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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

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Lady gamestresses

CHAPTER X. page 6

There were no gamestresses among the Greeks; and the Roman
women were always too much occupied with their domestic affairs
to find time for play. What will our modern ladies think, when I
state that the Emperor Augustus scarcely wore a garment which had
not been woven by his wife, his sister, or grand-daughters.[97]

[97] Veste non temere alia quam domestica usus est, ab
uxore et filia nepotibusque confecta. Suet. in Vita Augusti.

Although deeply corrupted under Nero and the sovereigns that
resembled him, the Roman women never gambled among themselves
except during the celebration of the festival of the Bona Dea.
This ceremonial, so often profaned with licentiousness, was not
attended by desperate gambling. The most depraved women
abstained from it, even when that mania was at its height, not
only around the Capitol, but even in the remainder of the Empire.

Contemporary authors, who have not spared the Roman ladies, never
reproached them with this vice, which, in modern times, has been
desperately practised by women who in licentiousness vied with
Messalina.

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