From these considerations it is clear that the woman's wishes were supreme in the conduct of any suit. Moreover, the law expressly states that women may appoint whatever attorneys or agents they desire, without asking the consent of their legal guardians[137]; and thus they were at liberty to select a man who would manage things as they might direct. There were cases where even the strict letter of the law permitted women to lay an action on their own responsibility alone: if, when a suit for recovery of dowry was brought, the father was absent or hindered by infirmities[138]; if the woman sued or was sued to get or render an account of property managed in trust[139]; to avenge the death of a parent or children, or of patron or patroness and their children[140]; to lay bare any matter pertaining to the public grain supply[141]; and to disclose cases of treason.[142]
[Sidenote: Instances of women pleading in public and suing.]
We read of many cases of women pleading publicly and bringing suit. Indeed, according to Juvenal--who is, however, a pessimist by profession--the ladies found legal proceedings so interesting that bringing suit became a passion with them as strong as it had once been among the Athenians. Thus Juvenal[143]: "There is almost no case in which a woman wouldn't bring suit. Manilia prosecutes, when she isn't a defendant. They draw up briefs quite by themselves, and are ready to cite principles and authorities to Celsus [a celebrated lawyer of that time]." Of pleading in public one of the celebrated instances was that of Hortensia, daughter of the great orator Quintus Hortensius, Cicero's rival. On an occasion when matrons had been burdened with heavy taxes and none of their husbands would fight the measure, Hortensia pleaded the case publicly with great success. All writers speak of her action and the eloquence of her speech with great admiration.[144] We hear also of a certain Gaia Afrania, wife of a Senator; she always conducted her case herself before the supreme judge, "not because there was any lack of lawyers," adds her respectable and scandalised historian,[145] "but because she had more than enough of impudence."
Quintilian mentions several cases of women being sued[146]; Pliny tells how he acted as attorney for some[147]; and the Law Books will supply any one curious in the matter with abundant examples.[148] A quotation from Pliny[149] will give an idea of the kind of suit a woman might bring, and the great interest aroused thereby: "Attia Viriola, a woman of illustrious birth and married to a former supreme judge, was disinherited by her eighty-year-old father within eleven days after he had brought Attia a stepmother. Attia was trying to regain her share of her father's estate. One hundred and eighty jurors sat in judgment. The tribunal was crowded, and from the higher part of the court both men and women strained over the railings in their eagerness to hear (which was difficult), and to see (which was easy)."