rently respectable, the official sought to
influence her to change her mind; failing in this, he issued her a
license (licentia stupri), ascertained the price she intended exacting
for her favors, and entered her name in his roll. Once entered there,
the name could never be removed, but must remain for all time an
insurmountable bar to repentance and respectability. Failure to register
was severely punished upon conviction, and this applied not only to the
girl but to the pandar as well. The penalty was scourging, and
frequently fine and exile. Notwithstanding this, however, the number
of clandestine prostitutes at Rome was probably equal to that of the
registered harlots. As the relations of these unregistered women were,
for the most part, with politicians and prominent citizens it was very
difficult to deal with them effectively: they were protected by their
customers, and they set a price upon their favors which was commensurate
with the jeopardy in which they always stood. The cells opened upon a
court or portico in the pretentious establishments, and this court was
used as a sort of reception room where the visitors waited with covered
head, until the artist whose ministrations were particularly desired,
as she would of course be familiar with their preferences in matters of
entertainment, was free to receive them. The houses were easily found by
the stranger, as an appropriate emblem appeared over the door. This
emblem of Priapus was generally a carved figure, in wood or stone, and
was frequently painted to resemble nature more closely. The size ranged
from a few inches in length to about two feet. Numbers of these
beginnings in advertising have been recovered from Pompeii and
Herculaneum, and in one case an entire establishment, even to the
instruments used in gratifying unnatural lusts, was recovered intact.
In praise of our modern standards of morality, it should be said that it
required some study and thought to penetrate the secret of the proper use
of several of these instruments. The collection is still to be seen in
the Secret Museum at Naples. The mural decoration was also in proper
keeping with the object for which the house was maintained, and a few
examples of this decoration have been preserved to modern times; their
luster and infamous appeal undimmed by the passage of centuries.

Over the door of each cell was a tablet (titulus) upon which was the name
of the occupant and her price; the