"Nothing is more certain than that the status of women in Rome rose with the rise of civilisation exactly in the same way as in Babylon and in Egypt. In the case of Rome, however, the growing refinement of civilisation and the expansion of the Empire were associated with the magnificent development of the system of Roman law, which in its final forms consecrated the position of women. In the last days of the Republic women already began to attain the same legal level as men, and later the great Antonine jurisconsults, guided by their theory of natural law, reached the conception of the equality of the sexes as the principle of the code of equity. The patriarchal subordination of women fell into complete discredit, and this continued until, in the days of Justinian, under the influence of Christianity the position of women began to suffer."[303] Hobhouse gives the same estimate as to the high status of women. "The Roman matron of the Empire," he says, "was more fully her own mistress than the married woman of any earlier civilisation, with the possible exception of a certain period of Egyptian history, and, it must be added, the wife of any later civilisation down to our own generation."[304] It is necessary to note that this freedom of the Roman woman was prior to the introduction of Christianity, and that under its influence their position began to suffer.[305] I cannot follow this question, and can only say how entirely mistaken is the belief that the Jewish religion, with its barbaric view of the relationship between the sexes, was beneficial to the liberty of women. The Roman matrons had now gained complete freedom in the domestic relationship, and were permitted a wide field for the exercise of their activities. They were the rulers of the household; they dined with their husbands, attended the public feasts, and were admitted to the aristocratic clubs, such as the _Gerousia_ is supposed to have been. We find from inscriptions that women had the privilege of forming associations and of electing women presidents. One of these bore the title of _Sodalitas Pudicitiae Servandrae_, or "Society for Promoting Purity of Life." At Lanuvium there was a society known as the "Senate of Women." There was an interesting and singular woman's society existing in Rome, with a meeting-place on the Quirinal, called _Conventus Matronarum_, or "Convention of Mothers of Families." This seems to have been a self-elected parliament of women for the purpose of settling questions of etiquette. It cannot be said that the accounts that we have of this assembly are at all edifying, but its existence shows the freedom permitted to women, and points to the important fact that they were accustomed to combine with one another to settle their own affairs. The Emperor Heliogabalus took this self-constituted Parliament in hand and gave it legal powers.[306]