Mr. Darwin, in his work entitled “The Descent of Man” (vol. ii., p. 361), seems to endorse the opinion that the high honour bestowed in ancient times on women who were utterly licentious is intelligible only “if we admit that promiscuous intercourse was the aboriginal and therefore the long revered custom of the tribe,”[230] and I propose, in the present chapter, to show that the fact referred to has nothing at all to do with the custom sought to be supported by it. The examples on which Sir John Lubbock relies have been taken from Dulaure’s work on ancient religions, but they are more fully detailed in the “Histoire de la Prostitution” by M. Pierre Dufour, and they certainly form one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of morals. According to Herodotus,[231] every woman born in Babylonia was obliged by law, once in her life, to submit to the embrace of a stranger. Those who were gifted with beauty of face or figure soon completed this offering to Venus, but of the others some had to remain in the sacred enclosure for several years before they were able to obey the law. This statement of Herodotus is confirmed by the evidence of Strabo, who says the custom dated from the foundation of the city of Babylon. The compulsory prostitution of Babylonia was connected with the worship of Mylitta, and wherever this worship spread it was accompanied by the sexual sacrifice. Strabo relates[232] that in Armenia the sons and daughters of the leading families were consecrated to the service of Anaïtis for a longer or shorter period. Their duty was to entertain strangers, and those females who had received the greatest number were on their return home the most sought after in marriage. The Phœnician worship of Astarté was no less distinguished by sacred prostitution, to which was added a promiscuous intercourse between the sexes during certain religious fêtes, at which the men and women exchanged their garments. The Phœnicians carried the custom to the Isle of Cyprus, where the worship of their great goddess, under the name of Venus, became supreme.