favour to Cypris—Love_), clearly proves that πράσσειν (to do, to have
intercourse) was used of coition generally[257].
Moreover in the passage of _Plutarch_ quoted a little above
paederastia is called χάρις ἄχαρις (a grace that is without grace)
and further down Ἔρως, Ἀφροδίτης μὴ παρούσης,—Ἔρως χωρὶς Ἀφροδίτης,
(Love—Eros—where Aphrodité is not, Love without Aphrodité); so how can
it have been regarded by the Greeks as under the _patronage_ of Venus?
Undoubtedly πρᾶξις is here synonymous with πόρνη (harlot), and the
Ἀφροδίτη πρᾶξις at Megara is nothing else than the Ἀφροδίτη πόρνη of
other cities.
_Chalcis_ had gained such notoriety for paederastia[258], that
χαλκιδίζειν (to act the Chalcidian) was said proverbially for
παιδεραστεῖν (to practise paederastia). It was the same with _Chios_
and _Siphnos_, as the expressions χιάζειν and σιφνιάζειν (to play
the Chian, the Siphnian) in _Hesychius_ prove. Hesychius says indeed
_σιφνιάζειν_: i.e. to finger behind; for the Siphnians are ill-spoken
of as enjoying boy-lovers. To act the Siphnian then means, to poke with
the finger. But the first explanation by καταδακτυλίζειν (to finger
behind), as well as the gloss of _Suidas_[259], show clearly that the
inhabitants of the island of Siphnos,—one of the Cyclades, practised a
species, if we may use the expression, of _Onania postica_ (back-door,
posterior masturbation),—like the cobbler at Vienna, who to allay the
Prurigo ani (itching of the anus) pushed his hammer up his posterior,
and then alas! could not pull it out again. In the same way the
Siphnians used the fingers[260].
The inhabitants of Italy were according to _Suidas_ (under the name
Θάμυρις—Thamyris) inventors of paederastia; and Etruscans, Samnites and
Messapians, as well as the Greeks dwelling in Magna Graecia, lay under
the reproach of practising the most vicious forms of love with men and
violation of boys[261]. In all probability the vice spread from here to
Rome, where it is found as early as the year 433 A.U.C.[262]. To such
an extent did it increase that in 585 A.U.C. (B.C. 169), as _Meier_ has
demonstrated, the _Lex Scantinia_ had to be passed against it. Yet all
this amounted as yet to nothing in comparison with the scenes of horror
that were enacted under the Emperors _Tiberius_, _Caligula_, etc., of
whom _Martial_[263] says:
Tanquam parva foret sexus iniuria nostri
Foedandos populo prostituisse mares[264],
Iam cunae leonis erant, ut ab ubere raptus
Sordida vagitu posceret aera puer,
Immatura dabant infandas corpora poenas.
Non tulit Ausonius talia monstra pater:
Idem qui teneris nuper succurrit ephebis,
Ne faceret steriles saeva libido viros.
Dilexere prius pueri, iuvenesque senesque:
At nunc infantes te quoque, Caesar, amant.
(As though it were a small wrong done our sex to make males
prostitutes[264] to be debauched by the crowd, cradles now became a
part of the brothel-keeper’s stock in trade, that the baby-boy torn
from the breast might solicit a sordid wage by his wailing, and
immature bodies paid horrible penalties. Horrors such as these the
great Father of Italy (Domitian) would not suffer: that same good
Emperor who of late came to the rescue of tender youths, that raging
lust might not make men unfruitful. Heretofore boys loved him,—and
young men and old; now the very infants too love thee, Caesar).
Yet this was of little avail; the vice descended from generation to
generation, and passed on to the Christian nations, just as the Roman
punishments did in their legal codes.
Diseases consequent on Paederastia.
§ 13.
If we consider, first that the contractile power of the _Sphincter ani_
muscle offered great resistance to the paederast, a resistance only to
be overcome by the exertion of considerable force, secondly that the
glands of the _rectum_ exude a malodorous secretion, which under the
influence of climate,—a subject to be dealt with more precisely later
on,—assumes a more or less acrid quality, it will not surprise us to
find that manifold forms of disease showed themselves in Ancient times
both among paederasts and cinaedi (pathics). These were no doubt all
the more serious in cases where the one set of organs or the other
was already morbidly affected. As to the paederast indeed the direct
evidence is scanty, yet it is not entirely wanting, as may be seen from
the following Epigram of _Martial_[265]:
IN NAEVOLUM.
_Mentula cum doleat puero, tibi_, Naevole, _culus_,
Non sum divinus, sed scio quid facias.
(To Naevolus.—When I see _pained and sore the boy’s penis and your
posterior_, Naevolus,—I’m no wizard, but I know what it is you do).
