Rome's triumvirs ordered the 1,400 richest women to value their property for a war tax, and Hortensia's speech cut the list to 400

After Caesar's murder, Antony, Octavian and Lepidus ruled Rome as triumvirs and needed money for war. The historian Appian says they proscribed men for their wealth, some "because they had handsome villas or city residences," and seized their estates. Then they issued an edict requiring "1400 of the richest women to make a valuation of their property" and pay a share toward the war. The women went first to Octavian's sister and Antony's mother, and were turned away at the door of Antony's wife Fulvia. They forced their way to the triumvirs' tribunal in the Forum and chose Hortensia, daughter of the orator Quintus Hortensius, to speak. Appian gives her speech. She said the triumvirs had "already deprived us of our fathers, our sons, our husbands, and our brothers." She asked, "Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in the honours, the commands, the state-craft," and said women in the wars against Carthage had given their jewellery voluntarily, not their land. The triumvirs ordered their lictors to drive the women away. The lictors stopped when the crowd outside shouted, and the matter was put off a day. The next day the triumvirs reduced the number of women taxed from 1,400 to 400. They ordered every man worth more than 100,000 drachmas to lend a fiftieth of his property and give one year's income for the war. Appian's account is the main record of the speech.