townsmen for their pre-eminence as venal beauties. A magnificent cenotaph on the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis surprised a wayfarer into the belief that he was approaching the tomb of some great general or statesman; it was no more than the fantasy of Harpalus, an extravagant viceroy of Alexander's, constructed in glorification of his deceased mistress, Pythionice.[1] At Abydos, a temple to Aphrodite, styled the Prostitute, recorded the patriotic treachery of a band of loose women, which conduced to the slaughter of an alien garrison;[2] but when the degradation of Greece was already far advanced, both Athens and Thebes descended to flatter Demetrius Poliorcetes by rearing fanes in honour of his favourite concubine, Lamia.[3]
In the earlier centuries of the Republic the strict censorship upheld at Rome kept the city purged of dissoluteness; and prostitution, regularly supervised and licensed,[4] was reduced to the inevitable minimum; but in proportion as Hellenic manners permeated the community, the courtesan established herself on the same footing as in Greece. We are told that a fortune gained by her harlotry was willed to Sulla by Nicopolis;[5] and the relations of Flora with the great Pompey are given in detail by Plutarch. Captivated by the beauty of the latter, Caecilius Metellus included her portrait among the adornments of the temple of Castor and Pollux.[6] Precia, a notorious strumpet, won the devotion of
- ↑ Athenaeus, xiii, 69; and another at Babylon, the seat of his governorship. Plutarch (Phocion) says it cost about £7,000, and was poor value for the money, but Pausanias extols it; i, 37.
- ↑ Athenaeus, xiii, 34.
- ↑ Ibid., vi, 62. Plutarch tells us that he fined the Athenians £70,000, which he handed over to Lamia and the rest of his harem to buy soap!
- ↑ A licentia stupri was issued to each woman by the aediles; Tacitus, Ann., ii, 85.
- ↑ Plutarch, Sulla.
- ↑ Ibid., Pompey.
