Metellus Macedonius (Senator of Rome from the 2nd century BCE)
“Fellow Romans, if we could make do without a wife, we would all be free of such a nuisance. But nature has ordained that we can’t live easily with women or without them, so we must look to our long term needs rather than our short-term happiness.”
- From a speech given by Metellus Macedonius to the senate of Rome in 131 BCE, recorded by Aulus Gellius in Attic Nights (1.6.2).
