Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/166

 CALPHURNIA, of the celebrated philosopher, Pliny the Elder, who was killed, in 79, in consequence of approaching too near to Mount Vesuvius, when it was in a state of eruption, must have been a woman of superior character, by the manner in which her husband spoke of her, and the strong affection he seems to have borne her; in a letter to her aunt Hispulla, he says:—

"As you are an example of every virtue, and as you tenderly loved your excellent brother, whose daughter (to whom you supplied the place of both parents) you considered as your own, I doubt not but you will rejoice to learn, that she proves worthy of her father, worthy of you, and worthy of her grandfather. She has great talents; she is an admirable economist; and she loves me with an entire affection: a sure sign of her chastity. To these qualities, she unites a taste for literature, inspired by her tenderness for me. She has collected my works, which she reads perpetually, and even learns to repeat. When I am to speak in public, she places herself as near to me as possible, under cover of her veil, and listens with delight to the praises bestowed upon me. She sings my verses, and, untaught, adapts them to her lute: love is her only instructor."

In a letter to Calphumia, Pliny writes: "My eager desire to see you is incredible. Love is its first spring; the next, that we have been so seldom separated. I pass the greater part of the night in thinking of you. In the day also, at those hours in which I have been accustomed to see you, my feet carry me spontaneously to your apartment, whence I constantly return out of humour and dejected, as if you had refused to admit me. There is one part of the day only that affords relief to my disquiet; the time dedicated to pleading the causes of my friends. Judge what a life mine must be, when labour is my rest, and when cares and perplexities are my only comforts. Adieu."

CALPURNIA, of Lucius Piso, of an ancient and an honourable family in Rome, married Cæsar, after his divorce from his third wife, Pompeia. In her he found a wife such as he desired, whose propriety of conduct placed her "above suspicion." To her virtues she added beauty, talents, prudence, an extraordinary eloquence, and a generosity and magnanimity of mind truly Roman. Unmoved by all reverses of fortune, she showed herself equally dignified when wife to Cæsar, senator of Rome, as when consort to the master of the world. Warned, as she thought, in a dream, of her husband's fate, she entreated him not to leave his house on the ides of March; but, urged by the conspirators, he disregarded her prayers, and was assassinated before his return, March 15th., B. C. 44.

Calpurnia, superior to the weakness of ordinary minds, pronounced publicly, in the rostra, the funeral eulogium of her husband in an impressive and eloquent manner. Having declared a loss like hers to be irreparable, she passed the remainder of her life in mourning, secluded in the house of Marc Antony, to whom she entrusted the treasures and papers of Cæsar, that she might be the better enabled to avenge his death.