The Instructor 3.2.8

For they deserve to perish three times, not once, those who use crocodiles' dung and anoint themselves with the froth of rotting matter, smear soot on their eyebrows and rub white lead on their cheeks. If even the pagan poets are disgusted with them for their conduct, how could they not be rejected by the truth? Another comic poet, Alexis, exposes them; I will set out his words too, which shame the unabashed shamelessness by the elaborateness of the description (for he was not himself so elaborate). I am ashamed that the women's quarters are ridiculed so much in comedy, the woman who, having become a “helper,” then ruins her husband too. “First, for gain and for plundering their neighbors, everything else becomes secondary to them. One happens to be short: cork is stitched into her shoes. One is tall: she wears a thin sole, and goes out with her head leaning on her shoulder; that takes something off her height. One has no hips: she puts sewn padding under her dress, so that those who see her cry out at her fine figure. One has a big belly: they have breasts like the comic actors'; setting them upright, they draw the front of the dress away from the belly as if with poles. One has red eyebrows: they paint them with soot. One happens to be dark: she plasters herself with white lead. One is too fair: she rubs on rouge. One has a beautiful part of the body: she shows it bare. One has fine teeth: she must laugh, so that those present may see what a pretty mouth she has. And if she does not enjoy laughing, she spends the day with a thin stick of myrtle standing upright between her lips, so that in time she grins, whether she wants to or not.”