In other respects the republican legislation is believed to have been unaltered by the emperors. The formality of inscription, its accompanying infamy, the consequences of the act remained the same. Prostitutes carried on their trade under the ædile's eye. He patrolled the streets, and entered the houses of ill fame at all hours of the day and night. He saw that they were closed between daybreak and three in the afternoon. In case of brawls, he arrested and punished the disturbers of the peace. He punished by fine and scourging the omission of a brothel-keeper to inscribe every female in his house. He insisted on prostitutes wearing the garments prescribed by law, and dyeing their hair blue or yellow. On the other hand, he could not break into a house without being habited in the insignia of his office, and being accompanied by his lictors. When the ædile Hostilius attempted to break open the door of the prostitute Mamilia, on his return from a gay dinner, the latter drove him off with stones, and was sustained by the courts.[79] The ædile was bound also, on complaint laid by a prostitute, to sentence any customer of hers to pay the sum due to her according to law.[80] CLASSES OF PROSTITUTES. It was the duty of the ædile to arrest, punish, and drive out of the city all loose prostitutes who were not inscribed on his book. This regulation was practically a dead letter. At no time in the history of the empire did there cease to be a large and well-known class of prostitutes who were not recorded. They were distinguished from the registered prostitutes (_meretrices_) by the name of _prostibulæ_.[81] They paid no tax to the state, while their registered rivals contributed largely to the municipal treasury; and, if they ran greater risks, and incurred more nominal infamy than the latter, they more frequently contrived to rise from their unhappy condition.