Puellae gaditanae

The earliest references to the puellae gaditanae are found in Strabo's account of Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who embarked from Cádiz in the 2nd century BC with the aim of circumnavigating Africa, and took young musicians in his crew.

Martial says that after the triumphal entry of Quintus Caecilius Metellus into Rome, after the Sertorian War (around 74 BC), his entourage included some Andalusian girls who danced and who attracted attention for their "mischievous and playful feet" and for their crusmata baetica ("metal castanets").

[2] Martial describes one of them in the following terms: She who was cunning to show wanton gestures to the sound of Baetic castanets and to frolic to the tunes of Gades,[a] she who could have roused passion in palsied Pelias, and have stirred Hecuba's spouse[b] even by Hector's pyre—Telethusa burns and racks with love her former master.

There stands a he-goat prankt in the Aeolian fleece of Theban Phryxus;[f] by such his sister would more gladly have been borne; such a goat no Cinyphian barber[g] would deform, and thou thyself, Lyaeus, wouldst consent to his cropping thine own vine.

[h] A Love in gold, two-winged, loads the back of the beast; the pipe of Pallas sounds from his tender lips; in such wise the dolphin, blithe with the burden of Methymnaean Arion,[i] bore him, no unmelodious freight, o'er tranquil seas.

[m][8]Juvenal confirms the description of Martial, writing: You may look perhaps for a troop of Spanish maidens to win applause by immodest dance and song, sinking down with quivering thighs to the floor—such sights as brides behold seated beside their husbands, though it were a shame to speak of such things in their presence.

The clatter of castanets, words too foul for the strumpet that stands naked in a reeking archway, with all the arts and language of lust, may be left to him who spits wine upon floors of Lacedaemonian marble; such men we pardon because of their high station.