Influences which served to hinder to a greater or less degree the
inception of Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital
Organs.
§ 34.
It has been fully proved in the course of our previous investigations
that Asia and Egypt must be regarded as the two focus-points of
exaggerated sensual licence, the conditions of climate being most
favourable in those regions for the generation of affections consequent
upon sexual excesses. So it may be fairly concluded without further
proof that in the same parts of the world attention was early devoted
to the problem how to render such influences,—no mere passing ones, be
it observed, but continuously operative,—as little harmful as possible.
Now in what way could this end be more adequately attained than by
_cleanliness_ carried out to the highest possible degree? As a matter
of history, the merest superficial acquaintance with the customs and
usages of Antiquity clearly shows that equally in Asia and in Egypt
concern for bodily cleanliness had occupied the particular attention
of both political and sacerdotal Legislators from the most remote
period. More than this, it had come to be looked upon by the people
as so entirely necessary, as to be all but inextricably blended with
their very life and being. Any idea of vexatious compulsion entirely
disappeared, and the laws and ordinances directed to this object are in
force to this day as fully as they were thousands of years ago.
Inhabitants of the temperate zone who visited these lands were bound to
think,—unless they gave more careful consideration to the subject than
most were likely to do,—such almost universal and such scrupulous care
for cleanliness exaggerated; and so we find, e. g. the Greek writers,
who cite many of the usages of this description, invariably referring
to them merely as a sort of curiosity. In later times, e. g. in _St.
Athanasius_,[208] they are even condemned as being prompted by the
Devil, in order to diminish the amount of time to be devoted to pious
exercises. It may well be that in course of time a too scrupulously
precise dependence on ancestral custom had brought many of these usages
into ridicule, especially when they were practised in countries where
in some cases the reasons for their observance altogether cease to be
operative. Yet anyone who considers with due care the conditions under
which they were originally introduced, will find himself constrained to
admit that the Lawgiver was only obeying a behest of necessity.
If the different customs and usages of the Ancients in connection with
their careful attention to cleanliness are examined more minutely, they
are found to be divisible into two classes, according as (1.) their
object was to prevent uncleanliness, or (2.) to banish it, when once
admitted. All measures connected with sanitary police supervision, the
enforcement of which in modern civilized States leads to such endless
difficulties, were almost entirely in the hands of the Priests, to whom
the People were accustomed to accord an unquestioning obedience. It
was an easy matter therefore to prevent any injurious contamination
from extending over a wide area; it sufficed simply to declare unclean
whatever might prove injurious to health to ensure its being avoided
in practice,—and in the majority of instances with the most scrupulous
care. This is a factor in the problem that appears never to have been
properly appreciated by our Historical Pathologists; otherwise they
must long ago have abandoned many prejudices regarding the knowledge
possessed by the Ancients as to contagious matter. For how _could_
practical observations be collected on infection and the liability to
infection, when every possible chance of infection was carefully and
generally avoided? Most of the Peoples of Antiquity considered contact
with a dead body a pollution, more than this, they thought even the
neighbourhood of a corpse to have the same effect. They hung up notices
to warn the passers-by, and placed vessels of water (ἀδάνιον, ὄστρακον,
γάστρα—water-stoup, earthen vessel, water-pot) before the house where
a dead man lay, that those who came in and out might be able to purify
themselves again on the spot[209]. Of course all did not go so far as
the Persians, who declared every sick person unclean. Still it is a
fact, and this most certainly not merely among the Jews, that all the
various infectious skin-diseases that were massed together under the
name of Leprosy[210], and also Gonorrhœa (Clap), made the sufferer,
and also everything he touched, unclean, and caused them to be set
apart where no one should come in contact with them; and this continued
so long as the sickness lasted.
