se of
averting which, the senate decreed a supplication for two days: the
wine and frankincense for the sacrifices were furnished at the expense
of the public; and numerous crowds of men and women attended the
performance. This supplication was rendered remarkable by a quarrel,
which broke out among the matrons in the chapel of patrician chastity,
which stands in the cattle market, near the round temple of Hercules.
Virginia, daughter of Aulus, a patrician, but married to Volumnius the
consul, a plebeian, was, because she had married out of the
patricians, excluded by the matrons from sharing in the sacred rites:
a short altercation ensued, which was afterwards, through the
intemperance of passion incident to the sex, kindled into a flame of
contention. Virginia boasted with truth that she had a right to enter
the temple of patrician chastity, as being of patrician birth, and
chaste in her character, and, besides, the wife of one husband, to
whom she was betrothed a virgin, and had no reason to be dissatisfied
either with her husband, or his exploits or honours: to her
high-spirited words, she added importance by an extraordinary act. In
the long street where she resided, she enclosed with a partition a
part of the house, of a size sufficient for a small chapel, and there
erected an altar. Then calling together the plebeian matrons, and
complaining of the injurious behaviour of the patrician ladies, she
said, "This altar I dedicate to plebeian chastity, and exhort you,
that the same degree of emulation which prevails among the men of this
state, on the point of valour, may be maintained by the women on the
point of chastity; and that you contribute your best care, that this
altar may have the credit of being attended with a greater degree of
sanctity, and by chaster women, than the other, if possible." Solemn
rites were performed at this altar under the same regulations, nearly,
with those at the more ancient one; no person being allowed the
privilege of taking part in the sacrifices, except a woman of approved
chastity, and who was the wife of one husband. This institution, being
afterwards debased by [the admission of] vicious characters, and not
only by matrons, but women of every description, sunk at last into
oblivion. During this year the Ogulnii, Cneius and Quintus, being
curule aediles, carried on prosecutions against several usurers; whose
property being fined, out of the produce, which was deposited in the
tre