It has already been mentioned that the rate of remuneration exacted by the prostitutes was fixed by themselves, though apparently announced to the ædile. It is impossible to form any idea of the average amount of this charge. The lowest classes, as has been mentioned, sold their miserable favors for about two tenths of a cent; another large class were satisfied with two cents. The only direct light that is thrown on this branch of the subject flows from an obscure passage in the strange romance entitled "Apollonius of Tyre," which is supposed to have been written by a Christian named Symposius. In that work the capture of a virgin named Tarsia by a bawd is described. The bawd orders a sign or advertisement to be hung out, inscribed, "He who deflours Tarsia shall pay half a pound, afterward she shall be at the public service for a gold piece." The half pound has been assumed by commentators to mean half a Roman pound of silver, and to have been worth $30; the gold piece, according to the best computation, was about equivalent to $4. But whether these figures can be regarded as an average admits of doubt, even supposing our estimate of the value of the sums mentioned in the ancient work to be accurate. The allusion to Tarsia suggests some notice of the practice of the Roman bawds when they had secured a virgin. It will be found faithfully described in that old English play, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," which is sometimes bound up with Shakspeare's works. When a bawd had purchased a virgin as a slave, or when, as sometimes happened under the later emperors, a virgin was handed to him to be prostituted as a punishment for crime, the door of his house was adorned with twigs of laurel; a lamp of unusual size was hung out at night, and a tablet exhibited somewhat similar to the one quoted above, stating that a virgin had been received, and enumerating her charms with cruel grossness.[122] When a purchaser had been found and a bargain struck, the unfortunate girl, often a mere child, was surrendered to his brutality, and the wretch issued from the cell afterward, to be himself crowned with laurel by the slaves of the establishment.