Female promiscuity is a recurring theme in mythologies and religions. In the Middle East, sacred prostitution, usually in honor of Goddess Astarte, had been prevalent before the 4th century when Emperor Constantine I attempted to replace pagan traditions with Christianity.Eusebius, Life of Constantine, and In Greek mythology, nymphs are portrayed as dangerous nature spirits sexually uninhibited with humans; hence, the Victorian medical term nymphomania. Imperial Rome is popularly seen as being sexually profligate,Beert C. Verstraete and Vernon Provencal, introduction to Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition (Haworth Press, 2005), p. 5. For an extended discussion of how the modern perception of Roman sexual decadence can be traced to early Christian polemic, see Alastair J.L. Blanshard, "Roman Vice", in Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 1–88.Catharine Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 65. and certain Roman empresses—such as Theodora I, Messalina and Julia the Elder—gained in their lifetime a reputation of extreme promiscuity.
