who holds the opinion that young men should be interdicted from
intrigues with the women of the town, he is indeed austere! That,
ethically, he is in the right, I cannot deny: but nevertheless, he is at
loggerheads not only with the licence of the present age, but even with
the habits of our ancestors and what they permitted themselves. For when
was this NOT done? When was it rebuked? When found fault with?" The
Floralia, first introduced about 238 B.C., had a powerful influence in
giving impetus to the spread of prostitution. The account of the origin
of this festival, given by Lactantius, while no credence is to be placed
in it, is very interesting. "When Flora, through the practice of
prostitution, had come into great wealth, she made the people her heir,
and bequeathed a certain fund, the income of which was to be used to
celebrate her birthday by the exhibition of the games they call the
Floralia" (Instit. Divin. xx, 6). In chapter x of the same book, he
describes the manner in which they were celebrated: "They were solemnized
with every form of licentiousness. For in addition to the freedom of
speech that pours forth every obscenity, the prostitutes, at the
importunities of the rabble, strip off their clothing and act as mimes in
full view of the crowd, and this they continue until full satiety comes
to the shameless lookers-on, holding their attention with their wriggling
buttocks." Cato, the censor, objected to the latter part of this
spectacle, but, with all his influence, he was never able to abolish it;
the best be could do was to have the spectacle put off until he had left
the theatre. Within 40 years after the introduction of this festival,
P. Scipio Africanus, in his speech in defense of Tib. Asellus, said: "If
you elect to defend your profligacy, well and good. But as a matter of
fact, you have lavished, on one harlot, more money than the total value,
as declared by you to the Census Commissioners, of all the plenishing of
your Sabine farm; if you deny my assertion I ask who dare wager 1,000
sesterces on its untruth? You have squandered more than a third of the
property you inherited from your father and dissipated it in debauchery"
(Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, vii, 11). It was about this time that
the Oppian law came up for repeal. The stipulations of this law were as
follows: No woman should have in her dress above half an ounce of gold,
nor wear a garment of different colors, nor ride