been made; and yet not one woman accepted a present.  What, think you, was the reason?  That for which our ancestors made no provision by law on this subject:  there was no luxury existing which needed to be restrained.  As diseases must necessarily be known before their remedies, so passions come into being before the laws which prescribe limits to them.  What called forth the Licinian law, restricting estates to five hundred acres, but the unbounded desire for enlarging estates?  What the Cincian law, concerning gifts and presents, but that the plebeians[1] had become vassals and tributaries to the senate?  It is not therefore in any degree surprising, that no want of the Oppian law, or of any other, to limit the expenses of the women, was felt at that time, when they refused to receive gold and purple that was thrown in their way, and offered to their acceptance.  If Cineas were now to go round the city with his presents, he would find numbers of women standing in the public streets to receive them.  There are some passions, the causes or motives of which I can no way account for.  For that that should not be lawful for you which is permitted to another, may perhaps naturally excite some degree of shame or indignation; yet, when the dress of all is alike, why should any one of you fear, lest she should not be an object of observation?  Of all kinds of shame, the worst, surely, is the being ashamed of frugality or of poverty; but the law relieves you with regard to both; since that which you have not it is unlawful for you to possess.  This equalization, says the rich matron, is the very thing that I cannot endure.  Why do not I make a figure, distinguished with gold and purple?  Why is the poverty of others concealed under this cover of a law, so that it should be thought that, if the law permitted, they would have such things as they are not now able to procure?  Romans, do you wish to excite among your wives an emulation of this sort, that the rich should wish to have what no other can have; and that the poor, lest they should be despised as such should extend their expenses beyond their means?  Be assured, that when a woman once begins to be ashamed of what she ought not to be ashamed of, she will not be ashamed of what she ought.  She who can, will purchase out of her own purse; she who cannot, will ask her husband.  Unhappy is the husband, both he who complies with the request, and he who does not; for what he will not give himself, he will see given by another.  Now, they openly solicit favours from other women’s husbands; and, what is more, solicit a law and votes.  From some they obtain them; although, with regard to yourself, your property, or your children, they would be inexorable.  So soon as the law shall cease to limit the expenses of your wife, you yourself will never be able to do so.  Do not suppose that the matter will hereafter be in the same state in which it was before the law was made on the subject.  It is safer that a wicked man should even never be accused, than that he should be acquitted; and luxury, if it had never been meddled with, would be more tolerable than it will be, now, like a wild beast, irritated by having been chained, and then let loose.  My opinion is, that the Oppian law ought, on no account, to be repealed.  Whatever determination you may come to, I pray all the gods to prosper it.”