Several writers have adduced many passages from Plautus to show that he did not think it a wrong thing for a young, or even for an old man, on a rare occasion, to have intrigues with these courtezans.[248] The fact cannot be denied. But it is also true that Plautus uniformly represents the residences of these women as the jaws of ruin. The ‘Truculentus’ is throughout a powerful representation of the utter selfishness of the class. The young man Diniarchus wastes his means on them, is ruined, and receives no pity from them. And the upright pedagogue, Lydus, in the ‘Bacchides,’ describes the house of the courtezans in language which might have suggested to Dante his inscription over the portals of hell. “Unbar and throw open quickly this gate of hell (Orcus), I beseech you, for I deem it no other, for no one comes here but he whom all hopes have abandoned of being virtuous.”[249]
We may take a glance at the mode in which love-making went on in those days. Gaston Boissier thinks that Plautus is peculiarly happy in his portrayal of a lover’s feelings. He appeals to a passage in the ‘Curculio’ where Phædromus, a young man, thus addresses the door of his sweetheart’s house:[250]—
“Pessuli, heus pessuli, vos saluto lubens,
Vos amo, vos volo, vos peto atque opsecro,
Gerite amanti mihi morem amœnissumi;
Fite caussa mea ludii barbari,
Sussulite, opsecro, et mittite istinc foras,
Quæ mihi misero amanti exbibit sanguinem,
Hoc vide ut dormiunt pessuli pessumi
Nec mea gratia conmovent se ocius.”