The two peculiar customs on which Herodotus descants at length--the public auction of the marriageable virgins in all the towns of the empire, and the religious prostitution authorized in the worship of Beltis--were wholly incompatible with the restraints to which the sex has commonly submitted in the Eastern world.

Much modesty can scarcely have belonged to those whose virgin charms were originally offered in the public market to the best bidder, and who were required by their religion, at least once in their lives, openly to submit to the embraces of a man other than their husband.

It would certainly seem that the sex had in Babylonia a freedom--and not only a freedom, but also a consideration--unusual in the ancient world, and especially rare in Asia.

The stories of Semiramis and Nitocris may have in them no great amount of truth; but they sufficiently indicate the belief of the Greeks as to the comparative publicity allowed to their women by the Babylonians.
The monuments accord with the view of Babylonian manners thus opened to us.

The female form is not eschewed by the Chaldaean artists.