Meanwhile her face, shocking to look at, or ridiculous from the large poultice, is all swollen; or is redolent of rich Poppæan unguents,[289] with which the lips of her wretched husband are glued up. She will present herself to her adulterer with skin washed clean. When does she choose to appear beautiful at home? It is for the adulterers her perfumes are prepared. It is for these she purchases all that the slender Indians send us. At length she uncases her face and removes the first layer. She begins to be herself again; and bathes in that milk,[290] for which she carries in her train she-asses, even if sent an exile to Hyperborean climes. But that which is overlaid and fomented with so many and oft-changed cosmetics, and receives poultices of boiled and damp flour, shall we call it a face,[291] or a sore?
It is worth while to find out exactly what their occupations and pursuits are through the livelong day. If her husband has gone to sleep with his back toward her, the housekeeper is half killed—the tire-women are stripped to be whipped—the Liburnian slave is accused of having come behind his time, and is forced to pay the penalty of another's sleep; one has rods broken[292] about him, another bleeds from the whips, a third from the cowhide. Some women pay a regular salary to their torturers. While he lashes she is employed in enameling her face. She listens to her friend's chat, or examines the broad gold of an embroidered robe. Still he lashes. She pores over the items in her long diary.[293] Still he lashes. Until at length, when the torturers are exhausted, "Begone!" she thunders out in awful voice, the inquisition being now complete.
The government of her house is no more merciful than the court of a Sicilian tyrant. For if she has made an assignation, and is anxious to be dressed out more becomingly than usual, and is in a hurry, and has been some time already waited for in the gardens, or rather near the chapels of the Isiac[294] procuress; poor Psecas arranges her hair, herself with disheveled locks and naked shoulders and naked breasts. "Why is this curl too high?" Instantly the cowhide avenges the heinous crime of the misplacing of a hair. What has poor Psecas done? What crime is it of the poor girl's if your own nose has displeased you?
Another, on the left hand, draws out and combs her curls and rolls them into a band. The aged matron assists at the council, who, having served her due period[295] at the needle, now presides over weighing out the tasks of wool. Her opinion will be first taken. Then those who are her inferiors in years and skill will vote in order, as though their mistress's good name or life were at stake. So great is the anxiety of getting beauty! Into so many tiers she forms her curls, so many stages high she builds[296] her head; in front you will look upon an Andromache, behind she is a dwarf—you would imagine her another person. Excuse her, pray, if nature has assigned her but a short back, and if, without the aid of high-heeled buskins, she looks shorter than a Pigmy[297] maiden; and must spring lightly up on tip-toe for a kiss. No thought meanwhile about her husband! not a word of her ruinous expenditure! She lives as though she were merely a neighbor[298] of her husband's, and in this respect alone is nearer to him—that she hates her husband's friends and slaves, and makes grievous inroads on his purse.