Here we see both parts suffering from disease, the paederast in his
penis, the pathic in his posterior: and _Martial_ concludes Naevolus
was a _cinaedus_.
But more especially must phimosis and paraphimosis have had a tendency
to be set up in the case of the paederast. These at first, because
the continuous state of erection of the _penis_ which is a feature of
these affections was obviously the most visibly conspicuous symptom,
were designated by the name Satyriasis, the usual appellation of the
latter condition. This will also give a probable explanation of the
mortality from this cause observed by _Themison_ in _Crete_[266],—a
locality notorious, as we have seen, for the dishonouring of boys,—and
generally for the frequency of Satyriasis, which often took an almost
epidemic character in that island. Paraphimosis it should be noted
in passing had already been only too frequently noted as affecting
masturbators. Physicians indeed say nothing as to the predisposing
causes, and explain the disease as arising from an _Acrimonia humorum_
(Acridness of the humours) or from drinking a Philtre (Love-potion).
_Naumann_[267] appears to wish to make the Satyriasis that prevailed
in Crete some form of leprous affection, but for this view we can find
absolutely no ground.
Much more frequent mention is found of affections of the _rectum_ among
the pathics as consequences of paederastia. First come fissures, and in
their train ulcers of the _rectum_; whence the expressions _sectus_,
_percisus_ (cut), and the like are applied so often in Roman writers to
the pathic, and to his vice generally. So _Martial_[268] says:
IN CARINUM.
_Secti podicis usque ad umbilicum_
Nullas reliquias habet Carinus,
Et prurit tamen usque ad umbilicum.
O quanta scabie miser laborat!
Culum non habet, est tamen cinaedus.
(To Carinus.—Carinus has no relics left of _his fundament, cut up
to the very navel_; and yet he itches with desire up to the very
navel. Oh! what a vile itch torments the unhappy man! He possesses no
posterior, and nevertheless is a cinaedus (pathic).)
IN LESBIAM[269].
De cathedra quoties surgis, jam saepe notavi,
_Paedicant miseram_, Lesbia, _te tunicae.
Quas cum conata es dextra, conata sinistra
Vellere, cum lacrimis eximis et gemitu._
Sic constringuntur gemina Symplegade culi,
Et Minyas intrant Cyaneasque nates.
Emendare cupis _vitium deforme_? docebo.
Lesbia, nec surgas censeo, nec sedeas!
(To Lesbia.—As oft as you rise from your chair, Lesbia, I have many
a time noticed the fact, _your undergarments, poor lady, play the
paederast with you. You endeavour to pluck them away first with the
right, anon with the left hand; finally you release them with tears
and groaning_. So drawn together are the twin Symplegades of your
fundament, and enter in between Minyan and Cyanean buttocks. Would you
fain cure _this ungraceful defect_? I will tell you how: I think,
Lesbia, you’d better not get up, nor yet sit down!)
Usually indeed the Pathic tried to conceal his complaint, and to make
it pass under some other name, as does Charisianus:
DE CHARISIANO[270].
Multis jam, Lupe, posse se diebus
Paedicare negat Charisianus.
Caussam cum modo quaererent sodales:
_Ventrem_, dixit, _habere se solutum_.
(On Charisianus.—Charisianus says, Lupus, that for many days he has
been unable to indulge in paederastia. When his comrades asked the
reason; _his bowels_, he said, _were relaxed_!)
But most frequently of all are the fig-like swellings on the fundament
(Ficus, Mariscae,—figs, large figs) mentioned by Ancient authors as a
consequence of paederastia.
DE SE PRIAPUS[271].
Non sum de fragili dolatus ulmo;
Nec quae stat rigida supina vena,
De ligno mihi quolibet columna est,
Sed viva generata de cupresso.—
Hanc, tu quisquis es, o malus, timeto:
Nam si vel minimos manu rapaci
Hoc de palmite laeseris racemos:
_Nascetur_, licet hoc velis negare,
_Inserta tibi ficus a cupresso_.
(Priapus on Himself.—I am not hewn of fragile elm, nor is my pillar
that stands bent back with penis stiffly erect of any chance wood, but
born of the living cypress.—Beware this image, thief, whoe’er thou
art; for should you damage with plundering hand the tiniest clusters
of this stem, _there shall grow a fig_, deny it if you will, _of
cypress-wood inserted up your fundament_.)
DE LABIENO[272].
Ut pueros emeret Labienus, vendidit hortos,
Nil nisi _ficetum_ nunc Labienus habet.
(On Labienus.—To buy boys Labienus sold his gardens; nought but a
_fig-garden_ does Labienus now possess.)
AD CAECILIANUM[273].
Cum dixi _ficus_, rides quasi barbara verba.
