If they did thieve, they merely thieved for their husbands; and though, perhaps, some of them were vain, they merely prized their beauty because it gave them favour in the eyes of their husbands.
Whatever the husbands were--and Jasper had almost insinuated that the males occasionally allowed themselves some latitude--they appeared to be as faithful to their husbands as the ancient Roman matrons were to theirs.

Roman matrons! and, after all, might not these be in reality Roman matrons?
They called themselves Romans; might not they be the descendants of the old Roman matrons?
Might not they be of the same blood as Lucretia?
And were not many of their strange names--Lucretia amongst the rest--handed down to them from old Rome?
It is true their language was not that of old Rome; it was not, however, altogether different from it.

After all, the ancient Romans might be a tribe of these people, who settled down and founded a village with the tilts of carts, which by degrees, and the influx of other people, became the grand city of the world.

I liked the idea of the grand city of the world owing its origin to a people who had been in the habit of carrying their houses in their carts.

Why, after all, should not the Romans of history be a branch of these Romans?
There were several points of similarity between them; if Roman matrons were chaste, both men and women were thieves.