Now does it really need any further proof that these diseases developed
a perfectly well-known form of contagious matter: or is an arbitrary
and imaginary theory to be adopted by preference, to the effect that
injunctions of the sort owed their existence merely to the caprice of
the Legislator, and were not based on any actual experience of real
detriment resulting from their neglect in favour of others? At any
rate it is certain that, where these laws were in force and where each
individual followed them out exactly, a disease that is communicable
only by close contact could not possibly be disseminated over any wide
area. This could not take place under such circumstances, even though
it had been engendered in its original form and continued prevalent for
a long period of time.
However it was not only the sick that were avoided, but all possible
causes as well that might lead to the disease. It was not only the
effort required and the pain, but most likely the possibility also
of injury resulting, that made the weakly Asiatic forgo the _Jus
primae noctis_ (Right of the first night), and declare unclean the
supposed[211] injurious effects of the vaginal blood that flowed on
the rupture of the hymen, as well as the act of defloration itself.
Pollution was guarded against in this case, as it was by the regulation
banishing women during the time of menstruation from the neighbourhood
of men, a regulation that had the binding force of law amongst almost
all the Nations of Antiquity. The same held good for the time of
purification of women who had been lying-in,[212] a condition which
was supposed in some unexplained way to be able to exert a possibly
injurious influence on the genital organs of the husband.
Depilation.
§ 35.
In spite of all this it might yet happen that contact with a sick
person could not be avoided, and all possible causes of the diseases
in question escaped. Attention therefore was naturally directed to the
effort to make the admission of the contagion and of matters having
deleterious effects as difficult as might be. There were two means for
attaining this end held to be especially effective,—depilation and
circumcision.
The hair as is well known is particularly apt to attract and retain all
kinds of moisture; and it will of course do this in the case of the
genital secretions, whether healthy or morbid, if they come in contact
with it. These secretions will the more readily exert an injurious
effect, as each hair is accompanied by at least two cutaneous glands,
possessing an excretory duct or pore, and in those parts of the
body where a thicker and stronger growth of hair is found, develop a
considerably increased degree of activity,—an increased activity which
they exhibit in any case in hot countries. “Hence too the Priests in
Egypt shave the body carefully; for there is something collects under
the hair, that must be removed,” _Philo_ says in a passage cited above,
and a fragment of _Theopompus_ preserved by _Athenaeus_[213] also tells
us, that this habit existed also among the Greeks, as well as among
different peoples of Italy.
In later times however the habit gradually disappeared in these
countries; and is only found again at the period of greatest luxury,
when the Pathics endeavoured by the removal of hair from all parts
of the body, except the head, to assimilate their outward appearance
to the feminine type[214]. Especially were they bound to rid the
posteriors[215] of hair, as one penetrating into the anus during
unnatural connexion might easily cause small cuts at the orifice, and
produce chafings of the penis. For the same reason paederasts, as
indeed was the case with all amateurs of Love, invariably took care
to remove all hair from the genitals[216], to avoid endangering the
posterior and the private parts of their mistresses. Even more than
men, did _women_ seek to remove the hair from their private parts,
as they do to this day in the East. This appears never to have been
the case among the Jews; but in Asia and in Egypt the custom was
observed by all classes of the people, and probably from those lands
first spread into Greece and Italy. It seems to have been adopted
very generally by Greek women;[217] but it was _especially_ hetaerae
and “filles de joie”[218] who practised local as well as general
depilation. A similar state of things must have existed at Rome[219],
where older women resorted to the removal of hair from the genitals as
a means of concealing their age[220]. In any case whether in Greece
or in Italy the purpose and special object of depilation seems to have
been soon lost sight of, and the practice to have been still to some
extent kept up merely as a matter of fashion. Nevertheless it is a
fact that the habit has continued even down to modern times in these
countries, and is actually followed there to some extent on the ground
of cleanliness[221].
