Mock bestiality is recorded as a form of sexual roleplay in Imperial Rome. Nero is supposed to have enjoyed a form of bondage with either male or female partners in which he dressed in animal skins to attack their genitals, just as condemned prisoners were bound and attacked by wild animals in the arena (see "Damnatio ad bestias"). The historian Dio tells of how a prostitute pretended to be a leopard for the gratification of a senator. The actor Bathyllus was known for an erotic dance in which he dressed as Leda having sex with the swan; the women watching were variously aroused. Bestiality is also a theme of Apuleius' novel "Metamorphoses" (or "The Golden Ass"), in which the protagonist, transformed into a donkey, is desired by a wealthy noble matron, just as Pasiphaë desired the bull.