[268] _Ammianus Marcellinus_, XXVIII., Tales, ubi comitantibus singulos quadraginta ministris, tholos introierint balnearum, ubi sunt, minaciter clamantes, si apparuisse subito ignotam compererint meretricem, aut oppidanae quondam prostibulum plebis, vel meritorii corporis veterem lupam, certatim concurrunt, palpantesque ad venam deformitate magna blanditarum ita extollunt, ut Semiramin. (Such men, when with forty servants attending each master they have entered the rotundas of the Baths, where they remain with loud threatening shouts, if they should note an unknown courtesan to have put in an appearance, or some prostitute once popular with the common herd, or some old harlot who has sold her person for years, they strive who shall be first on the spot, and wheedling her to the top of her bent, with mighty exaggeration of flattery, praise her beauty as though she were a Semiramis). _Lampridius_, Life of Heliogabalus ch. 26., Omnes de circo, de theatro, de stadio, de omnibus locis et _balneis_, meretrices collegit in aedes publicam. (All the prostitutes from circus, from theatre, from race-course, from all places and from _the Baths_, he brought together into public establishments). Comp. _Suetonius_, Caligula ch. 37. [269] Martial, bk. I. Epigr. 24., Invitae nullum, nisi cum quo, Cotta, lavaris, Et dant convivam balnea sola tibi. Mirabar, quare nunquam me, Cotta, vocasses. Iam scio, me nudum displicuisse tibi. (You invite no man, Cotta, but your bathing companion; the Baths only supply a guest for you. I used to wonder, why you had never asked me; now I know that you did not like the look of me when naked). Comp. _Martial_, Bk. I. 97. bk. VII. 33. bk. IX. 34. _Juvenal_, Sat. VI. 373. [270] It must be left to future investigation to decide, whether the great number of _phalli_ found in so many places where Temples formerly existed, is not in part to be explained by supposing these figures to have formed thank-offerings for the happy recovery of the corresponding parts from sickness.