Depilation is completed by the _polishing_ of the skin with pumice,
etc., a treatment that made it very much less liable to take up dirt of
all kinds. This and the _anointing_ of the body, that commonly followed
it, as it did the bath (see later), guarded against the introduction
of foreign matter into the tissues to an important extent, yet without
interfering with transpiration, which in southern countries takes
place more by the cutaneous glands than by the sweat-pores. This fact
goes some way to explain how it was that the contagious plagues of
Antiquity, generally of a transient character, never properly speaking
acquired any wide extension, unless they were carried along with
the _Genius epidemicus_ at the same time; and that even the latter,
as is the case at the present day, could seldom master and reverse
endemic predispositions. This last consideration merits the particular
attention of the Historical Pathologist, as giving him a partial
indication why Antiquity comes so far behind later times in regard
to startling epidemics, at the same time teaching him to regard Asia
as the home of Endemic, Europe of Epidemic Diseases. This ought to
safeguard him against many over-hasty conclusions in his views of the
progressive developement and evolution of disease in general. At the
same time it will undoubtedly destroy not a few agreeable dreams, where
he has allowed imagination to outrun reality.
Circumcision[222].
§ 36.
_Herodotus_ himself represents circumcision as a very ancient usage
even in his time, as to which it is a moot point whether the Egyptians
or Ethiopians first practised it. From the Egyptians it would seem to
have passed on to the Phoenicians and Syrians in Palestine, from the
Colchians to the Syrians living on the banks of the river Thermodon
and Parthenius and to the Macronians[223]. To the present day we find
Circumcision practised, as all the world knows, among the Mohammedans,
Persians and Jews, among the Kaffirs on the South-East Coast of
Africa, the Abyssinian Christians[224], the inhabitants of the Pacific
Islands[225], as well on the mainland of America,—and this not merely
among the coast dwellers, but also in several inland districts of South
America[226].
Without in this place going into the different reasons that have been
alleged to account for the original introduction of Circumcision,
especially among the Jews, we may yet say, looking back to our
previous exposition in § 29., that we hold ourselves bound to see in
Circumcision originally a religious-hygienic measure, intended to guard
a part of the body already in the earliest times held in such high
honour among the Egyptians, Indians etc. as was the penis, against any
probable chance of defilement by uncleanliness (sebaceous smegma on the
_glans penis_); for it was found that the uncurtailed prepuce made the
maintenance of a clean _glans penis_ much more difficult, favouring
as it did the collection of the smegma resulting from the sebaceous
secretions, and thus gave occasion for the formation of pustules and
ulcers and the like inconveniences. These were referred not to the
natural cause, but rather looked upon as a deserved punishment due to
the anger of the offended deity to whom the penis was sacred, the deity
being himself defiled and made unclean by the uncleanliness of the
organ. To escape such anger men were ready enough to remove a part, the
direct utility of which was as little obvious at the first glance as
that of the hair that grew in its neighbourhood,—a proceeding they were
the more willing to agree to, as the mischief the uncurtailed prepuce
occasioned was often enough manifested.
At first only the Priests, who of course were at the same time the
Physicians of primitive Peoples, were allowed to undertake the
performance of this operation; subsequently it devolved upon the people
generally as well, either by direct command or because they were now
convinced of the utility of circumcision. This utility however must
have grown less and less frequently visible in proportion as fewer
uncircumcised individuals were left in evidence; and so in the same
degree the hygienic motive fell more and more into the background.
Thus only the religious was left, and this was now taken as the sole
reason and sufficient explanation of the universal custom. Circumcision
accordingly came to be a symbol signifying adoption among such as were
initiated into the Egyptian Mysteries, and similarly adoption among
the initiated of the Lord, adoption into the peculiar People of God.
It is in this fashion the various discordant views as to the origin
of circumcision, all of which proceeded in the first instance from
a more or less one-sided point of view, may most satisfactorily be
brought into agreement. True the motive for the operation was supplied
by a pathological factor, but one which owed its force to a religious
idea, and thus at first the knife was regarded not so much from the
_physician’s_ point of view as from the _religious_ side.
