Of the increasing influence of Roman matrons, a strong proof may be found in the public honors they began to receive. Many of these were of a conveniently perfunctory sort, and meant little more than a tribute to the vanity of a family which demanded respect for its name; but they had their significance. It became a fashion to give women a semblance of power that was not always genuine, and to compensate them for any sorrow or neglect they might have had in this world with a fine position and a grand title, which cost little, in the next. Julius Cæsar was far from a model husband, but he celebrated the virtues of his young wife Cornelia, whom he loved devotedly, in an eloquent oration over her remains. He also pronounced a public eulogy for his aunt Julia, wife of Marius who came in for a large share of the glory. Augustus, a boy of twelve, gave a funeral oration over his grandmother. He also honored his sister, the amiable Octavia, with a eulogy and a national funeral, the first one ever given to a woman who was not a sovereign. If there have been others I do not recall them. He decreed divine honors to Livia, but he died before her, and her ungrateful son forbade them, though the more appreciative Senate proclaimed her “Mother of her Country,” and voted a funeral arch in her memory. Later, this Roman Juno was placed in the ranks of the gods by her grand-nephew Claudius, who was not wholly disinterested, as he did not wish to owe his descent to a simple mortal. The emptiness of some of these numerous honors was aptly illustrated by Nero, who killed his young but not immaculate wife, Poppæa, with a kick, then, like a dutiful husband, pronounced her eulogy and made her a diva! Many of them, however, were paid to worth and to great services for the State. “I feel that I am becoming a god,” said Vespasian, when dying, with a skeptical smile at his approaching apotheosis. Women are more trustful. Perhaps they took their divine honors more seriously, and found in them a sort of consolation, as when, in later ages, they looked wistfully from the sorrows of life toward a saint’s crown.