Note 139 — FIRST SECTION.

Aeschines, Orat. in Timarch. p. 134. ed. Reisk., Ἀποθαυμάζει γὰρ, εἰ μὴ πάντες μέμνησθ’, ὅτι καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἡ βουλὴ πωλεῖ τὸ πορνικὸν τέλος· καὶ τοὺς πριαμένους τὸ τέλος τοῦτο οὐκ εἰκάζειν, ἀλλ’ ἀκριβῶς εἰδέναι τοὺς ταύτῃ χρωμένους τῇ ἐργασίᾳ· ὁπότε οὖν δὴ τετόλμηκα ἀντιγράψασθαι, πεπορνευμένῳ Τιμάρχῳ μὴ ἐξεῖναι δημηγορεῖν, ἀπαιτεῖν φησὶ τὴν πρᾶξιν αὐτὴν οὐκ αἰτίαν κατηγόρου, ἀλλὰ μαρτυρίαν τελώνου τοῦ παρὰ Τιμάρχου τοῦτο ἐκλέξαντος τὸ τέλος· ἀλλὰ τοὺς τόπους ἐπερωτήσει ὅπου ἐκαθέζετο, καὶ τοὺς τελώνας, εἰ πώποτε παρ’ αὐτοῦ πορνικὸν τέλος εἰλήφασιν. (He expresses extreme surprise, though possibly you don’t all remember, at the fact that every year the senate sells the lease of the prostitution-tax; and that the purchasers do not conjecture, but know precisely, those who practise this calling. So when I have the audacity to counter-plead, that Timarchus as having exercised the trade of prostitution is not competent to address the people, he does not deny the fact charged against his client by the accuser, but says, ‘I demand the evidence of any tax-collector who collected this tax from Timarchus.’ ... but he will cross-examine as to the localities where he was established in the business, and will question the collectors as to whether they have ever levied prostitution-tax upon him).

This passage shows at the same time in the clearest way that Schneider is wrong, when in his Lexicon he explains πορνοτελώνης, occurring in Pollux. Onomast. VII. 202., IX. 29., as meaning a privileged or licenced whore-master, paying a duty to the magistrates on his trade. Besides, anything like a sanitary police supervision on the part of the Agoranomi at this period is of course out of the question. For the word ἀσφαλῶς (safely) in the fragment of Eubulus, (Athenaeus bk. XIII. p. 568), where it is said of the brothel-girls:

(from whom surely and safely you may buy your pleasure for a small coin), admits of an easy explanation, if we consider that these common women are contrasted here not with the hetaerae but with the free women of the city, illicit intercourse with whom was always dangerous for the voluptuary, being punished as rape or adultery. The most telling proof is afforded by the passage of Diogenes Laertius, bk. VI. ch. 4., where he says: “When Antisthenes saw a man accused of adultery, he said to him, Unhappy man, what serious risk you might have avoided for an obol! (ὦ δυστυχὴς, πηλίκον κίνδυνον ὀβολοῦ διαφυγεῖν εδύνασο). Also the passage of Xenarchus, (Athenaeus, bk. XIII. p. 569.), is pertinent, where it is said, καὶ τῶν δ’ ἑκάστην ἐστὶν ἀδεῶς, εὐτελῶς, (and of the women each can be enjoyed without fear, cheaply). Hence too the verses of Menander (Lucian, Amor. 33.) should read,

(and medicines, and hardest of diseases—envy, wherewith a woman dwells all her life long) and not, as the received text has it,

(and medicine, and disease; hardest is envy).