at a draught [343]. He
presented Asellius Sabinus with two hundred thousand sesterces, for
writing a dialogue, in the way of dispute, betwixt the truffle and the
fig-pecker, the oyster and the thrush. He likewise instituted a new
office to administer to his voluptuousness, to which he appointed Titus
Caesonius Priscus, a Roman knight.

XLIII. In his retreat at Capri [344], he also contrived an apartment
containing couches, and adapted to the secret practice of abominable
lewdness, where he entertained companies of girls and catamites, and
assembled from all quarters inventors of unnatural copulations, whom he
called Spintriae, who defiled one another in his presence, to inflame by
the exhibition the languid appetite. He had several chambers set round
with pictures and statues in the most lascivious attitudes, and furnished
with the books of Elephantis, that none might want a pattern for the
execution of any lewd project that was prescribed him. He likewise
contrived recesses in woods and groves for the gratification of lust,
where young persons of both sexes prostituted themselves in caves and
hollow rocks, in the disguise of little Pans and Nymphs [345]. So that
he was publicly and commonly called, by an abuse of the name of the
island, Caprineus. [346]

XLIV. But he was still more infamous, if possible, for an (220)
abomination not fit to be mentioned or heard, much less credited. [347]
------------------When a picture, painted by Parrhasius, in which the
artist had represented Atalanta in the act of submitting to Meleager's
lust in a most unnatural way, was bequeathed to him, with this proviso,
that if the subject was offensive to him, he might receive in lieu of it
a million of sesterces, he not only chose the picture, but hung it up in
his bed-chamber. It is also reported that, during a sacrifice, he was so
captivated with the form of a youth who held a censer, that, before the
religious rites were well over, he took him aside and abused him; as also
a brother of his who had been playing the flute; and soon afterwards
broke the legs of both of them, for upbraiding one another with their
shame.

XLV. How much he was guilty of a most foul intercourse with women even
of the first quality [348], appeared very plainly by the death of one
Mallonia, who, being brought to his bed, but resolutely refusing to
comply with his lust, he gave her up to the common informers. Even when
she was upon her trial, he freq