_Lenocinium_ (Procuration) in fact as well as the _licentia stupri_ (fornication permit) had to be notified before the Aediles[224], whose especial duty it was to see that no Matron became a prostitute[225]. With this object they were bound to frequently search all such places as have been specified above (_loca aedilem metuentia_—places that fear the aedile)[226]; but dared not themselves indulge in any immorality there[227]. When that pure-minded prince _Caligula_ became Emperor, he introduced the Whore-duty (_vectigal ex capturis_—tax on prostitution-fees) as a State impost[228]. This, _Alexander Severus_ retained, it is true, but assigned the revenue from it to the maintenance of the public buildings, that it might not contaminate the State Treasure.[229]
The information here collected, imperfect as it may be in many respects, is yet sufficient to throw some light on the external relations of brothels and courtesans. It shows convincingly that in the entire absence of police supervision on the sanitary side, such diseases as arose generally in Antiquity consequent upon coition must have had their especial home and chief focus in the brothels and their denizens. But of what nature these diseases were, and what parts of the body they attacked, we shall only then be able to determine, when we come to consider more precisely the actual excesses that led to them, whether within or without the walls of the brothels.
In the preceding investigations we have shown how the natural aim and object of coition, viz. procreation of children, fell more and more into the background, in order to make way for sensual gratification; and we have made acquaintance with the establishments that grew up in course of time for its indulgence. The facility with which the bestial instinct could be satisfied and the titillation of carnal pleasure procured, was bound to rob the customary manner of sexual indulgence of the charm of novelty, and to set the depraved imagination of the voluptuary at work to solve the problem of how to import manifold variations into the simple act of copulation. This stage reached, it inevitably followed that the natural ways of union of the sexes began to appear insufficient, and the methods of so-called _unnatural_ Love (Venus illegitima) grew up, wherein at last almost every trace of the specific purpose of the genital organs was lost sight of.