Love-intrigues of all sorts were constantly in progress.

The ballet-dancers (-mimae-) were quite a match for those of the present day in the variety of their pursuits and the skill with which they followed them out; their primadonnas, Cytheris and the like, pollute even the pages of history.
But their, as it were, licensed trade was very materially injured by the free art of the ladies of aristocratic circles.

Liaisons in the first houses had become so frequent, that only a scandal altogether exceptional could make them the subject of special talk; a judicial interference seemed now almost ridiculous.
An unparalleled scandal, such as Publius Clodius produced in 693 at the women's festival in the house of the Pontifex Maximus, although a thousand times worse than the occurrences which fifty years before had led to a series of capital sentences,( 58) passed almost without investigation and wholly without punishment.
The watering-place season--in April, when political business was suspended and the world of quality congregated in Baiae and Puteoli-- derived its chief charm from the relations licit and illicit which, along with music and song and elegant breakfasts on board or on shore, enlivened the gondola voyages.

There the ladies held absolute sway; but they were by no means content with this domain which rightfully belonged to them; they also acted as politicians, appeared in party conferences, and took part with their money and their intrigues in the wild coterie-doings of the time.

Any one who beheld these female statesmen performing on the stage of Scipio and Cato and saw at their side the young fop--as with smooth chin, delicate voice, and mincing gait, with headdress and neckerchiefs, frilled robe, and women's sandals he copied the loose courtesan-- might well have a horror of the unnatural world, in which the sexes seemed as though they wished to change parts.