We learn from Tacitus[67] that from time immemorial prostitutes had been required to register themselves in the office of the ædile. The ceremony appears to have been very similar to that now imposed by law on French prostitutes. The woman designing to become a prostitute presented herself before the ædile, gave her age, place of birth, and real name, with the one she assumed if she adopted a pseudonyme.[68] The public officer, if she was young or apparently respectable, did his best to combat her resolution. Failing in this, he issued to her a license--_licentia stupri_, ascertained the sum which she was to demand from her customers, and entered her name in his roll. It might be inferred from a law of Justinian[69] that a prostitute was bound to take an oath, on obtaining her license, to discharge the duties of her calling to the end of her life; for the law in question very properly decided that an oath so obviously at war with good morals was not binding. However this was, the prostitute once inscribed incurred the taint of infamy which nothing could wipe off. Repentance was impossible, even when she married and became the mother of legitimate children; the fatal inscription was still there to bear witness of her infamy.[70] In Rome, as in so many other countries, the principle of the law was to close the door to reform, and to render vice hopeless. There is every reason to suppose that these regulations were in force at a very early period of the Republic. Of the further rules established under the imperial regime we shall speak presently. Meanwhile, it may be observed that there is ground for hoping that, at the best age of the Republic, the public morals were not generally corrupt. The old stories of Lucretia and Virginia would have had no point among a demoralized people. All who are familiar with Roman history will remember the fierce contest waged by Cato the Censor against the jewels, fine dresses, and carriages of the Roman ladies,[71] an indication that graver delinquencies did not call for official interference. This same Cato, after the death of his first wife, cohabited with a female slave; but, though concubinage was recognized by the Roman law, and would seem to have involved no disgrace at a later period, the intrigue no sooner became known than the old censor married a second wife to avoid scandal.[72] A similar inference may be drawn from the strange story told by Livy of the Bacchanalian mysteries introduced into Rome by foreigners about the beginning of the second century before Christ. It is not easy, at this late day, to discover what is true and what false in the statement he gives; but there is no reasonable doubt that young persons of both sexes, under the impulse of sensuality, had established societies for the purpose, among others, of satisfying depraved instincts. To what extent the mania had extended it is not possible to judge; the numbers given by the Latin writers are not very trustworthy.