[Footnote 48: One may supply here, as Reiske suggests, "would have been overthrown", "would have been humbled", or "would have been brought low".]
[Sidenote: FRAG. LXXXV] [Sidenote: B.C. 114 (_a.u._ 640)] 1. ¶The priestesses for the most part incurred destruction and shame themselves, and proved the source of great evils to numerous others as well, while the entire city because of them was thrown into an uproar. For the people, in view of the fact that what was immaculate by law and sacred by the dictates of religion and decent through fear of vengeance had been polluted, were ready to believe that anything most shameful and unholy might be done. For this reason they visited punishment not only on the convicted, but also on all the rest who had been accused, to show their hatred of what had occurred. Hence the whole episode in which the women were concerned seemed now to be due not so much to their feminine incontinence[49] as to a kind of madness inspired by supernatural powers. (Valesius, p. 626.)
[Footnote 49: Reading [Greek: eti aselgeias] (Boissevain's emendation) in place of the unintelligible [Greek: aitias algein] of the MS.]
2. ¶Three altogether had had intercourse with men; and of them Marcia had acted individually, granting her favors to one single knight[50] and would never have been discovered, had not the investigation into the cases of the others spread and overtaken her besides. Æmilia and Licinia had a multitude of lovers and carried on their wanton behavior with each other's help. At first they surrendered themselves to some few privately and secretly, telling each man that he was the only one admitted. Later they themselves bound every one who could suspect and inform against them to certain silence in advance by the price of intercourse with them, and those who had previously enjoyed their conversation, though they saw this, yet endured it in order not to be detected by a show of vexation. So after holding commerce with many, now singly, now in groups, now privately, now publicly, Licinia enjoyed the society of the brother of Æmilia, and Æmilia that of Licinia's brother. These doings were hidden for a great period of time, and though many men and many women, both free and slaves, were in the secret, it was hidden for a very long period, until one Manius,[51] who seems to have been the first to assist and coöperate in the whole evil, gave information of the matter because he had not obtained freedom nor any of the other objects of his hope. He was, indeed, very skillful not only at leading women into prostitution, but also in slandering and ruining some of them. (Valesius, p. 626.)