Polygamy was at no period allowed; and even a plurality of mistresses was prohibited. Mark Antony gave great offence to the Romans by living with Cleopatra during the lifetime of Octavia. Papirius was accustomed to attend his father to the senate before he assumed the manly robe; and his mother one day inquired what had been debated there. The lad replied, a decree had been passed that every man should be allowed to have two wives. The news spread rapidly; and the next day many women presented themselves to demand that every woman might be allowed two husbands. The senators, surprised at such a strange proposition, did not know how to account for it, until young Papirius explained the mystery. They commended his prudence in thus evading female curiosity, and ordained that no young person, himself excepted, should attend the debates of the senate. As corruption increased, the women made as bad use of divorce as the men. Seneca says there were some who no longer reckoned the years by the consuls, but by the number of their husbands. St. Jerome speaks with indignation of a man in his time who had buried twenty wives, and of a woman who had buried twenty-two husbands. When Severus ascended the throne, he found no less than three thousand prosecutions against faithless wives. Women of the highest rank unblushingly proclaimed their own licentiousness, and laughed at the appearance of modesty. A long train of cruel and disgusting crimes followed this utter abandonment of principle. At one time there was a general conspiracy to murder all husbands, in order that the last appearance of restraint might be thrown aside. Voluptas had a temple, and was worshipped as a beautiful woman, seated on a throne, and treading virtue beneath her feet. Augustus, perceiving that facility of divorce, far from tending to promote happiness, only increased discontent, endeavored to restrain it by penalties. He likewise made the laws more severe with regard to infidelity. The father of a faithless wife might put her to death; and if the husband killed her and her gallant, he was not punished by the laws. Fines and banishment were likewise frequently resorted to.