An te ibi vis inter istas vorsarier _Prosedas_, pistorum amicas, reliquias alicarias, Miseras coeno delibutas, servilicolas, sordidas, Quae tibi olent stabulum, statumque, sellam et sessibulum merum, Quas adeo haud quisquam tetigit, neque duxit domum?
(It is your wish to pass your time there amongst those _common strumpets_, bakers’ mistresses, refuse of the spelt-mill girls, drabs besmeared with filth, slaves’ darlings, squalid creatures that reek of their stand and trade, of the chair and bare stool, women that no free man ever touched or took home?) This serves also to explain the passage in _Juvenal_, III. 136., Et dubitas alta Chionem deducere sella. (And you hesitate to hand down Chione from her high seat).
[194] _Martial_, XI. 45., I. 35. Usually however this appears only to have been done, when the customer was gratifying unnatural lusts.
[195] _Plautus_, Asin., IV. 1. 19., In foribus scribat, occupatam esse se. (Let her write on the door that she is engaged).
Quem cum fenestra vidit a Suburana Obscoena _nudum_ lena _fornicem_ clausit.
(When she saw him from a window in the Subura, the foul brothel-mistress shut the _unoccupied “chamber”_).
Intravit calidum veteri centone lupanar, Et cellam _vacuam_ atque suam.
(She entered the brothel cosy with its old patch-work quilt, and the chamber that was _vacant_ and her own.). Messalina had hired, we see, a special “chamber” of her own, where she acted as a prostitute under the name of Lycisca.
Mox, lenone suas iam dimittente puellas, Tristis abit—tamen ultima cellam clausit.
(Presently when time is up and the brothel-keeper dismisses his girls, sadly she takes her departure,—but she was the last to shut her chamber).
[198] III. 65., et _ad circum_ iussas prostare puellas (and girls bidden stand for hire _at the Circus_).
[199] Of Heliogabalus _Lampridius_, (Vita Heliog. ch. 26.) relates: Omnes de _circo_, de theatro, de stadio—meretrices collegit. (He collected all the harlots,—from _circus_, theatre and stadium—race-course). An old poem (_Priapeia_, carm. 26,) says:
Deliciae populi, _magno_ notissima _circo_ Quintia.
(The darling of the people, Quintia, so well known _in the Great Circus_). Comp. _Buleng._ De Circo ch. 56. Supposing this view to be correct, we might read in the passage of _Juvenal_, III. 136., as several Critics do, “alta Chionem deducere _cella_” (to lead Chione down from her lofty “chamber”).