Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/153

 logue between the hostess and a transient. The bill for the services of a girl amounted to 8 asses. This inscription is of great interest to the antiquary and to the archeologist. That bakers were not slow in organizing the grist mills is shown by a passage from Paulus Diaconus, xiii, 2: “as time went on, the owners of these turned the public corn mills into pernicious frauds. For, as the mill stones were fixed in places under ground, they set up booths on either side of these chambers and caused harlots to stand for hire in them, so that by these means they deceived very many,—some that came for bread, others that hastened thither for the base gratification of their wantonness.” From a passage in Festus, it would seem that this was first put into practice in Campania: “harlots were called ‘ælicariæ,’ spelt-mill girls, in Campania, being accustomed to ply for gain before the mills of the spelt-millers.” “Common strumpets, bakers’ mistresses, refuse the spelt-mill girls,” says Plautus, i, ii, 54.

There are few languages which are richer in pornographic terminology than the Latin.

Meretrix—Nonius Marcellus has pointed out the difference between this class of prostitutes and the prostibula. “This is the difference between a meretrix (harlot) and a prostibula (common strumpet): a Rh