But again later, when religious ideas of the sort were more and more
disappearing before a cool examination of actual nature, when the
tale of diseases originating in the anger of a deity was growing
every day fewer, belief became impossible in the religious meaning of
circumcision, or indeed such belief was deliberately rejected, now
that a clear and natural explanation of the rite was to be found. The
religious motive in turn made way for the medical-hygienic, as in
_Philo_ in the passage quoted above, and even Our Lord seems to have
held no other view of the rite, when he says[227]: “If a man received
circumcision on the sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken;
are ye wroth with me, because I _made a man every whit whole_ on the
sabbath?” _De Wette_ in his Translation adds: “that is to say, not
simply, as in circumcision, in one member, but in the whole body.” In
fact the question is here of the healing of the man “which had been
thirty and eight years in his infirmity” (Ch. V.), whom Christ had
made whole at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath, for which reason
the Jews wished to put him to death. The sick man was afflicted in his
whole body, i. e. in every limb, for without help he could not leave
his bed and go down into the Pool. Thus Christ we see contrasts the
healing of all the members with circumcision, making it plain that in
his view the latter makes whole merely a single member, the penis, or
at least puts it in such a condition that it cannot become sick (ὑγιῆ
ἐποίησα,—I made whole); accordingly the rite possessed for him only a
purely medico-hygienic aim.
As to the introduction of Circumcision among the Jews, this may very
likely, as we have already pointed, have taken place in the following
mode: Evidently the Jews when in Egypt were not yet circumcised, as
the speech of the lord Joshua clearly implies, “This day have I taken
the reproach of Egypt from off you;” for in the eyes of the Egyptians
the uncircumcised condition of the Jews was a reproach, just as in
later times “Uncircumcised” was the strongest word of abuse with
the Jews themselves.[228] Moses brought up by the Egyptian Priests,
initiated into their secret wisdom, must necessarily have been
circumcised, and so have known the hygienic as well as religious point
of view. Convinced of its expediency, he determined to introduce it
among the Jews, in order to make them by outward sign in some sort
a holy and pure priestly Nation.[229] For this reason we find the
command to circumcise on the eighth day after birth specified among
the _Laws of Purification_,[230] yet without any further supplemental
addition,—which would certainly not have been omitted, if it had at
that time been regarded as a symbolic sign of covenant. Circumcision
did not yet possess its purely symbolic meaning; and so it is not yet
included among the laws given at Sinai, where the blood of the Burnt
Offerings seals the covenant with God.
But subsequently when the Jews at Shittim gave themselves to the
licentious worship of Baal Peor, not merely the expediency stood out
in glaring conspicuousness, but the positive necessity of observing
the laws of purity in general, including that of circumcision in
particular. Thus the long conceived idea of Moses came to maturity,
to enjoin upon the People the rite of circumcision as special symbol
of unity with Jehovah; though he could not hope to bring about its
universal adoption by adults, until these were on the point of actually
setting foot on the Promised Land. This could only be after the death
of Moses; consequently it was Joshua at Arolath who first circumcised
all those who had been born in the Wilderness. Now all the sufferings
of the march were forgotten, the land flowing with milk and honey,
that was to content all their highest wishes, lay before their eyes,
and so they were willing enough to consent to purchase its everlasting
possession at the cost of what is certainly a painful, but at the same
time on the whole only a trifling, operation. But then when every male
was circumcised, there was no longer any evidence, as explained above,
to convince people of the necessity of the observance, and thus for
the future Circumcision appeared in the guise of a _purely_ religious
symbol, as the sacramental outward and visible sign of adoption into
sonship with Jehovah,—a point of view subsequently consistently kept to
throughout the Old Testament.
