es was larger than that of the female prostitutes.

"The hetairae appeared, surrounded by their admirers, in great pomp on
the streets, promenades, the circus and theatres, often carried by
negroes upon litters, where, holding a mirror in their hands, and
sparkling with ornaments and precious stones, they lay outstretched,
nude, fan-carrying slaves standing by them, and surrounded by a swarm of
boys, eunuchs and flute-players; grotesque dwarfs closed the
procession."

These excesses assumed such proportions in the Roman Empire that they
became a danger to the Empire itself. The example of the men was
followed by the women. There were women, Seneca reports, who counted the
years, not as was the usage, after the consuls, but after the number of
their husbands. Adultery was general; and, in order that the women might
escape the severe punishments prescribed for the offense, they, and
among them the leading dames of Rome, caused themselves to be entered in
the registers of the Aediles as prostitutes.

Hand in hand with these excesses, civil wars and the latifundia system,
celibacy and childlessness increased in such measure that the number of
Roman citizens and of patricians ran down considerably. Hence in the
year 16 B. C., Augustus issued the so-called Julian Law,[21] which
offered prizes for the birth of children, and imposed penalties for
celibacy upon the Roman citizens and patricians. He who had children
had precedence in rank over the childless and unmarried. Bachelors could
accept no inheritance, except from their own nearest kin. The childless
could only inherit one-half; the rest fell to the State. Women, who
could be taxed with adultery, had to surrender one-half of their dower
to the abused husband. Thereupon there were men who married out of
speculation on the adultery of their wives. This caused Plutarch to
observe: "The Romans marry, not to obtain heirs, but to inherit."

Still later the Julian Law was made severer. Tiberius decreed that no
woman, whose grandfather, father or husband had been or still was a
Roman Knight, could prostitute herself for money. Married women, who
caused themselves to be entered in the registers of prostitutes, were
condemned to banishment from Italy as adulteresses. Of course, there
were no such punishments for the men. Moreover, as Juvenal reports, even
the murder of husbands by poison was a frequent occurrence in the Rome
of his day--the first half of the first century before