Who exercised his wedlock after the fashion of the fowls?
Who (otherwise than the Chaldaeans) introduced the Festival of that frantic Goddess, at whose Solemnities Women practise harlotry?
[23] Histor. Bk. I. ch. 199. Ἐπεὰν δὲ μιχθῇ, ἀποσιωσαμένη τῇ θεῷ, ἀπαλλάσσεται ἐς τὰ οἰκία· καὶ τὠπὸ τούτου οὐκ οὕτω μέγα τί οἱ δώσεις ὥς μιν λάμψεαι. (But after she has gone with a man, and so acquitted her obligation to the goddess, she returns to her home; and from that time forth no gift however great will prevail with her.) The same thing is related also by Baruch VI. 42, 43. Comp. Voss on Virgil, Georgics, II. 523 sqq. To this day we find amongst the bold sons of the Desert, the Arabians, some trace of this devotion of their fathers, Niebuhr writes (“Beschreibung von Arabien”—(Description of the Arabians), Copenhagen 1772, p. 54. note.): “I read that the Europeans have investigated with great erudition and eloquence the question, Num inter naturalis debiti et conjugalis officii egerium liceat psallere, orare, etc.? (Whether in the performance of the debt of nature and the conjugal office it is lawful to sing, to pray, and so on?) I do not know what the Mohammedans have written on this matter. I have been assured that it is their custom to begin all their occupations with the words; Bismallâh errachmân errachhîm (in the name of the merciful and gracious God), and that they must say this also “ante conjugalis officii egerium (before the performance of the conjugal office), and that no reputable man omits this.” So at the present day in Italy the courtesan bows before the image of her Madonna, before she gives herself, and says to her, “Madonna, mi ajuta!” or “Madonna, mi perdonna!” (Madonna, be my aid!, Madonna, pardon me!) whilst she draws a veil over her picture, and calls this Christianity! For the rest Constantine abolished the custom in question at Babylon and at Heliopolis, and destroyed the Temples of Venus at those places. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III. p. 58. Socrates, Eccles. Hist. I. 18.
[24] Heeren, “Ideen über Politik und Handel,” (Ideas on Political Science and Trade), Pt. I. 2. p. 257.
[25] So we think we ought to understand the καταπορνεύει τὰ θήλεα τέκνα (prostitute down their female children) in the text, for the expression is evidently formed on the same plan as the καθῆσθαι ἐπ’ οἰκήματος (to sit down at a house of ill-fame in Plato, Charmides, 163. c.; because the brothels lay near the harbour, and so in the more low-lying region, away from Athens itself. In the same way the Romans used the verb descendere (to go down), e. g. Horace, Satires I. 2. 34., because the public houses of ill-fame at Rome were in the valley, in the Subura.
[26] Hist. of Alexander the Great, Bk. V. ch. 1. Comp. Isaiah, XIV. 11., XLVII. 1. Jeremiah, LI. 39. Daniel, V. 1.
[27] Bk. XI. p. 532. Ἀλλὰ καὶ θυγατέρας οἱ ἐπιφανέστατοι τοῦ ἔθνους ἀνιεροῦσι παρθένους, αἷς νόμος ἐστὶ, καταπορνευθείσαις πολὺν χρόνον παρὰ τῇ θεῷ μετὰ ταῦτα δίδοσθαι πρὸς γάμον. (Moreover the chief men of the nation consecrate their daughters when still virgins, and it is the custom for these, after acting as prostitutes for a long time in the service of the goddess, then to be given in marriage). Hence the Scholiast also to Juvenal, Satir. I. 104, “Mesopotameni homines effrenatae libidinis sunt in utroque sexu, ut Salustius meminit,” (The inhabitants of Mesopotamia are people of unbridled lustfulness in either sex, as Sallust records); and Cedrenus, Chaldaeorum et Babyloniorum leges plenae sunt impudicitiae atque turpitudinis, (the laws of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians are full of indecency and foulness).
[28] Bk. I chs. 93, 94. The ἐνεργαζόμεναι παιδίσκαι (maids working at their handicraft) mentioned in this passage are maids who, to use Heine’s expression, practice their horizontal craft. Herodotus’ story is also found mentioned in Strabo Bk. XI. p. 533., Aelian, Var. Hist., bk, IV. ch. 1., and Athenaeus, Deipnos. bk. XII. p. 516.
[29] Augustine, De Civit. Dei, bk. IV. ch. 10. Cui (Veneri) etiam Phoenices donum de prostitutione filiarum, ante quam iungerent eas viro, (To whom—Venus,—the Phoenicians also made a gift of the prostitution of their daughters, before they married them to a husband). Athenagoras, Adv. Graecos, p. 27. D., Γυναῖκες γοῦν ἐν εἰδωλείοις τῆς Φοινικίας πάλαι προκαθέζοντο ἀπαρχόμεναι τοῖς ἐκεῖ θεοῖς ἑαυτῶν τὴν τοῦ σώματος αυτῶν μισθαρνίαν, νομίζουσαι τῇ πορνείᾳ τὴν θεὸν ἑαυτῶν ἱλάσκεσθαι. (Thus women used of old to sit in the idolatrous temples of the Phoenicians, offering as first-fruits to the gods therein the hire of the prostitution of their own bodies, deeming that by fornication was their goddess propitiated). Comp. Eusebius, De Praeparat. Evangel. IV. 8.—Athanasius, Orat. contra Gentes.—Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. I. 8.
[30] De Dea Syra, ch. 6.