Page:The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.djvu/228

 with practising it; but Suetonius says, excepting his weakness for deflowering little girls, all the charges brought against him were calumnies.

Tiberius revelled in sodomy, and was surrounded by lusty Catamites, and rendered his name imperishable by indelibly connecting it with the Spintriæ. At this chaste court Vitellus was apprenticed, and soon acquired the name of Spintria, raising his family by his prostitution, and showing when he in his time came to the throne, what a long train of evil one bad man in power can lay.

Caligula's mutual prostitutions with his pantomimic friend were well known, as was also his connexion with certain hostages; and the state of Roman decency may be presumed when we are told that V. Catullus, a young man of