“deservedly regarded as very garrulous, and people strongly affirm that not a single silent woman has been found in any age up to this day.” She further informs him that there is no chance of his getting a good wife: he can merely have a selection out of bad: “alia alia pejor, frater, est.” However, she ends with recommending one whom she knows and deems suitable in age and circumstances. He does not accept her proposal, but says that he wishes to marry the daughter of Euclio, and he is very glad that she is so poor. The dowried wives have become wildly extravagant and insolent, and if the rich were to do as he intends, that is, marry undowried wives, there would be more concord in the state; the women would pride themselves more on their manners than their dowry, they would have less reason to fear punishment than they now have, and the husbands would have less expense. In one word, “the undowried wife is in the power of her husband, the dowried one tortures and ruins him.” In the course of this discussion Megadorus expatiates on the extravagances of the women of his day. “They must have purple and gold given them, maidservants, mules, mule-drivers, attendants, salutation boys, and carriages.” And then he gives a list of the various artisans who wait upon the matrons. Here it is in the Latin, for an exact translation would require a dissertation:[241]-- “Stat fullo phrugio aurifex linarius Caupones patagiarii indusiarii, Flammarii violarii cararii, Propolæ linteones calceolarii, Sedentarii sutores diabathrarii-- Solearii astant, astant molocinarii, Petunt fullones, sarcinatores petunt, Iam hosce absolutos censeas: cedunt petunt Trecenti: circumstant phulacistæ in atriis, Textores linbularii, arcularii: Aut aliqua mala crux semper est quæ aliquid petat.” The extravagance of the women is rather a favourite subject of attack with Plautus. Adelphasium, in a beautiful passage in the ‘Pœnulus,’ describes how the whole day is frittered away in bathing, polishing, painting, and such operations, and in ‘Epidicus’ we have an enumeration of the vast variety of dresses which they wore. It may be questioned how far these descriptions were taken from the Greek, and how far they are applicable to Roman women. Wagner supposes that the passage in the ‘Aulularia’ refers to Roman women, and bases on it an argument for the date of the play. It is scarcely possible to imagine that Plautus would have introduced such passages if they did not tell, but it would be difficult to fix the date of the commencement of extravagance among the Roman ladies. All we can affirm with certainty is that there must have been extravagance in some shape or other, and it is interesting to note how, at this early stage of it, it had already begun to frighten men from marriage. Here are the reasonings of a bachelor, somewhat compressed from ‘Miles Gloriosus’:[242]--