the time: "I have seen Lollia Paulina
covered with emeralds and pearls gleaming all over her head, hair,
ears, neck, and fingers to the value of over L300,000." If Rome is the
eternal city, it is eternal in this respect at least as much as in any
other.

Who, still more bold, shall pry into her apparatus for the
beautification of her person, examining her patch-box and the innocent
little pots of rouge, vermilion, and white lead for the complexion,
and of soot to rub under the eyes? Who shall scrutinise too closely
that delicate blue which tinges her temples? Who shall dare to
question whether that yellow hair of the most approved tone, then best
seen in Germany, grew where you find it or came from some head across
the Rhine? Who shall venture to ask whether that smooth skin was
preserved by her wearing last night a mask of meal, which she washed
off this morning with asses' milk? Petronius, indeed, says that the
"lady takes her eyebrows out of a little box," and probably Petronius
knew. For her artificial teeth there is an obvious and sensible
excuse, and it is no reproach to her if, as the poet declared, "she
puts her teeth aside at night, just as she does her silks." Probably
she scents herself far too heavily, but there are many Roman men who
are just as bad.

She is ready now for all emergencies, and we may leave her, sitting in
her long-backed cushioned chair, waving in one hand a fan of peacock's
feathers or of thin wood covered with gold-leaf, and holding in the
other a ball of amber or glass to keep her hands cool and dry.

CHAPTER XVII

CHILDREN AND EDUCATION

Unlike too many couples of the same class, Silius and Marcia are
blessed with children. We will assume that there are two, a boy, whose
full name shall be Publius Silius Bassus, and a girl, who is to be
called Silia Bassa. It is perhaps to be regretted that there is not a
third, for in that case the father would enjoy to the full certain
privileges granted by law to parents who so far do their duty by the
state. As it is, he will in the regular course of things receive
preference over childless men, when it comes to candidature for a
public office or to the allotting of a governorship. The decline in
the birthrate had become so startling at the close of the republic
that the first emperor, Augustus, had decided that it was necessary on
the one side to penalise persons who remained either unmarried or
childless, and on the other to grant f