But see! the chorus of the maddened Bellona and the mother of the gods enters the house! and the huge eunuch (a face to be revered by his obscene inferior) who long ago emasculated himself with a broken shell; to whom his hoarse troop and the plebeian drummers give place, and whose cheek is covered with his Phrygian tiara. With voice grandiloquent he bids her dread the approach of September and the autumn blasts, unless she purifies herself with a hecatomb of eggs, and makes a present to him of her cast-off murrey-colored[299] robes: that whatever unforeseen or mighty peril may be impending over her may pass into the tunics, and at once expiate the whole year. She will break the ice and plunge into the river in the depth of winter, or dip three times in Tiber at early dawn, and bathe her timid head in its very eddies, and thence emerging will crawl on bleeding knees, naked and shivering, over the whole field of the haughty king.[300] If white Io command, she will go to the extremity of Egypt, and bring back water fetched from scorching Meroë, to sprinkle on the temple of Isis, that rears itself hard by the ancient sheepfold.[301] For she believes that the warning is given her by the voice of the goddess herself. And this, forsooth, is a fit soul and mind[302] for the gods to hold converse with by night! He therefore gains the chief and highest honor, who, surrounded by his linen-robed flock,[303] and a bald-headed throng of people uttering lamentations, runs to and fro personating the grinning Anubis. He it is that supplicates for pardon whenever the wife does not refrain from nuptial joys on days to be observed as sacred, and a heavy penalty is incurred from the violation of the snowy sheeting. And the silver serpent was seen to nod his head! His are the tears, and his the studied mumblings, that prevail on Osiris not to withhold pardon for her fault, when bribed by a fat goose and a thin cake. When he has withdrawn, some trembling Jewess, having quitted her basket and hay, begs in her secret ear, the interpretess of the laws of Solyma, the potent priestess of the tree—the trusty go-between from highest heaven![304] And she crosses her hand with money, but sparingly enough: for Jews will sell you any dreams you please for the minutest coin. The soothsayer of Armenia or Commagene,[305] handling the liver of the dove still reeking, engages that her lover shall be devoted, or promises the rich inheritance of some childless rich man; he pries into the breasts of chickens and the entrails of a puppy; sometimes too even of a child—he does acts of which he will himself turn informer![306]
But their confidence in Chaldæans will be greater still: whatever the astrologer tells them, they will believe reported straight from the fountain of Ammon; since at Delphi the oracles are dumb, and darkness as to the future is the punishment of the human race. However, of these he is in the highest repute who has been often banished; by whose friendship and venal[307] tablets it came to pass that a citizen of high rank[308] died, and one dreaded by Otho. Hence arises confidence in his art, if both his hands have clanked with chains, and he has been long an inmate of the camp-prison. No astrologer that has never been condemned will have any reputation for genius; but he that has hardly escaped with his life, and scarcely had good fortune enough to be sent to one of the Cyclades,[309] and at length to be set free from the confined Seriphos, he it is whom your Tanaquil[310] consults about the death of her jaundiced mother, for which she has been long impatient; but first, about yourself! when she may hope to follow to the grave her sister and her uncles; whether her adulterer will survive her, for what greater boon than this have the gods in their power to bestow?
And yet she is ignorant what the ill-omened planet of Saturn forebodes; with what star Venus presents herself in fortunate conjunction; what is the month for ill-luck; what seasons are assigned to profit.
Remember to shun even a casual meeting with her in whose hands you see, like the unctuous amber,[311] their calendars well thumbed; who instead of consulting others is now herself consulted; who when her husband is going to join his camp or revisit his home, will refuse to accompany him if restrained by the calculations of Thrasyllus.[312] When it is her fancy to ride as far as the first mile-stone, the lucky hour is taken from her book; if the corner of her eye itches when she rubs it, she calls for ointment after a due inspection of her horoscope: though she lies sick in bed no hour appears suited to taking food, save that which Petosiris[313] has directed. If she be of moderate means, she will traverse the space on both sides of the pillars of the circus, and draw lots, and present her forehead and her hand to the fortune-teller that asks for the frequent palming. The rich will obtain answers from some soothsayer of Phrygia or India hired for the purpose, from some one skilled in the stars and heavens, or one advanced in years who expiates the public places which the lightning[314] has struck. The destiny of the plebeians is learnt in the circus, and at Tarquin's rampart.[315] She that has no long necklace of gold to display, inquires in front of the obelisks and the dolphin-columns,[316] whether she shall jilt the tapster and marry the old-clothes man.
Yet these, when circumstances so require, are ready to encounter the perils of childbirth, and endure all the irksome toils of nursing. But rarely does a gilded bed contain a woman lying-in: so potent are the arts and drugs of her that can insure barrenness, and for bribes kill men while yet unborn. Yet grieve not at this, poor wretch! and with thine own hand give thy wife the potion, whatever it be: for did she choose to bear her leaping children in her womb, thou wouldst perchance become the sire of an Æthiop; a blackamoor would soon be your sole heir, one whom you would not see of a morning.[317]