Quintilian, Instit. Orat., vi, 1, 5. Pliny, Letters, vi, 4 and 7, and vii, 5.
Great admiration expressed for Paulina, wife of Seneca, who opened her veins to accompany her husband in death—Tacitus, Annals, xv, 63, 64. Story of Arria and Paetus—Pliny, Letters, iii, 16. Martial, i, 13. The famous instance of Epponina, under Vespasian, and her attachment to her condemned husband—Tacitus, Hist., iv, 67. Tacitus mentions that many ladies accompanied their husbands to exile and death—Annals, xvi, 10, 11. Numerous instances are related by Pliny of tender and happy marriages, terminated only by death—see, e.g., Letters, viii, 5. Pliny the elder tells how M. Lepidus died of regret for his wife after being divorced from her—N.H., vii, 36. Valerius Maximus devotes a whole chapter to Conjugal Love—iv, 6. But the best examples of deep affection are seen in tomb inscriptions—e.g., CIL i, 1103, viii, 8123, ii, 3596, v, 1, 3496, v, 2, 7066, x, 8192, vi, 3, 15696, 15317, and 17690. Man and wife are often represented with arms thrown about one another's shoulders to signify that they were united in death as in life. The poet Statius remarks that "to love a wife when she is living is pleasure; to love her when dead, a solemn duty" (Silvae, in prooemio). Yet some theologians would have us believe that conjugal love and fidelity is an invention of Christianity.
Pliny, Panegyricus, 26. For other instances see Capitolinus, Anton. Pius, 8; Lampridius, Alex. Severus, 57; Spartianus, Hadrian, 7, 8, 9; Capitolinus, M. Anton. Phil., 11.