Cogitarent ipsi quotiens repetundarum aliqui arguerentur plura uxoribus obiectari; his statim adhaerescere deterrimum quemque provincialium, ab his negotia suscipi, transigi; duorum egressus coli, duo esse praetoria, pervicacibus magis et impotentibus mulierum iussis quae, Oppiis quondam aliisque legibus constrictae, nunc vinclis exsolutis, domos, fora, iam et exercitus regerent.
Let his audience reflect that, whenever a magistrate was on his trial for malversation, the majority of the charges were levelled against his wife. It was to the wife that the basest of the provincials at once attached themselves; it was the wife who took in hand and transacted business. There were two potentates to salute in the streets; two government-houses; and the more headstrong and autocratic orders came from the women, who, once held in curb by the Oppian and other laws, had now cast their chains and ruled supreme in the home, the courts, and by now the army itself.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Annals_Book3.json