Finally with regard to the notion, expressed in many different forms,
that Circumcision was originally introduced on behalf of increased
fruitfulness on the part of the Sons of Abraham,[231]—an idea found as
early as in the pages of _Philo Judaeus_, it would appear not to be
so much the greater length of the foreskin that came into question,
but rather the same general reasons that ensured a condition of
cleanliness in the procreative organs; for the alleged interruption
of the ejaculation of the semen owing to the excessive length of the
foreskin can after all only occur, if the latter is at the same time
unduly contracted at its orifice in such a way that during the act of
coition it cannot be drawn back over the _glans_. Supposing, as we
have seen to be the case, complaints affecting the _glans penis_ when
covered with the normal prepuce to be readily set up through climatic
influences, the free use of the organ of procreation must of course
in this way have been interfered with, or even in extreme cases,
completely prevented. But inasmuch as the Jew, in this resembling most
of the Nations of Antiquity, made a numerous posterity his highest
glory,[232] and as this could only be obtained on the condition of
a healthy procreative member, every endeavour must obviously have
been made to remove anything likely to be prejudicial to the part
so profoundly reverenced, anything capable of disturbing, or even
altogether frustrating, the due performance of its functions.
But just as this removal of a part of the prepuce, and the consequent
increased possibilities of cleanliness of the _glans_, more or
less counteracted the injurious effects of Climate tending to set
up diseases of the _glans penis_ in general, it must have equally
exercised as against possible affections of this part resulting from
coition a certain prophylactic influence,—though undoubtedly this was
not _so_ great as it has been in some quarters represented to be, as we
intend to explain more fully elsewhere. Hence to some extent, but only
to a limited extent, can the practice of circumcision be regarded as
a proof of the existence of Venereal disease in Antiquity; but at the
same time to refer it to this as _sole_ motive, as _Stoll_[233] does,
is quite inadmissible.
What has here been said of _the Circumcision of men_, holds good also
in the main of _that of maids and women_. This consists in the removal
of the _praeputium clitoridis_; but neither the amputation of the
Clitoris itself in so-called _Tribads_ must be confounded with it,
nor yet the operation on the exaggerated nymphae or inner _labia_, of
women. The Arabs, among whom this practice,—female circumcision,—is
especially rife at the present day as it was of old,[234] call the
part that is subjected to circumcision نوي (_nava_), the circumcision
itself خفض (_battar_) or خفض (_chaphad_), and what is cut away in
circumcision بظر (_bätr_). Usually the circumcision of maids is first
performed on the completion of the tenth year by women who make it
their special business and who are known as مبظّرة (_mobatterat_).
These women perambulate the streets and openly call out, “Any maids to
circumcise?”[235] Besides the Arabs, Circumcision of maids is to be
found among the Copts or modern Egyptians,[236] the Ethiopians,[237] in
some districts of Persia,[238] among the Negroes in Bambuk[239] and the
Panos in the province of Maynas in South America, the latter actually
restricting the practice to the women.[240]
Baths and Bathing.
§ 37.
In spite of all precautions adopted it was impossible to keep away
everything unclean from the body, while this latter by its own
excrements was constantly making itself more or less unclean;[241]
hence it was only natural that from the most primitive times men’s
attention was directed towards means of removing the uncleanliness so
contracted. But the defilement was never more than an external one;
it concerned merely the skin and the orifices of the mucous membrane,
while the matter requiring removal was of a sort soluble in water, and
thus water was always the chief and foremost means employed to secure
cleanliness. Doctrines of Cosmogony further confirmed the practice;
these made water the origin of all things, a direct effluence of the
deity and therefore itself divine,—a means not only of purification,
but of sanctification as well.
Θάλασσα κλύζει πάντα τἀνθρώπων κακά,
(The sea washes away all evils of mankind) was the refrain, one that
resounds to this day in our ears from the East; so that we cannot
wonder that baths and bathing formed a capital factor both in the
public and private life of the Ancients. Whatever view might be taken
of sexual intercourse, all agreed in this, that a certain defilement
was connected with it, which (as follows indeed from our exposition on
earlier pages) might easily become injurious to the organs brought into
activity, and could only be obviated by dint of _baths_ and a system of
_bathing_.[242]
Thus we read in _Herodotus_:[243] “But as often as a _Babylonian_ has
had intercourse with his wife, he sits down beside a lighted censer,
and his wife does the same on the opposite side; then when morning has
come, both _bathe_ themselves, for they will touch no vessel until they
have washed. The same practice is followed by the _Arabians_ too.”
