Reproachless wrought, twining the slender thread
From the light distaff; or, in the skilful loom,
Weaving rich tissues, or, with glowing tints
Of rich embroidery, pleased to decorate
The mantle of her lord. And it was well;
For in such sheltered and congenial sphere
Content with duty dwells."
The great veneration for home, and love for its pursuits and associations, grew weaker and weaker as the state exchanged a popular government for the reign of military dictators and kings. In the Augustan age, though instances of female virtue, nobility, and culture are not few, we find from the scanty records of female history of those times extant, which, indeed, are merely incidental, that woman is less often the ideal of self-sacrificing worth and of retiring modesty, less noted for her attachment to her family, her home, and her domestic pursuits, less careful in the training of her children, than formerly. In earlier times, no Roman matron coveted the infamous character of a masculine conspirator; no Roman woman left her quiet hearth disgracefully to insult the remains of a murdered citizen; no Roman woman had instigated a civil war, or proscribed her victims for assassination.
Fulvia, the ambitious wife of Mark Antony, did all this. After the assassination of Clodius, she raised a sedition. Imitating, or rather out-rivalling the cruelty of her husband, she joined in his proscriptions, that Roman blood might flow by Roman hands still more freely. After the great Cicero had been slain in a spirit of the most relentless and vindictive cruelty, and his head brought to Antony, Fulvia took it on her knees, broke out in a torrent of cowardly and abusive epithets on the character of the deceased, and then, with the most fiendish inhumanity, pierced his tongue with her golden bodkin. During the absence of her husband in the East, she not only endeavored to stir up insurrections, but sold the government of provinces and decreed unmerited triumphs. What an eternity of infamy should be hers for such deeds as these! What an example in the wife of a ruler for the imitation of an empire! When such a spirit actuates the female mind, when coupled with ambition, recommended by beauty and intelligence, and supported by power, it is sadly to be deplored. That ambition which at any time induces woman to step beyond her sphere, to take upon her shoulders masculine responsibilities, to take part in political struggles and sectional wrangles, to usurp the places and duties of those who were created and destined to cherish and protect her, it is, for her own sake, to be regretted. Such attempts are not only pernicious in their influence, but they tend to render those unhappy who make them. Such are the results of our reflection and observation, and such is the lesson taught by impartial history.
In the life of Fulvia, however, we do not get a fair representation of the female character of her time, but merely some of its tendencies. A spirit of insubordination to the laws of place and the rules of decorum; an overweening ambition that steps without household limits; assumption of power far beyond the reach of female duties; arrogance and haughtiness from the high official station of the husband; vindictive cruelty to avenge a fancied or a real wrong; prodigality and masculine pride, oftener perceptible in this age than formerly—were unmistakable indications of its character and tendencies. Yet the picture was not altogether sad, though at various points dark shadows were visible. Here and there the heaviness of the prospect was relieved by the most delightful views and cheering lights. The wife of the second Brutus is portrayed by the great limner of human character, in "Julius Cæsar," as worthy the beautiful tribute bestowed by her husband.