The women of Rome were also roused to self-assertion by the interference of the laws with their special concerns, and they did not hesitate to step out of their usual routine to oppose such laws. Thus, for instance: a law had been proposed in 215 B.C. by Oppius, a tribune of the people, to the effect that no woman should be allowed to possess more than a half ounce of gold, to wear a parti-coloured garment, to ride in a chariot within the city of Rome or a town occupied by Roman citizens, or within a mile of these places, except for religious purposes. The exact object which this law had in view is not made clear to us. Long before this, at the time of the Gallic invasion 392, the liberty to ride in a chariot had been conferred on Roman matrons as a special privilege, because, when the Roman State had not sufficient money to pay the ransom demanded by the Gauls, the Roman matrons came forward and presented their gold and other ornaments to the treasury. It is possible that Oppius may have thought that the Roman matrons in 215 B.C. were too slow in imitating the generosity of their ancestors, and the law may thus have implied an insulting rebuke. But there cannot be a doubt that the law was specially designed to put a curb on the extravagant expenditure of the women at a time when all the resources of the community were required to meet the dreadful emergencies which had befallen the State. It was, therefore, one of those sumptuary laws which make their appearance in early stages of government, examples of which are to be met with in Scottish legislation; as, for instance, when the Estates in 1567 passed a law that “no woman should adorn herself with dress above what was appropriate to her rank.” But whatever may have been the object, the law became peculiarly galling to the matrons. They might submit patiently while distress prevailed, but the terrible Punic war had now ended gloriously, success crowned all the military expeditions of the Romans, wealth flowed in from the East, the men had taken advantage of the prosperity, and it seemed singularly hard that women alone should not share in the indulgences which riches had carried in their train.[78]