to accomplished skill in their profession, the
"limit was the ceiling," they were there to serve, and serve they did,
as long as the recipient of their ministrations was willing to pay or as
long as his chits were good. With them, secrecy was the watchword.
Tiberius, probably more sinned against than sinning (he has had an able
defender in Beasley) is charged, by Suetonius, with the invention of an
amplification and refinement of this vice. The performers were called
"spinthriae," a word which signified "bracelet." These copulators could
be of both sexes though the true usage of the word allowed but one, and
that the male. They formed a chain, each link of which was an individual
in sexual contact with one or two other links: in this diversion, the
preference seems to have been in favor of odd numbers (Martial, xii, 44,
5), where the chain consisted of five links, and Ausonius, Epigram 119,
where it consisted of three.

CHAPTER NOTES

CHAPTER 9. Gladiator obscene:--

The arena of his activities is, however, that of Venus and not Mars.
Petronius is fond of figurative language, and in several other passages,
he has made use of the slang of the arena: (chap. 61 ), "I used to fence
with my mistress herself, until even the master grew Suspicious"; and
again, in chapter 19, he says: "then, too, we were girded higher, and I
had so arranged matters that if we came to close quarters, I myself would
engage Quartilla, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the girl."

Dufour, in commentating upon this expression, Histoire de la
Prostitution, vol. III, pp. 92 and 93, remarks: It is necessary to see in
Petronius the abominable role which the "obscene gladiator" played; but
the Latin itself is clear enough to describe all the secrets of the Roman
debauch. "For some women," says Petronius, in another passage, "will
only kindle for canaille and cannot work up an appetite unless they see
some slave or runner with his clothing girded up: a gladiator arouses
one, or a mule driver, all covered with dust, or some actor posturing in
some exhibition on the stage. My mistress belongs to this class, she
jumps the fourteen rows from the stage to the gallery and looks for a
lover among the gallery gods at the back."

On "cum fortiter faceres," compare line 25 of the Oxford fragment of the
sixth satire of Juvenal; "hic erit in lecto fortissimus," which Housman
has rendered "he is a valiant mattress-knight."

CHAPTER 17. "In our