Note 491 — Chapter I · CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY[3] (continued 2)

Chrysostom, De non Iterat. Conj., 4 (in Migne, i, 618). At all times there were ladies of such lubricity as to court the opportunity of bathing before men in the public baths; prohibited by Marcus (Hist. Aug., 23), this commerce of the sexes was encouraged by Elagabalus, and again forbidden by Alexander (Hist. Aug., 24, 34). Hadrian, however, seems to have been the first to declare against this promiscuous bathing (Hist. Aug., 18): “Olim viri foeminaeque mixtim lavabant, nullo pudore nuditatis,” says Casaubon, commenting on the passage; cf. Aulus Gell., x, 3; Cod. Theod., IX, iii, 3; Cod., V, xvii, 11; Novel, xxii, 16, etc. Clement Alex. (c. 200) complains that ladies were to be seen in the baths at Alexandria like slaves exposed for sale; Paedag., iii, 5. Far different was the conduct of the Byzantine matrons a thousand years later; they then fell into the ways of Oriental exclusiveness as seen amongst the dominant Turks; see Filelfo, Epistolae, ix, Sphortiae Sec., 1451. A native of Ancona, who lived at CP. for several years in the half century preceding the capture of the city.