“As Aloysio got up” (Tullia speaks) “Fabrizio makes ready for another attack. His member is swollen up, red and threatening. “I beg of you “Madam”, he says, “turn over on your face.” I did as he wished. When he saw my buttocks, whiter than ivory and snow, “How beautiful you are!” he cried. “But raise yourself on your knees and bend your head down.” I bow my head and bosom, and lift my buttocks. He thrust his swift-moving and fiery dart to the bottom of my vulva, and took one of my nipples in either hand. Then he began to work in and out, and soon sent a sweet rivulet into the cavity of Venus. I also felt unspeakable delight, and had nearly fainted with lust. A surprising quantity of seed secreted by Fabrizio’s loins filled and delighted me; a similar flow of my own exhausted my forces. In that single assault I lost more vigour than in the three preceding ones” (Dialogue VI.)[19]. This copulation from the back is practicable in another very pleasant fashion, an excellent reproduction of which can be seen in the _Monument du culte secret des dames romaines_, plate XXVIII. A woman is represented with her hands placed on the ground, while the lower part of the body is lifted up and suspended by cords; she is turning her back to the man who stands. This seems to be much the same position as was taken up by the wife of the artisan Apuleius speaks of in his _Metamorphoses_ (book IX), whom “bending over her, the lover planed with his adze, while she leant forward over a cask.” An engraving showing this ingenious attitude is appended to the story of _The Tub_ in the _Contes et Nouvelles en vers_ of Jean de La Fontaine, vol. II., p. 215. FOOTNOTES - OF COPULATION ----- Footnote 13: This method was not unknown at the time of Aristophanes, as we see from the following passage of the _Peace_: “So that you may straightway, lifting up the girl’s legs, accomplish high in air the mysteries” (v. 889, 890). And in the _Birds_ he says: “For this girl, your first messenger, why! I will lift up her legs and will in between her thighs” (v. 1254, 55). Footnote 14: Readers will find another figure given in some of the books: “The man should be standing, while the woman reclines sideways on the bed.” Footnote 15: From —— buttock. Footnote 16: Dio Cassius, LIV., 19: “He was so fond of her, that one day he matched her against Livia, as to which of them was the most beautiful.” It was no bad idea to engage them in such a match, but think you he suffered them to fight this out in any costume but that in which the Goddesses three presented themselves before the dazed eyes of Paris? Footnote 17: Pliny has treated this at great length in his _Natural History_ (Book X., ch. 63). Footnote 18: Compare Dio Cassius, bk. XLVIII., ch. 44. Footnote 19: The thing itself is very old; Aristophanes alludes to it in the _Peace_: