adultery. In early Rome, stuprum was a disgraceful act in general, or any public disgrace, including but not limited to illicit sex. By the time of the comic playwright Plautus (ca. 254–184 BC) it had acquired its more restricted sexual meaning. Stuprum can occur only among citizens; protection from sexual misconduct was among the legal rights that distinguished the citizen from the non-citizen. Although the noun stuprum may be translated into English as fornication, the intransitive verb "to fornicate" (itself derived from the Latin fornicarium, which originally meant "a vaulted room"; the small vaulted rooms in which some prostitutes plied their trade led to the verb fornicare) is an inadequate translation of the Latin stuprare, which is a transitive verb requiring a direct object (the person who is the target of the misconduct) and a male agent (the stuprator). Raptus The English word "rape" derives ultimately from the Latin verb rapio, rapere, raptus, "to snatch, carry away, abduct" (the words rapt, rapture, and raptor still have the same meaning). In Roman law, raptus or raptio meant primarily kidnapping or abduction; the mythological rape of the Sabine women is a form of bride abduction in which sexual violation is a secondary issue (Before the word "rape" acquired its modern strictly sexual meaning, the verb meant simply to seize something or someone by force; this usage persisted at least into the early 19th century). In some circumstances, the abduction of an unmarried girl from her father's household was a matter of the couple eloping without her father's permission to marry. Rape in the English sense was more often expressed as stuprum committed through violence or coercion (cum vi or per vim). As laws pertaining to violence were codified toward the end of the Republic, raptus ad stuprum, "abduction for the purpose of committing a sex crime", emerged as a legal distinction. (See further discussion of rape under "The rape of men" and "Rape and the law" below.) Healing and magic Divine aid might be sought in private religious rituals along with medical treatments to enhance or block fertility, or to cure diseases of the reproductive organs. Votive offerings (vota; compare ex-voto) in the form of breasts and penises have been found at healing sanctuaries. A private ritual under some circumstances might be considered "magic", an indistinct category in antiquity. An amatorium (Greek philtron) was a love charm or potion; binding spells (defixiones)