beginning with the old men and ending with the boys, pale and unsightly
from the distorted deformity of their features; so that whichever way
any one goes, seeing troops of mutilated men, he will detest the memory
of Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate
male youths of tender age; doing as it were a violence to nature, and
forcing it back from its appointed course, which at the very first
beginning and birth of the child, by a kind of secret law revealing the
primitive fountains of seed, points out the way of propagating
posterity.

18. And as this is the case, those few houses which were formerly
celebrated for the serious cultivation of becoming studies, are now
filled with the ridiculous amusements of torpid indolence, re-echoing
with the sound of vocal music and the tinkle of flutes and lyres.
Lastly, instead of a philosopher, you find a singer; instead of an
orator, some teacher of ridiculous arts is summoned; and the libraries
closed for ever, like so many graves; organs to be played by water-power
are made; and lyres of so vast a size, that they look like waggons; and
flutes, and ponderous machines suited for the exhibitions of actors.

19. Last of all, they have arrived at such a depth of unworthiness, that
when, no very long time ago, on account of an apprehended scarcity of
food, the foreigners were driven in haste from the city; those who
practised liberal accomplishments, the number of whom was exceedingly
small, were expelled without a moment's breathing-time; yet the
followers of actresses, and all who at that time pretended to be of such
a class, were allowed to remain; and three thousand dancing-girls had
not even a question put to them, but stayed unmolested with the members
of their choruses, and a corresponding number of dancing masters.

20. And wherever you turn your eyes, you may see a multitude of women
with their hair curled, who, as far as their age goes, might, if they
had married, been by this time the mothers of three children, sweeping
the pavements with their feet till they are weary, whirling round in
rapid gyrations, while representing innumerable groups and figures
which the theatrical plays contain.

21. It is a truth beyond all question, that, when at one time Rome was
the abode of all the virtues, many of the nobles, like the Lotophagi,
celebrated in Homer, who detained men by the deliciousness of their
fruit, allured foreigners of free birth by manifol