different animals.[1] While such men would pass an ordinary citizen without notice or with a supercilious glance of recognition, a noted courtesan would be greeted with effusive compliments and caressed with flatteries as if she were Semiramis or Cleopatra.[2] No section of the community was more esteemed than the dancing-girls, and of these three thousand were constantly figuring on the boards of the theatres. On one occasion, when a dearth of provisions seemed imminent, and foreigners, including many professors of the liberal arts, were suddenly expelled from the city, the question of dismissing these sylphs, together with their trainers and slaves, in number much greater than themselves, was never once brought up for consideration.[3] In such a state of intellectual torpor the slightest journey was regarded as an enterprise demanding extraordinary fortitude; and if a noble paid a visit to his provincial estates or undertook a short voyage in a painted pleasure-boat to the watering places of Baiae or Cajeta, he afterwards extolled his achievement as if he had performed something worthy of Alexander or Caesar.[4] As for their religion, although they scoffed at every formal belief, they were earnest votaries of magic, and apprenticed slaves to professed sorcerers in order to encompass the art of injuring or influencing other persons by means of mystical operations.[5] Nor were they willing to arrange their meal-times, their baths, or their appearances in public, without consulting an almanac with the view of ascertaining the station of Mercury or the posi-*
