effective powers of Prefect of the City of Rome to members of the old aristocracy. But if Augustus himself was less interested in the dynastic question than the historians represent, the ladies of his family were by no means equally indifferent; their feuds were shared in by their ladies and freedmen, and the apparently peaceful home of the suave and unconscious Augustus was a raging battlefield, in which the weapons of calumny and innuendo were freely hurled, and the external forms of politeness concealed a state of civil war. Wily Greeks and Jews or other Orientals used to palace intrigues found a field for their special talents in the households of Livia or Julia; holding the confidential positions of physicians, preachers, tutors, and astrologers, they transferred to the Palatine the atmosphere of the Courts of the Ptolemies or Herod. Under this subtle influence mere drawing-room conspiracies sometimes took a serious complexion; young men were impelled by their female relatives to dangerous courses, secret information sped from Roman boudoirs to the palaces of Syria and Armenia. Livia herself was a skilled intriguer, and though Dio puts into her mouth a ponderous curtain lecture on the subject of clemency, addressed to Augustus, her inclinations were more monarchical than those of her husband. The very substantial compliments which passed between her and Herod of Judæa are not likely to have been exceptional in their character, nor is that wily potentate likely to have been the only man of his class who discovered that her fingers touched the springs of government. Though by the letters of the law Roman women were in an almost servile position, though they were liable to be divorced and remarried to suit the convenience of their families, methods were found of evading the law, and divorces which tended to further aggrandisement were not unpopular with their apparent victims. By a variety of legal fictions women could hold separate estates, and were often immensely rich independently of their husbands. The wives of provincial governors were notorious for their rapacity, and took full advantage of the weakness of uxorious husbands. Livia spinning the toga of Augustus with her maids or weighing out the allowances of the slaves, was a pleasing picture for the contemplation of her husband and the Romans, but the head of the thrifty housekeeper had room for other than domestic details, and her name was whispered with awe by many who could not have appreciated her homely virtues, and had good reason for suspecting her of very different occupations.