Above all this position is the most convenient for tall women: “Let her press the bed with her knees, with the neck slightly bowed, she whose chief beauty is her long shapely flank” (_Art of Love_, III., v. 779, 80). It seems that the Phyllis of Martial allowed herself to be done in that way: “Two arrived in the morning, who wanted to lie with Phyllis, and each was fain to be first to hold her naked body in his arms; Phyllis promised to satisfy them both together, and she did it; one lifted her leg, the other her tunic” (X., 81). She was lying on her side; the f... lifted her leg; the pederast her tunic. We now come to the manner, in which the man lying on his back has connection with the woman face downwards. The parts are interchanged; the woman plays the rider and the man the horse. This figure was called the horse of Hector. Martial says: “Behind the doors the Phrygian slaves would be masturbating, every time Andromaché mounted her Hector horse fashion” (XI., 105). Ovid, however, with much sagacity denies that this posture could have pleased Andromaché; her figure was too tall, for this to have been agreeable or even possible for her. It is for little women, that it is pleasant to be thus placed: “A little woman may very well get astride on her horse; but tall and majestic as she was, the Theban bride never mounted the Hectorean horse” (_Art of Love_, III., v. 777, 778). It is no business of ours to decide the question. At any rate Sempronia takes this posture with Crisogono. “He could wait no longer: “Are you undressed”, said Crisogono. “Now, my Sempronia, take the position, which gives me so much pleasure, you know which.” He stretches himself down on his back, she gets upon him astride, with her face towards him, and with her own hand guides his burning arrow between her thighs” (Aloysia Sigaea, Dial. VII). This is the same attitude, which in Horace is imposed by the slave upon the little harlot, who: “... naked in the light of the lantern, plied with wanton wiles and moving buttocks the horse beneath her” (Sat. II. vii, v. 50). As to the matron spoken of v. 64 of the same satire as “never having sinned _above_”, no doubt this posture did not suit her. Women have not all the same taste. Evidently, it was as little to the taste of the girl whom Xanthias in Aristophanes’ _Wasps_ (v. 499) asked to ride him; for she asks him indignantly, and playing on the double meaning of the word (Hippias and ——, a horse), if he was for re-establishing Hippias’ tyranny: “Irritated she asked me if I wanted to revive the tyranny of Hippias.” Again in his _Lysistrata_ (v. 678) this master of wanton wit points to the same thing, declaring the female sex to be very good at riding and fond of driving: “Woman loves to get on horseback and to stick there.”