Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/156

 Diobolares—Two obol girls. So called from their price.

Amasiæ, also in the diminutive—Girls devoted to Venus. Their best expression in modern society would be the “vamps.”

Amatrix—Female lover, frequently in male part.

Amica—Female friend, frequently a tribad.

Quadrantariæ—The lowest class of all. Their natural charms were no longer merchantable. She of whom Catullus speaks in connection with the lofty souled descendants of Remus was of this stripe.

From many passages in the ancient authors it is evident that harlots stood naked at the doors of their cells: “I saw some men prowling stealthily between the rows of name-boards and naked prostitutes,” Petronius, chap. 7. “She entered the brothel, cozy with its crazy-quilt, and the empty cell—her own. Then, naked she stands, with gilded nipples, beneath the tablet of the pretended Lysisca,” Juvenal, Sat. vi, 121 et seq. In some cases they had recourse to a gossamer tissue of silk gauze, as was formerly the custom in Paris, Chicago, and San Francisco. “The matron has no softer thigh nor has she a more beautiful leg,” says Horace, Sat. I, ii, “though the setting be one of pearls and emeralds (with all due respect to thy opinion, Cerinthus), the togaed plebeian’s is often the finer, Rh