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The Roman SenateCf. the tale of Papirius Praetextatus, Aulus Gellius, i. 23. was once for many days debating in strict privacy a certain secret policy; and since the matter gave rise to much uncertainty and suspicion, a woman prudent in other respects, but yet a woman, kept pestering her husband and persistently begging to learn the secret. She vowed with imprecations upon herself that she would keep silent, and wept and moaned because she was not trusted. And the Roman, wishing to bring home her folly by proof, said, Wife, you have won; listen to a terrible and portentous matter. We have been informed by the priests that a lark has been seen flying about with a golden helmet and a spear; we are therefore examining the portent whether it be good or bad, and are in constant consultation with the augurs. But do you hold your tongue. So saying he went off to the Forum. But his wife at once seized the first maid to come into the room and beat her own breast and tore her hair. Alas, she cried, for my husband and my country! What will become of us? wishing, and in fact instructing, the maid to ask, Why, what has happened? So when the maid asked the question, she told the tale and added that refrain common to every babbler, Keep this quiet and tell it to no one! The little maid had scarcely left her when she herself tells the tale to that fellow servant who, she saw,had least to do; and this servant, in turn, told it to her lover who was paying a visit. WTith such speed was the story rolled outAs by the eccyclema on the Greek stage. into the Forum that it preceded its inventor: he was met by an acquaintance who said, Have you just now come down to the Forum from home? This very moment, said he. Then you have heard nothing? Why, is there any news? A lark has been seen flying about with a gold helmet and a spear and the magistrates are going to convene the senate about the matter. And the husband laughed and said, All praise to your speed, my wife! The story has even reached the Forum before me! So he interviewed the magistrates and relieved them of their anxiety; but, by way of punishing his wife, as soon as he entered home, he said, Wife, you have ruined me! The secret has been discovered to have been made public from my house; consequently I am to be exiled from my native land because you lack self-control. When she denied it and said, What, didn’t you hear it in company with three hundred others? Three hundred, nonsense! said he. You made such a fuss that I had to invent the whole story to try you out. Thus this man made trial of his wife cautiously and in complete safety, pouring, as it were into a leaky vessel, not wine or oil, but water.Plutarch is probably quoting a verse, as Wilamowitz has seen: ἐς ἀγγεῖον σαθρὸνοὐκ οἶνον οὐδ’ ἔλαιον ἀλλ’ ὕδωρ χέας
