Note 249-9 — Chapter II

Travelers are wont to be the first to make use of prostitution. I need only mention the extremely licentious worship of Aphrodite (Aschera) which the Phoenicians spread on every side: in Cypria, Cytherae, Eryx, etc. Connected with this was the mercenary character of the Babylonian women (Herodot., I, 199); similarly in Byblos (Lucian, De dea Syria, 6); Eryx (Strabo, VI, 272: Diod., IV, 83), in Cypria; (Herodot., I, 105, 199); Cytheria (Pausan., I, 14); Athenian prostitutes in Piräeus and very early Ionian in Naucratis. (Herodot., II, 135.) In all the oases on the grand highways of the caravans, the women have a very bad reputation. Temporary marriages of merchants in Yarkand, Augila, etc. (Ritter, Erdkunde, I, 999, 1011, 1013, II, 360; VII, 472; XIII, 414.) It is remarkable how the legislation of German cities at the very beginning of their rise was directed against male bawds and prostitutes; at times with great severity, the death penalty being provided for against the former and exile against the latter, while the earlier legislation of the people was directed only against rape. (Spittler, Gesch. Hannovers, I, 57 ff.)