[273.1] _Cities and Bishoprics_, i. 94. In his comment he rightly points out that the woman is Lydian, as her name is not genuine Roman; but he is wrong in speaking of her service as performed to a god (Frazer, _Adonis_, etc., p. 34, follows him). This would be a unique fact, for the service in Asia Minor is always to a goddess; but the inscription neither mentions nor implies a god. The bride of Zeus at Egyptian Thebes was also a temple-harlot, if we could believe Strabo, p. 816; but on this point he contradicts Herodotus, 1, 182. [273.2] _Et. Mag._, s.v. Ἱκόνιον. [274.1] _De Dea Syr._, 6; cf. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, 4, 10: “cui (Veneri) etiam Phoenices donum dabant de prostitutione filiarum, antequam eas jungerent viris”: religious prostitution before marriage prevailed among the Carthaginians in the worship of Astarte (Valer. Max., 2, ch. 1, sub. fin.: these vague statements may refer either to defloration of virgins or prolonged service in the temple). [274.2] See Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 33, n. 1, quoting Sozomen. _Hist. Eccles._, 5, 10, 7; Sokrates, _Hist. Eccles._, 1, 18, 7-9; Euseb. _Vita Constantin._, 3, 58. Eusebius only vaguely alludes to it. Sokrates merely says that the wives were in common, and that the people had the habit of giving over the virgins to strangers to violate. Sozomenos is the only voucher for the religious aspect of the practice; from Sokrates we gather that the rule about strangers was observed in the rite. [274.3] 18, 5. [274.4] This is confirmed by the legend given by Apollodoros (_Bibl._, 3, 14, 3) that the daughters of Kinyras, owing to the wrath of Aphrodite, had sexual intercourse with strangers. [275.1] Justin, 21, 3; Athenaeus, 516 A, speaks vaguely, as if the women of the Lokri Epizephyrii were promiscuous prostitutes. [275.2] Pp. 532-533. [275.3] The lovers, Melanippos and Komaitho, sin in the temple of Artemis Triklaria of the Ionians in Achaia; the whole community is visited with the divine wrath, and the sinners are offered up as a piacular sacrifice (Paus., 7, 19, 3); according to Euphorion, Laokoon’s fate was due to a similar trespass committed with his wife before the statue of Apollo (Serv. _Aen._, 2, 201). It may be that such legends faintly reflect a very early ἱερὸς γάμος once performed in temples by the priest and priestess: if so, they also express the repugnance of the later Hellene to the idea of it; and in any case this is not the institution that is being discussed. [276.1] _Antike Wald u. Feld Kulte_, p. 285, etc. [277.1] Why should not the priestess rather play the part of the goddess, and why, if we trust Plutarch (_Vit. Artaxerx._, 27), was the priestess of Anaitis at Ekbatana, to whose temple harlots were attached, obliged to observe chastity after election? [277.2] Vol. i. pp. 94-96. [277.3] _Op. cit._, p. 35, etc. [277.4] _Op. cit._, p. 44.