no means the only dangerous task she had to undertake
in those years of civil war and insecurity. When Lucretius left her
they seem to have been staying at the villa where her parents had been
murdered; she had given him all her gold and pearls, and kept him
supplied in his absence with money, provisions, and even slaves, which
she contrived to smuggle over sea to Epirus.[244] And during the march
of Caesar's army through Italy she seems to have been threatened,
either in that villa or another, by some detachment of his troops, and
to have escaped only through her own courage and the clemency of one
whose name is not mentioned, but who can hardly be other than the
great Julius himself, a true gentleman, whose instinct and policy
alike it was throughout this civil war to be merciful to opponents.

A year later, while Lucretius was still away, yet another peril came
upon her. While Caesar was operating round Dyrrhachium, there was a
dangerous rising in Campania and Southern Italy, for which our giddy
friend Caelius Rufus was chiefly responsible; gladiators and ruffianly
shepherd slaves were enlisted, and by some of these the villa where
she was staying was attacked, and successfully defended by her--so
much at least it seems possible to infer from the fragment recently
discovered.

One might think that Turia had already had her full share of trouble
and danger, but there is much more to come. About this time she had to
defend herself against another attack, not indeed on her person, but
on her rights as an heiress. An attempt was made by her relations to
upset her father's will, under which she and Lucretius were appointed
equal inheritors of his property. The result of this would have been
to make her the sole heiress, leaving out her husband and her
married sister; but she would have been under the legal _tutela_ or
guardianship of persons whose motive in attacking the will was to
obtain administration of the property.[245] No doubt they meant to
administer it for their own advantage; and it was absolutely necessary
that she should resist them. How she did it her husband does not tell
us, but he says that the enemy retreated from his position, yielding
to her firmness and perseverance (constantia). The patrimonium came,
as her father had intended, to herself and her husband; and he dwells
on the care with which they dealt with it, he exercising a _tutela_
over her share, while she exercised a _custodia_ over his. Very