MERETRIX;
a debauched Wife or Mai∣den. A Bill was wont to be fixed over the Door of Common Women, according to the Testimo∣ny of Aurelius Fuscus, and Seneca, Controv. 1. Meretrix vocata es, in communi loco stetisti, su∣perpositus est Cellae tuae titulus, venientes accepisti. Tertullian in his Book de Pudicia, calls these In∣scriptions the Bills of Lewdness, Libidinnm tituli. Portius Latro says the same Thing; Es in lupa∣nari, accepisti locum, titulus inscriptus est; you are in an ill Place, you have a Room there, a Bill is set on the Door. The Custom also was for them to change their Names, as soon as they had told the Aediles, that they would lead a dis∣solute Life; as we are informed by Plautus, in his Comedy, entituled, Poenulus, Act. 5. Sect. 3. Ver. 20.
Namque bodiè earum mutarentur nomina, Facerenique indignum genere quaestum corpore.
They changed their Names, in order to drive a Trade, which became not their Birth and Condition. But when they forsook this infa∣mous Profession; they also laid aside that Name of Reproach they had assumed, and reassumed that of their own Family.
At the same time says Tacitus in his Ann. I. 2. C. 24.
The Lewdness of Women was restrain∣ed by the Senate's Authority, and such of them whose Grand-father, Father or Husband had been a Roman Knight, were forbid to make a publick Profession of their Lewdness: For Ve∣stilia, who was of a Praetorian Family, had made her Declaration, before the Magistrates, according to the Custom of our Ancestors, who thought such debauched Practices were suffici∣ently punish'd with the Disgrace of such a Con∣fession.