Whether bathing after _each_ act of coition was a national custom
of the _Egyptians_, we have been unable to discover, but _Clement
of Alexandria_[244] states that they were forbidden, as was almost
everywhere the case in Antiquity, to enter the temple without having
washed or bathed themselves after sexual intercourse; while the Priests
were bound to bathe after every nocturnal pollution.[245] This was
equally an ordinance of the _Jews_, who at the same time were rendered
by such pollution unclean till the evening. The last named People
were also obliged to wash after every act of coition; at any rate
_Josephus_[246] and _Philo_[247] declare it to have been so, for in
the Old Testament it is nowhere enjoined. As is generally known, this
custom has been kept up in the East down to the present day, even among
the Christian populations,—affording a concurrent testimony to the
necessity for its observance in these countries.
Whether the _Greeks_ deliberately and with intention made use of baths
and bathing immediately after sexual intercourse, it is difficult to
ascertain quite for certain; but it seems probable, as not only does
Mythology more than once[248] make express mention of the bath after
coition, but the phrase ὅσιος ἀπ’ εὐνᾶς ὤν (being holy, purified,
after the couch) points to the same conclusion. Moreover there is a
passage in _Lucian_,[249]—though it is quite true he often describes
Roman customs,—that might be thought to prove the same.
Clearer indications are forthcoming in the case of the _Romans_, who
not only must not undertake any sacred function or enter a Temple, if
they had failed to bathe after carrying out coition,[250] but were
also bound generally after every act of cohabitation to wash the
parts brought into use. At any rate this holds good of the women,
and so applies to the Roman matron (comp. the passage of _Suetonius_
quoted in § 27) as to Atia, the mother of Augustus, as well as in an
even greater degree to the amica (mistress) or courtesan. The regular
name for this was _aquam sumere_ (to take water).[251] Indeed there
were actually special attendants _aquarioli_ (water-boys),[252] whose
business it was not merely to fetch water for this purpose, but
also in particular to bathe and cleanse the “filles de joie” after
sexual intercourse. For this reason _Lampridius_ says of the Emperor
Commodus (ch. 2), _aquam gessit, ut lenonum ministeriis probrosis natum
magis, quam in loco crederes, ad quem fortuna pervexit_ (he fetched
water, so that you would more readily suppose him born to perform the
shameful offices of pandars than in the station whereto fortune raised
him). Such cleanliness was especially obligatory on those who had to
do with the preparation of food and drink, such as bakers, cooks and
butlers;[253] and if we do not find it directly enjoined among many
ancient Peoples, the only reason of this is that they were already
accustomed to wash and bathe every morning[254] immediately on leaving
their bed.
In the same way as after natural coition the parts brought into use
were bathed and washed, this was also done after _unnatural_, and so we
read in the Collection of Priapeia (Carm. 40.):
Falce minax et parte tui maiore, Priape,
Ad fontem, quaeso, dic mihi qua sit iter?
Vade per has vites, quarum si carpseris uvas
Quas aliter sumas, hospes, habebis aquas—
(Standing in threatening attitude with my bristling pruning-knife
and your better part, Priapus, I enquire: “Pri’thee tell me, which
is my way to the fountain?” “Go through yonder vines, but if you
dare to pluck the grapes, you will find, stranger, _water you must
take_ elsewhere”). Clearly this is to be taken as meaning paederastia
or irrumation looked upon as punishments inflicted for the theft
contemplated; and shows us at the same time it was not without a
“double entendre” that Priapus was set up as a direction-post to
fountains, a point that _Lomeier_[255] has already brought out with
perfect correctness. Again the _fellator_ after his work used to
cleanse the mouth with water, as we learn from several passages in
_Martial_; thus amongst other places we read in one, of Lesbia,[256]
Quod fellas et aquam potes, nil Lesbia peccas,
Qua tibi parte opus est, Lesbia, sumis aquam.
