This passage shows at the same time in the clearest way that _Schneider_ is wrong, when in his Lexicon he explains πορνοτελώνης, occurring in _Pollux_. Onomast. VII. 202., IX. 29., as meaning a privileged or licenced whore-master, paying a duty to the magistrates on his trade. Besides, anything like a sanitary police supervision on the part of the Agoranomi at this period is of course out of the question. For the word ἀσφαλῶς (safely) in the fragment of _Eubulus_, (Athenaeus bk. XIII. p. 568), where it is said of the brothel-girls:
παρ’ ὧν βεβαίως _ἀσφαλῶς_ τ’ ἔξεστί σοι μικροῦ πριάσθαι κέρματος τὴν ἡδονήν
(from whom surely and _safely_ you may buy your pleasure for a small coin), admits of an easy explanation, if we consider that these common women are contrasted here not with the hetaerae but with the free women of the city, illicit intercourse with whom was always dangerous for the voluptuary, being punished as rape or adultery. The most telling proof is afforded by the passage of _Diogenes Laertius_, bk. VI. ch. 4., where he says: “When _Antisthenes_ saw a man accused of adultery, he said to him, Unhappy man, what serious risk you might have avoided for an obol! (ὦ δυστυχὴς, πηλίκον κίνδυνον ὀβολοῦ διαφυγεῖν εδύνασο). Also the passage of _Xenarchus_, (Athenaeus, bk. XIII. p. 569.), is pertinent, where it is said, καὶ τῶν δ’ ἑκάστην ἐστὶν ἀδεῶς, εὐτελῶς, (and of the women each can be enjoyed without fear, cheaply). Hence too the verses of _Menander_ (Lucian, Amor. 33.) should read,
καὶ φαρμακεῖαι, καὶ νόσων χαλεπωτάτη φθόνος, μεθ’ οὗ ζῇ πάντα τὸν βίον γυνὴ
(and medicines, and hardest of diseases—envy, wherewith a woman dwells all her life long) and not, as the received text has it,
καὶ φαρμακεῖα, καὶ νόσοι· χαλεπώτατος φθόνος.
(and medicine, and disease; hardest is envy).
[140] Comp. above p. 70. note 2. _Harpocration_, Lexicon X. rhetor.—_Eustathius_, Comment. on Homer’s Iliad XIX. 282., p. 1185., Quod auro gaudeat Venus, de qua est in fabula, ille quoque manifestum facit, qui tradit: Solonem Veneris vulgaris templum dedicasse e mulierum quaestu, quas coemtas prostituerat in cellis, in adolescentum gratiam, (That Venus, of whom is question in the tale, rejoices in gold, is manifest from the historian who relates, how Solon dedicated a temple of the Common (Pandemian) Venus from the gains of the women that he had bought and established in chambers as prostitutes, to gratify the young men). Comp. _Boeckh_, Corp. Inscript. I. p. 470.