Et dici _ficos_, Caeciliane, iubes.
Dicemus _ficus_, quas scimus in arbore nasci,
Dicemus _ficos_, Caeciliane, _tuos_.
(To Caecilianus.—When I have said _ficus_, you laugh, Caecilianus, as
though I had committed a solecism, and declare _ficos_ should be the
word. We will say _ficus_, meaning the figs that we know grow on the
tree, but your figs, Caecilianus, we will call _ficos_).
Now too we shall understand the _medico ridente_ (the doctor grinning)
in the following passage of _Juvenal_ (II. 12):
Sed podice laevi
Caeduntur _tumidae_, medico ridente, _mariscae_.
(But from your smooth posterior are cut, the doctor grinning the while,
_the bloated swellings_). Just as it admits of no doubt that in the
passage of _Horace_[274]:
Nam, displosa sonat quantum vesica, pepedi
Diffissa nate _ficos_.
(For as loud as a burst bladder sounds, I farted my swellings
(ficos—figs) away, splitting the rump), _ficos_ and not as commonly
_ficus_ must be read.
That these morbid growths were not entirely free from contagious matter
seems to be indicated by the following passages. In the _Priapeia_
(Carm. 50) we read:
Quaedam, si placet hoc tibi, Priape,
Ficosissima me puella ludit,
Et non dat mihi, nec negat daturam;
Causasque invenit usque differendi.
Quae si contigerit fruenda nobis,
Totam cum paribus, Priape, nostris
Cingemus tibi mentulam coronis.
(A certain girl, if it please you to listen, Priapus, is playing with
me. Most sorely afflicted is she with swellings; and she will not give
herself to me, yet does not say she never will, and ever finds excuses
for putting off and putting off. Now if ever she shall be mine to
enjoy, I and my comrades with me, will wreath all thy _penis_, Priapus,
with garlands). The girl, who was badly affected with these swellings,
and that presumably in the secret parts, refuses her lover coition. The
latter does not insist, but prays to Priapus, as was habitually done
in all cases of affections of the genitals (see p. 74 above) and vows
to deck his penis with garlands. It follows that the lover was aware
these swellings would be injurious to him, if he should constrain the
girl, of whom the poet says, _nec negat daturam_ (yet does not say she
will _not_ give herself), to lie with him. Still clearer evidence of
this may be found in the following Epigram of _Martial_, where a whole
family is affected with these swellings or tumours:
De familia ficosa.[275]
Ficosa est uxor, ficosus et ipse maritus,
Filia ficosa est, et gener atque nepos.
Nec dispensator, nec villicus, _ulcere turpi_,
Nec rigidus fossor, sed nec arator eget.
Cum sint ficosi pariter iuvenesque senesque,
Res mira est, ficus non habet unus ager.
(On a tumourous household.—The goodwife is tumourous, tumourous the
goodman her husband, tumourous the daughter of the house, and the
son-in-law and the grandson. Neither house-steward nor factor is free
of the foul ulcer, nor the rugged ditcher, nor yet the ploughman. Now
when all alike, young and old have tumours (ficos, ficus), the strange
thing is, not a single field has fig-trees (ficus)). For the rest
the words _ulcere turpi_ (foul ulcer) show that _ficus_, like σύκος
and σύκωσις (fig, fig-like swelling) in Greek, signifies not only a
fig-shaped swelling, but also an ulcer with granulous surface, like
a fig cut in two. Or possibly it would be better to understand here
swellings that have passed into the ulcerated stage[276].
Seeing how plainly the passages just quoted from non-medical Writers
point to these swellings being a consequence of paederastia, it is
surprising that not one of the Ancient physicians, spite of _Juvenal’s_
_medico ridente_ (the doctor grinning the while), ever so far as we
know, alleges this form of licentiousness as cause of affections of the
sort. On the other hand we cannot help remarking that the frequency of
these swellings in the time of _Martial_ and _Juvenal_ can hardly be
explained as arising solely from the general prevalence of paederastia.
More probably, then as now, the _Genius epidemicus_ (Epidemic
influences) bore no unimportant share in bringing about the result,
just as was the case (see later) with _Mentagra_ (Eruption of the chin).
However not merely primary affections of the posteriors were the
punishment of the _Cinaedus_, but also secondary ones of the _mouth_
and _throat_. First and foremost was hoarseness of the voice, to which
_Martial_[277] alludes, when he makes the champion of the baths the
_cinaedus_ Charinus speak _raucidulo ore_ (with a weak, hoarse voice).
