Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/217

 of ever encountering one whom you see clutching a well-worn calendar in her hands as if it were a ball of clammy amber ; one who inquires of none, but is now herself inquired of; one who, if her husband is going forth to camp, or returning home from abroad, will not bear him company if the numbers of Thrasyllus call her back. If she wants to drive as far as the first mile-stone, she finds the right hour from her book; if there is a sore place in the corner of her eye, she will not call for a salve until she has consulted her horoscope: and if she be ill in bed, deems no hour so suitable for taking food as that prescribed to her by Petosiris.

If the woman be of humble rank, she will promenade between the turning-posts of the Circus; she will have her fortune told, and will present her brow and her hand to the seer who asks for many an approving smack. Wealthy women will pay for answers from a Phrygian or Indian augur well skilled in the stars and the heavens, or one of the elders employed to expiate thunderbolts. Plebeian destinies are determined in the Circus or on the ramparts ; the woman who displays a long gold chain on her bare neck inquires before the pillars and the clusters of dolphins whether she shall throw over the tavern-keeper and marry the old-clothes-man.

These poor women, however, endure the perils of child-birth, and all the troubles of nursing to which their lot condemns them; but how often 131