cate, not justice, but severity. Nay, their wish is that a law which you have admitted, established by your suffrages, and found in the practise and experience of so many years to be beneficial, should now be repealed; and that by abolishing one law you should weaken all the rest. No law perfectly suits the convenience of every member of the community; the only consideration is, whether, on the whole, it be profitable to the greater part. If, because a law proves obnoxious to a private individual, it must therefore be canceled and annulled, to what purpose is it for the community to enact laws, which those, whom they were particularly intended to comprehend, could presently repeal? Let us, however, inquire what this important affair is which has induced the matrons thus to run out into public in this indecorous manner, scarcely restraining from pushing into the forum and the assembly of the people.
Is it to solicit that their parents, their husbands, children, and brothers may be ransomed from captivity under Hannibal?
By no means: and far be ever from the commonwealth so unfortunate a situation. Yet, when such was the case, you refused this to the prayers which, on that occasion, their duty dictated. But it is not duty, nor solicitude for their friends; it is religion that has collected them together. They are about to receive the Idæan Mother, coming out of Phrygia from Pessinus.
What motive, that even common decency will
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