Arria

Arria, in Roman history, the heroic wife of Caecina Paetus. When her husband was implicated in the conspiracy of Scribonianus against the emperor Claudius (A.D. 42), and condemned to death, she resolved not to survive him. She accordingly stabbed herself with a dagger, which she then handed to him with the words, “Paetus, it does not hurt” (Paete, non dolet; see Pliny, Epp. iii. 16; Martial i. 14; Dio Cassius lx. 16). Her daughter, also called Arria, was the wife of Thrasea Paetus. When he was condemned to death by Nero, she would have imitated her mother’s example, but was dissuaded by her husband, who entreated her to live for the sake of their children. She was sent into banishment (Tacitus, Annals, xvi. 34).

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