Ab urbe condita

She then called the plebeian matrons together and told them how unjustly she had been treated by the patrician ladies. “I am dedicating,” she said,“this altar to the Plebeian Pudicitia, and I earnestly exhort you as matrons to show the same

spirit of emulation on the score of chastity that the men of this City display with regard to courage, so that this altar may, if possible, have the reputation of being honoured with a holier observance and by purer worshippers than that of the patricians.”

The ritual and ceremonial practised at this altar was almost identical with that at the older one; no matron was allowed to sacrifice there whose moral character was not well attested, and who had had more than one husband.