have our ultra-fashionable parvenus who fancy arrogance a badge of position, and pronounced manners a sign of modish distinction. Of these classes, the first and the last were the most defined in Roman society, but it is mainly in the last that we find the degeneracy of morals which made a large section of it infamous. Of the women of the conservative ruling classes we have pleasant glimpses in the letters of Pliny, which picture an intelligent and sympathetic family life that constantly recalls our own. His wife, Calphurnia, sets his verses to music and sings them, greatly to his surprise and delight. She has a taste for books and commits his compositions to memory. He says she has an excellent understanding, consummate prudence, and an affection for her husband that attests the purity of her heart. It is not his person but his character that she loves, so he is assured of lasting harmony. When absent, he entreats her to write every day, even twice a day. If he has only his wife and a few friends at his summer villa, he has some author to read to them, and afterward music or an interlude. Then he walks with his family and talks of literature. The charming little domestic traits, so unconsciously revealed in these letters, are as creditable to himself as to the wife who adores him. There is a touch of sentiment that we rarely find in pagan life. These letters throw many side-lights on other households. Pliny has a word of profound sympathy for the sorrow of a friend who lived thirty-nine cloudless years with a wife whose virtues would have made her “an ornament even in former times,” and was left desolate by her loss. We find a touching allusion to the fortitude of Fannia, who has the qualities of a “heroine of ancient story.” She was banished for supplying materials for her husband’s “Life.” “Pleasing in conversation, polite in address, venerable in demeanor,” she is quoted as a model for wives. She was a worthy granddaughter of the famous Arria, who refused to survive her husband when he was condemned to death, and gave him courage by first plunging the dagger into her own breast, saying, “Pætus, it does not hurt,” as she drew it out and passed it to him. Another of his friends lost a daughter of fourteen, who, he says, combined the wisdom of age and the discretion of a matron with the sprightliness of youth and the sweetness of virgin modesty. She was devoted to reading and study, caring little for amusements. Pompeius Saturninus read him some letters from his wife which were so fine that he thought he was listening to Plautus and Terence in prose; indeed, he suspects the husband of writing them himself, in spite of his denial, though he considers him deserving of equal praise, whether he wrote them or trained her genius to such a degree of perfection. It is worthy of note that, while these letters show us the intelligent companionship between husbands and wives which had taken the place