e of abstracting such a trifle
from so small a sum, don't you see what she would have done in matters
of real importance?" The quarrel ended in a divorce, a thing far more
common than, happily, it is among ourselves, but still a painful and
discreditable end to an union which had lasted for more than
five-and-twenty years. Terentia long survived her husband, dying in
extreme old age (as much, it was said, as a hundred and three years),
far on in the reign of Augustus; and after a considerable experience of
matrimony, if it be true that she married three or even, according to
some accounts, four other husbands.

[Footnote 7: Another of the same name was an eminent man of letters of
Cicero's own time.]

Terentia's daughter, Tullia, had a short and unhappy life. She was born,
it would seem, about 79 B.C., and married when fifteen or sixteen to a
young Roman noble, Piso Frugi by name. "The best, the most loyal of
men," Cicero calls him. He died in 57 B.C., and Rome lost, if his
father-in-law's praises of him may be trusted, an orator of the very
highest promise. "I never knew any one who surpassed my son-in-law,
Piso, in zeal, in industry, and, I may fairly say, in ability." The next
year she married a certain Crassipes, a very shadowy person indeed. We
know nothing of what manner of man he was, or what became of him. But in
50 B.C. Tullia was free to marry again. Her third venture was of her own
or her mother's contriving. Her father was at his government in Cilicia,
and he hears of the affair with surprise. "Believe me," he writes to
Atticus, "nothing could have been less expected by me. Tiberius Nero had
made proposals to me, and I had sent friends to discuss the matter with
the ladies. But when they got to Rome the betrothal had taken place.
This, I hope, will be a better match. I fancy the ladies were very much
pleased with the young gentleman's complaisance and courtesy, but do not
look for the thorns." The "thorns," however, were there. A friend who
kept Cicero acquainted with the news of Rome, told him as much, though
he wraps up his meaning in the usual polite phrases. "I congratulate
you," he writes, "on your alliance with one who is, I really believe, a
worthy fellow. I do indeed think this of him. If there have been some
things in which he has not done justice to himself, these are now past
and gone; any traces that may be left will soon, I am sure, disappear,
thanks to your good influence and to his respect fo