Note 170 — FIRST SECTION.

Instit Divin., I. 20. 6., Flora cum magnas opes ex arte meretricia quaesivisset, populum scripsit haeredem, certamque pecuniam reliquit, cuius ex annuo foenere suus natalis dies celebraretur editione Ludorum, quos appelant Floralia. (Flora having acquired great riches by the harlot’s calling made the people her heir, and left a certain sum of money, the interest of which was to be applied to celebrating her birth-day by the exhibition of the games which are called Floralia.—I. 20. 10., Celebrantur cum omni lascivia. Nam praeter verborum licentiam, quibus obscoenitas omnis effunditur, exuuntur etiam vestibus populo flagitante meretrices, quae tunc mimarum funguntur officio et in conspectu populi, usque ad satietatem impudicorum hominum cum pudendis motibus detinentur. (They are solemnized with every form of licentiousness. For over and above the looseness of speech that pours forth every obscenity, harlots strip themselves of their clothing at the importunities of the mob, and then act as mimes,—pantomimic actors,—and in full view of the crowd indulge in indecent posturings, till their shameless audience is satisfied). It may be noted that scarcely 40 years after the introduction of the Floralia, P. Scipio Africanus in his Speech in defence of Tib. Asellus could say: Si nequitiam defendere vis, licet: sed tu in uno scorto maiorem pecuniam absumsisti, quam quanti omne instrumentum fundi Sabini in censum dedicavisti. Ni hoc ita est: qui spondet mille nummum? Sed tu plus tertia parte pecuniae perdidisti atque absumsisti in flagitiis. (If you choose to defend your profligacy, well and good! but as a matter of fact you have wasted on one strumpet more money than the total value, as you declared it to the Census commissioners, of all the plenishing of your Sabine farm. If you deny my assertion, I ask who dare wager a thousand sesterces on its untruth? You have squandered more than a third of the property you inherited from your father, and thrown it away in debauchery).—Gellius, Noct. Attic., VII. 11.—As not only did hetaerae build a temple to Aphrodité, but a similar one was also erected in their honour at Abydos (Athenaeus, XIII. p. 573.), and Phryné wished to rebuild Thebes at her own cost, on the condition that an inscription should be set up to the effect, “Alexander destroyed it; Phryné the hetaera restored it”, there is not the slightest reason for counting the above story as merely one of the ridiculous inventions common in the Fathers.