of laborious industry. When the arts and sciences were introduced, the cultivation of the mind and manners received a considerable degree of attention; and we know that girls shared in these privileges, because when Claudius wished to seize the beautiful Virginia as a slave, in order to deliver her to the infamous Appius, he arrested her as she returned from school, attended by her governante. In the last days of Rome, personal habits were exceedingly luxurious, and education became showy and superficial, because it was acquired from vanity, rather than a love of knowledge. The power of Roman fathers was excessive. They could imprison their children, load them with fetters, make them work with the slaves, sell them, and even put them to death; but mothers had no legal share in this authority. A story is told of a Roman girl, who was starved to death by her father, because she picked the lock of a wine chest, to get at the wine. The habit of adopting children, even when the parents on both sides were living, was very common. The adopted were subject to the same authority, and received the same share of inheritance, as real sons and daughters. They generally retained the name of their own family, in addition to the one into which they were adopted. Though the Romans rivalled all preceding nations in justice and kindness toward women, yet husbands were intrusted with a degree of power, which modern nations would consider dangerous. A man might divorce his wife, if she violated the matrimonial vow, poisoned his offspring, brought upon him suppositious children, counterfeited his private keys, or drank wine without his knowledge. Valerius Maximus says that Egnatius Metellus, having detected his wife drinking wine out of a cask, put her to death, and was acquitted by Romulus. The ancient Romans did not allow women to inherit property; but as wealth increased, fathers did not like to leave their fortunes to distant male relatives, while their daughters were left portionless; they therefore managed to elude the law, by making such provision for their children, as rendered the estates so taken of little value. The people, vexed at these proceedings, passed the Voconian law, by which no woman could inherit an estate, even if she were an only child; but after a time, the right of succession, both in moveables and land, was granted to females after the death of their brothers.