No More Learning

Next followed the Consulship of Tiberius and Drusus; to Tiberius the
fourth, to Drusus the second: a Consulship remarkable, for that in it
the father and son were colleagues. There was indeed the same fellowship
between Tiberius and Germanicus, two years before; but besides the
distastes of jealousy in the uncle, the ties of blood were not so near.
In the beginning of the year, Tiberius, on pretence of his health,
retired to Campania; either already meditating a long and perpetual
retirement; or to leave to Drusus, in his father's absence, the honour
of executing the Consulship alone: and there happened a thing which,
small in itself, yet as it produced mighty contestation, furnished
the young Consul with matter of popular affection. Domitius Corbulo,
formerly Praetor, complained to the Senate of Lucius Sylla, a noble
youth, "that in the show of gladiators, Sylla would not yield him
place. " Age, domestic custom, and the ancient men were for Corbulo: on
the other side, Mamercus Scaurus, Lucius Arruntius, and others laboured
for their kinsman Sylla: warm speeches were made, and the examples
of our ancestors were urged, "who by severe decrees had censured
and restrained the irreverence of the youth. " Drusus interposed with
arguments proper for calming animosities, and Corbulo had satisfaction
made him by Scaurus, who was to Sylla both father-in-law and uncle,
and the most copious orator of that age. The same Corbulo, exclaiming
against "the condition of most of the roads through Italy, that through
the fraud of the undertakers and negligence of the overseers, they were
broken and unpassable;" undertook of his own accord the cure of that
abuse; an undertaking which he executed not so much to the advantage
of the public as to the ruin of many private men in their fortunes and
reputation, by his violent mulcts and unjust judgments and forfeitures.

Upon this occasion Caecina Severus proposed, "that no magistrate should
go into any province accompanied by his wife. " He introduced this motion
with a long preface, "that he lived with his own in perfect concord,
by her he had six children; and what he offered to the public he had
practised himself, having during forty years' service left her still
behind him, confined to Italy. It was not indeed, without cause,
established of old, that women should neither be carried by their
husbands into confederate nations nor foreign. A train of women
introduced luxury in peace, by their fears retarded war, and made a
Roman army resemble, in their march, a mixed host of barbarians. The
sex was not tender only and unfit for travel, but, if suffered, cruel,
aspiring, and greedy of authority: they even marched amongst the
soldiers, and were obeyed by the officers. A woman had lately presided
at the exercises of the troops, and at the decursions of the legions.
The Senate themselves might remember, that as often as any of the
magistrates were charged with plundering the provinces, their wives were
always engaged in the guilt. To the ladies, the most profligate in
the province applied; by them all affairs were undertaken, by them
transacted: at home two distinct courts were kept, and abroad the wife
had her distinct train and attendance.
The ladies, too, issued distinct
orders, but more imperious and better obeyed. Such feminine excesses
were formerly restrained by the Oppian, and other laws; but now these
restraints were violated, women ruled all things, their families, the
Forum, and even the armies. "

This speech was heard by few with approbation, and many proclaimed
their dissent; "for, that neither was that the point in debate, nor was
Caecina considerable enough to censure so weighty an affair. " He was
presently answered by Valerius Messalinus, who was the son of Messala,
and inherited a sparkling of his father's eloquence: "that many rigorous
institutions of the ancients were softened and changed for the better:
for, neither was Rome now, as of old, beset with wars, nor Italy with
hostile provinces; and a few concessions were made to the conveniences
of women, who were so far from burdening the provinces, that to their
own husbands there they were no burden. As to honours, attendance and
expense, they enjoyed them in common with their husbands, who could
receive no embarrassment from their company in time of peace. To war
indeed we must go equipped and unencumbered; but after the fatigues of
war, what was more allowable than the consolations of a wife? But it
seemed the wives of some magistrates had given a loose to ambition and
avarice. And were the magistrates themselves free from these excesses?
were not most of them governed by many exorbitant appetites? did we
therefore send none into the provinces? It was added, that the husbands
were corrupted by their corrupt wives: and were therefore all single
men uncorrupt? The Oppian Laws were once thought necessary, because the
exigencies of the State required their severity: they were afterwards
relaxed and mollified, because that too was expedient for the State.
In vain we covered our own sloth with borrowed names: if the wife broke
bounds, the husband ought to bear the blame. It was moreover unjustly
judged, for the weak and uxorious spirit of one or a few, to bereave all
others of the fellowship of their wives, the natural partners of their
prosperity and distress. Besides, the sex, weak by nature, would be left
defenceless, exposed to the luxurious bent of their native passions,
and a prey to the allurements of adulterers: scarce under the eye and
restraint of the husband was the marriage bed preserved inviolate: what
must be the consequence, when by an absence of many years, the ties
of marriage would be forgot, forgot as it were in a divorce? It became
them, therefore, so to cure the evils abroad as not to forget the
enormities at Rome.