Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/165

 recorded by all the inscriptions, namely, that Maesa was the predominant factor, since her name always occurs first where she and Soaemias are mentioned together. Maesa, in all probability, did slip into the Senate; she would have appreciated the dignity of the position enormously, and the fact would give a basis to some story or other that had got about. Antonine would certainly have had no objection; the Senate was no longer the government properly so called; Maesa could do no harm there, and it would be a sop to her for the small power she was exercising in the actual development of events.

Soaemias, we can quite believe, was president of the assembly on the Quirinal which Lampridius sneers at as a foundation of Antonine's, and yet tells us had existed before his time. It was called the Senaculum or Conventus Matronarum. Friedlander says that it was an ancient and honourable assembly as early as the year 394, when its members voted their jewels to help raise the tithe in connection with the spoils of Veii. Seneca refers to it in his treatise De matrimoniis as a regular assembly. Again, in the year 209, the matrons met, in consequence of omens, to decide on expiation; even in imperial times Suetonius says that the Assembly met to reprove Agrippina for her vagaries; and Hieronymus counts amongst the distractions of Roman life the daily attendance at the Matronarum Senatus. What, therefore, this petulant and carping critic can find to grumble about in this permanent assembly meeting to carry out the provisions of the Lex Appia, one simply cannot