chap, xliv] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 511 the rapid progress of the evil. The ancient worship of the Komans afforded a peculiar goddess to hear and reconcile the complaints of a married life ; but her epithet of Viriplaca, m the appeaser of husbands, too clearly indicates on which side submission and repentance were always expected. Every act of a citizen was subject to the judgment of the censors ; the first who used the privilege of divorce assigned, at their com- mand, the motives of his conduct ; 12S and a senator was expelled for dismissing his virgin spouse without the knowledge or advice of his friends. Whenever an action was instituted for the re- covery of a marriage-portion, the praetor, as the guardian of equity, examined the cause and the characters, and gently inclined the scale in favour of the guiltless and injured party. Augustus, who united the powers of both magistrates, adopted their differ- ent modes of repressing or chastising the licence of divorce. 129 The presence of seven Roman witnesses was required for the validity of this solemn and deliberate act : if any adequate pro- vocation had been given by the husband, instead of the delay of two years, he was compelled to refund immediately, or in the space of six months ; but, if he could arraign the manners of his wife, her guilt or levity was expiated by the loss of the sixth or eighth part of her marriage-portion. The Christian princes were the first who specified the just causes of a private divorce ; their institutions, from Constantine to Justinian, appear to fluctuate between the custom of the empire and the wishes of the church ; 130 and the author of the Novels too frequently reforms the jurisprudence of the Code and Pandects. In the most rigorous laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner. But the sacred right of the husband was invariably maintained 127 Sacellum Viriplacas (Valerius Maximus, I. ii. c. 1) in the Palatine region appears in the time of Theodosius, in the description of Kome by Publius Victor. 128 Valerius Maximus, 1. ii. o. 9. With some propriety he judges divorce more criminal than celibacy : illo namque conjugalia 6acra spreta tantum, hoc etiam injuriose tractata. 129 See the laws of Augustus and his successors, in Heineccius, ad Legem Papiam Poppaeam, c. 19, in Opp. torn. vi. P. i. p. 323-333. 130 Alia sunt leges Csesarum, alise Christi ; aliud Papinianus, aliud Paulus noster praecipit (Jerom, torn. i. p. 198. Selden, Uxor Ebraica, 1. iii. c. 31, p. 847- 853).
