Note 827 — Chapter VII · THE CONTIO

Val. Max. iii. 8. 6: “Quid feminae cum contione? Si patrius mos sevetur, nihil.” The lex Horatia, which is alleged to have granted the Vestal Gaia Taracia among many honors the right to give testimony [Gell. vii (vi). 7. 1-3], and which is assigned by Cuq (Inst. jurid. d. Rom. i. 255; and in Daremb. et Saglio, Dict. iv. 1145) to the consul Horatius, 509, is a myth (Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 608), though doubtless in the course of the republic laws of the kind were occasionally passed, the language of which might be quoted by the annalists (Gell. l. c.). The rule that women were intestabiles is proved by such exceptions.