We have no means of judging of the number of prostitutes exercising their calling at Rome, Capua, and the other Italian cities during the first years of the Christian era. During Trajan's reign the police were enabled to count thirty-two thousand in Rome alone, but this number obviously fell short of the truth. One is appalled at the great variety of classes into which the _prostibulæ_, or unregistered prostitutes were divided. Such were the _Delicatæ_, corresponding to the kept-women, or French _lorettes_, whose charms enabled them to exact large sums from their visitors;[82] the _Famosæ_, who belonged to respectable families, and took to evil courses through lust or avarice;[83] the _Doris_, who were remarkable for their beauty of form, and disdained the use of clothing;[84] the _Lupæ_, or she-wolves, who haunted the groves and commons, and were distinguished by a particular cry in imitation of a wolf;[85] the _Ælicariæ_, or bakers' girls, who sold small cakes for sacrifice to Venus and Priapus, in the form of the male and female organs of generation;[86] the _Bustuariæ_, whose home was the burial-ground, and who occasionally officiated as mourners at funerals;[87] the _Copæ_, servant-girls at inns and taverns, who were invariably prostitutes;[88] the _Noctiluæ_, or night-walkers; the _Blitidæ_, a very low class of women, who derived the name from _blitum_, a cheap and unwholesome beverage drunk in the lowest holes;[89] the _Diobolares_, wretched outcasts, whose price was two oboli (say two cents);[90] the _Forariæ_, country girls who lurked about country roads; the _Gallinæ_, who were thieves as well as prostitutes; the _Quadrantariæ_, seemingly the lowest class of all, whose fee was less than any copper coin now current.[91] In contradistinction to these, the _meretrices_ assumed an air of respectability, and were often called _bonæ meretrices_.[92] Another and a distinct class of prostitutes were the female dancers, who were eagerly sought after, and more numerous than at Athens. They were Ionians, Lesbians, Syrians, Egyptians, Nubians (negresses), Indians, but the most famous were Spaniards. Their dances were of the same character as those of the Greek flute-players; the erotic poets of Rome have not shrunk from celebrating the astonishing depravity of their performances.[93] Horace faintly deplored the progress which the Ionic dances--_Ionice motus_--were making even among the Roman virgins.[94] These prostitutes carried on their calling in defiance of law. If detected, they were liable to be whipped and driven out of the city;[95] but as their customers belonged to the wealthier classes, they rarely suffered the penalty of their conduct.