(You _fellate_ and then drink water; you do no wrong in this, Lesbia;
where lies your work, there Lesbia you _take water_).
If we further add to this scrupulous cleanliness the quiet life led by
the women of Antiquity, who spent most of their time, as women still do
in the East, reclining, it is evident that in spite of the predisposing
influence of Climate, injurious secretions from the vagina and uterus,
or indeed ulcerations of these parts, must—speaking generally, and in
proportion—have occurred but rarely. Moreover such maladies of the
sort as were contracted were quickly got rid of again spontaneously,
for very often even at the present day rest and cleanliness suffice by
themselves for the removal of primary affections of the genitals. On
the other hand it cannot be denied that a careless non-observance of
these primeval laws of cleanliness must have then avenged itself all
the more severely on the offending individual, and given occasion for
the setting up of incurable diseases.
But great as the counteracting effect of the frequent use of baths
in Antiquity was on the rise of diseases in general, and of those
resulting from sexual excesses in particular, none the less in other
ways did these same baths, directly or indirectly, _give occasion
for their rise and spread_. As to their _direct_ effect in this
direction,—we certainly find but scanty evidence of any in the
authorities, and even such as _are_ forthcoming may very possibly be
referred to the head of general want of cleanliness[257]. Still in
view of the fact that at the present day the cellar baths of the Jews
contribute to some degree to the spread of disease, and especially of
skin-disease of different types, as did baths generally in the Middle
Ages, the conjecture is surely justified that similar results followed
in Antiquity, especially at Rome under the Emperors.
_Indirectly_ maladies consequent upon sexual excesses were helped on by
the mere fact that the ancient Baths afforded manifold opportunities
for such excesses. The bath-attendants, or _aquarioli_ (water-boys),
who fetched the water for bathing, not only carried on vicious
practices with the women frequenting the place themselves, but also
made a business of procuration, as already pointed out just above, p.
214. The lascivious Roman Ladies took their own slaves with them to
the Baths, that they might attend upon their mistresses.[258] At first
the same bathing Establishments were used equally by both sexes, but
not at the same time; and according to _Dio Cassius_,[259] _Agrippa_
would appear to have first, 721 A. U. C., established the public Baths
at Rome for men and women, from which place later on Baths open to
both sexes were introduced into Greece, as _Plutarch_[260] states.
The Greeks called these Establishments ἀνδρόγυνα λούτρα (men-women,
male-female, baths), and used to set up an image of Hermaphroditus
in front of them.[261] In the Imperial period, when all shame was
laid aside and Heliogabalus himself _in balneis semper cum mulieribus
fuit_ (always visited the Baths in company of the women) (_Lampridius_
ch. 2), the use of the Baths both by men and women, and this at the
same time, had become an established custom, as may be seen from
several passages of _Martial_;[262] and it was in vain the Emperors
_Hadrian_,[263] _Marcus Antoninus_[264] and _Alexander Severus_[265]
endeavoured to restrain the abuse by enactments. These were just as
unavailing as were the invectives of the Fathers of the Church.[266]
The Bathing Apartments, from which antique Roman modesty had excluded
almost every glimmer of external light, were now patent to the eyes
of the passer-by. Fitted up with every device of the most refined
luxury,[267] they were transformed into regular brothels;[268] and
accordingly were not allowed to open their doors earlier than one hour
before the ordinary establishments of this nature.
The same opportunities which the Baths gave for vice with women, they
afforded no less for vice between men,—for paederastia. There it was
that amateurs looked about for _bene vasatos_ and καλλιπύγους, (men
with fine instruments, men with handsome buttocks), and this among the
Greeks as well as among the Romans,[269] though the latter in this as
in other things beat the record of all other nations.