Note 25 — FIRST SECTION.

So we think we ought to understand the καταπορνεύει τὰ θήλεα τέκνα (prostitute down their female children) in the text, for the expression is evidently formed on the same plan as the καθῆσθαι ἐπ’ οἰκήματος (to sit down at a house of ill-fame in Plato, Charmides, 163. c.; because the brothels lay near the harbour, and so in the more low-lying region, away from Athens itself. In the same way the Romans used the verb descendere (to go down), e. g. Horace, Satires I. 2. 34., because the public houses of ill-fame at Rome were in the valley, in the Subura.