"I passed the whole night with a lascivious girl whose naughtiness none could surpass. Tired of a thousand methods of indulgence, I begged the boyish favor: she granted my prayers before they were finished, before even the first words were out of my mouth. Smiling and blushing, I besought her for something worse still; she voluptuously promised it at once. But to me, she was chaste. But, AEschylus, she will not be so to you; take the boon if you want it, but she will attach a condition." In all that could pertain to accomplished skill in their profession, the "limit was the ceiling," they were there to serve, and serve they did, as long as the recipient of their ministrations was willing to pay or as long as his chits were good. With them, secrecy was the watchword. Tiberius, probably more sinned against than sinning (he has had an able defender in Beasley) is charged, by Suetonius, with the invention of an amplification and refinement of this vice. The performers were called "spinthriae," a word which signified "bracelet." These copulators could be of both sexes though the true usage of the word allowed but one, and that the male. They formed a chain, each link of which was an individual in sexual contact with one or two other links: in this diversion, the preference seems to have been in favor of odd numbers (Martial, xii, 44, 5), where the chain consisted of five links, and Ausonius, Epigram 119, where it consisted of three. CHAPTER NOTES CHAPTER 9. Gladiator obscene:-- The arena of his activities is, however, that of Venus and not Mars. Petronius is fond of figurative language, and in several other passages, he has made use of the slang of the arena: (chap. 61 ), "I used to fence with my mistress herself, until even the master grew Suspicious"; and again, in chapter 19, he says: "then, too, we were girded higher, and I had so arranged matters that if we came to close quarters, I myself would engage Quartilla, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the girl." Dufour, in commentating upon this expression, Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. III, pp. 92 and 93, remarks: It is necessary to see in Petronius the abominable role which the "obscene gladiator" played; but the Latin itself is clear enough to describe all the secrets of the Roman debauch. "For some women," says Petronius, in another passage, "will only kindle for canaille and cannot work up an appetite unless they see some slave or runner with his clothing girded up: a gladiator arouses one, or a mule driver, all covered with dust, or some actor posturing in some exhibition on the stage. My mistress belongs to this class, she jumps the fourteen rows from the stage to the gallery and looks for a lover among the gallery gods at the back." On "cum fortiter faceres," compare line 25 of the Oxford fragment of the sixth satire of Juvenal; "hic erit in lecto fortissimus," which Housman has rendered "he is a valiant mattress-knight."