Rome to worship, attend the Senate, or vote, and many had no houses in
the city. Each man was married with a ring and sacrifice, and the lady
was then carried over the threshold, on which a sheepskin was spread,
and made mistress of the house by being bidden to be Caia to Caius. The
Roman matrons were good and noble women in those days, and the highest
praise of them was held to be _Domum mansit, lanam fecit_--she stayed
at home and spun wool. Each man was absolute master in his own house,
and had full power over his grown-up sons, even for life or death, and
they almost always submitted entirely. For what made the Romans so great
was that they were not only brave, but they were perfectly obedient, and
obeyed as perfectly as they could their fathers, their officers, their
magistrates, and, as they thought, their gods.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VIII.

MENENIUS AGRIPPA'S FABLE.

B.C. 494.


A great deal of the history of Rome consists of struggles between the
patricians and plebeians. In those early days the plebeians were often
poor, and when they wanted to improve their lands they had to borrow
money from the patricians, who not only had larger lands, but, as they
were the officers in war, got a larger share of the spoil. The Roman law