in Athens, the voluntary and effeminate deserter of his sex
was degraded from the honors and the rights of a citizen. [194] But the
practice of vice was not discouraged by the severity of opinion:
the indelible stain of manhood was confounded with the more venial
transgressions of fornication and adultery, nor was the licentious lover
exposed to the same dishonor which he impressed on the male or female
partner of his guilt. From Catullus to Juvenal, [195] the poets accuse
and celebrate the degeneracy of the times; and the reformation of
manners was feebly attempted by the reason and authority of the
civilians till the most virtuous of the Caesars proscribed the sin
against nature as a crime against society. [196]

[Footnote 189: Till the publication of the Julius Paulus of Schulting,
(l. ii. tit. xxvi. p. 317--323,) it was affirmed and believed that the
Julian laws punished adultery with death; and the mistake arose from the
fraud or error of Tribonian. Yet Lipsius had suspected the truth from
the narratives of Tacitus, (Annal. ii. 50, iii. 24, iv. 42,) and
even from the practice of Augustus, who distinguished the treasonable
frailties of his female kindred.]

[Footnote 190: In cases of adultery, Severus confined to the husband the
right of public accusation, (Cod. Justinian, l. ix. tit. ix. leg. 1.)
Nor is this privilege unjust--so different are the effects of male or
female infidelity.]

[Footnote 191: Timon (l. i.) and Theopompus (l. xliii. apud Athenaeum,
l. xii. p. 517) describe the luxury and lust of the Etruscans. About the
same period (A. U. C. 445) the Roman youth studied in Etruria, (liv. ix.
36.)]

[Footnote 192: The Persians had been corrupted in the same school,
(Herodot. l. i. c. 135.) A curious dissertation might be formed on the
introduction of paederasty after the time of Homer, its progress among
the Greeks of Asia and Europe, the vehemence of their passions, and the
thin device of virtue and friendship which amused the philosophers of
Athens. But scelera ostendi oportet dum puniuntur, abscondi flagitia.]

[Footnote 193: The name, the date, and the provisions of this law are
equally doubtful, (Gravina, Opp. p. 432, 433. Heineccius, Hist. Jur.
Rom. No. 108. Ernesti, Clav. Ciceron. in Indice Legum.) But I will
observe that the nefanda Venus of the honest German is styled aversa by
the more polite Italian.]

[Footnote 194: See the oration of Aeschines against the catamite
Timarchus, (in Reiske, Or