What new thing, let me ask, have the matrons done in coming out into public in a body on an occasion which nearly concerns themselves?
Have they never before appeared in public?
I will turn over your own Antiquities,[1] and quote them against you.

Hear, now how often they have done the same, and always to the advantage of the public.

In the earliest period of our history, even in the reign of Romulus, when the Capitol had been taken by the Sabines, and a pitched battle was fought in the forum, was not the fight stopped by the interposition of the matrons between the two armies?
When, after the expulsion of the kings, the legions of the Volscians, under the command of Marcius Coriolanus, were encamped at the fifth stone, did not the matrons turn away that army, which would have overwhelmed this city?
Again, when Rome was taken by the Gauls, whence was the city ransomed?
Did not the matrons, by unanimous agreement, bring their gold into the public treasury?
In the late war, not to go back to remote antiquity, when there was a want of money, did not the funds of the widows supply the treasury?
And when even new gods were invited hither to the relief of our distressed affairs, did not the matrons go out in a body to the sea-shore to receive the Idaean Mother?
The cases, you will say, are dissimilar.

It is not my purpose to produce similar instances; it is sufficient that I clear these women of having done any thing new.

Now, what nobody wondered at their doing in cases which concerned all in common, both men and women, can we wonder at their doing in a case peculiarly affecting themselves?
But what have they done?
We have proud ears, truly, if, though masters disdain not the prayers of slaves, we are offended at being asked a favour by honourable women.
[Footnote 1: Alluding to a treatise by Cato, upon the antiquities of Italy, entitled "Origines," which is the word used here by Valerius.] 6.