This we find, following Reiske’s[278] indication, more explicitly
dealt with in _Dio Chrysostom_[279]:—
“But this is surely worth mentioning, and it is a thing no one can
deny. I mean the noteworthy fact that a disease has attacked so many
in this city,—one which I used to hear of as prevailing much more
frequently with others than amongst you. What is it I mean? Even though
I could explain myself no more clearly, yet you might easily guess the
answer. Do not think I am speaking of secrets, of hidden doings, when
the astounding fact itself speaks plainly enough. For there are many in
this city that are asleep, even while they walk and stand and speak;
though they may appear to most observers to be awake, yet it is not
really so.
“Now they give, in my opinion, the clearest proof that they are
asleep,—they snore (ῥέγχουσιν). I cannot, by heaven, express myself
more clearly with decency. True only a few of the sleepers are
suffering from the complaint I mean, and of the others it affects only
the drunken, the overfed and such as have lain ill. But I maintain
this vicious practice (ἔργον) shames the city and brands it publicly.
The grossest ignominy is brought down upon their native city by these
sleepers by day, and they ought, I say, to have been expelled your
borders, as has been their fate everywhere else. For it is not now
and then, nor here and there, they are met with; but at all times and
in all places in the city occasion may be found to threaten, scorn or
deride them. For the rest the practice has actually penetrated now to
boys still young, and adults that yet would fain be reputable, suffer
themselves to be led away into regarding the matter as a trifle, and if
they refrain from the decisive step, yet it was their wish to take it.
“If there were a city in which wailing were to be heard all day
long, and no one could walk about in it, no! not one minute,
without listening to the sound of lamentation, tell me, what man
would willingly stay here? Now wailing, as all agree, is a sign of
unhappiness; but that other sound is the sign of shamelessness and
lewdness the most scandalous. Surely one would much rather choose to
associate with unhappy men than with paederasts[280]. I might avoid
listening, if a single man were to be blowing the flute everlastingly,
but if in a particular place there is an everlasting noise of flutes,
singing or guitar-playing,—such as might be where the rocks ever ring
with the Syrens’ song,—I could not, having arrived there, endure to
remain. And this unmusical and harsh tone of voice[281], what man of
any virtue can abide it? If a man passes in front of a home in which
he catches the sound, he says, “Of a surety there is a brothel there!”
Now what shall be said of a city where nothing _but_ this tone of voice
prevails universally, so that no exception can be made of time or day
or place whatever? For in streets and houses, in public places, in the
theatre and in the Gymnasium, _paederastia_ is rife[282].
“Again I have never yet heard a flute-player of a morning in the city,
but this horrible sort of din is raised[283] from earliest dawn.
“I do not indeed shut my eyes to the fact that it will be said I am
talking silly nonsense most likely, in making such allegations, and
that there is nothing in it. Nay! but surely you are only carrying
pot-herbs in your cart, and behold with indifference profusion of white
bread on the road, as well as salt and fresh meat. But just consider
the thing (πρᾶγμα i. e. paederastia) in this way too: If any one of
these objectors should come into a city, where all men, when they
point to a thing, point at it with the middle finger[284], when any
one gives the right hand, gives it with this same gesture, and when
he stretches out the hand, as the people does in voting or the judges
in giving decisions, does so in the same way, what, pray will he think
of such a city? What, if further all men walk in this city with skirts
up-raised, as if wading in a quagmire? For do you not really and truly
know what has given occasion to the defamation you suffer; what it
is has offered matter to such as are unfriendly disposed to you for
censure on our city? Tell me, what is the reason they nickname you
“hawks” (κερκίδες)[285]?
“Well, but you opine the question is not what others say of you, but
what you really do yourselves? Good; but if a single disease of such
a sort attacks a people that they all of them acquire women’s voices,
and no man, neither stripling nor grey-beard, can utter a word in a
man’s voice, is not this a horrible thing, and harder to bear, I should
suppose, than any Plague? For it is not _shameful_ to have a fever, nor
even to die.
“Nay! but to speak with women’s voice is after all to speak with human
voice, and no one is filled with aversion when he hears a woman. But,
tell me, whose is this voice; does it not belong to the _Androgyni_
(men-women), the Cinaedi? or to such as have had the genitals
amputated? True it is not invariably found with all such, but it is
characteristic of them and a sign of what they are.
“Well then! suppose a stranger from a distance to judge from your
voices, what kind of men you are, and what are your pursuits
(πράττειν,—what it is you do). You are not fit, I tell you, to be
neatherds or shepherds. I wonder would any one take you for descendants
of the Argives, as you profess to be, or indeed for Greeks at all,—you
who outdo the Phoenicians in lubricity? At any rate I do think it would
behove a man of any morality in such a city to close his ears with wax
far more than if he were sailing past the Syrens’ shore. There he would
run the risk of death, but here of foulest licence, of violation, of
the vilest seduction.
“Once Ionic harmony was in vogue, or Doric, or yet another sort, the
Phrygian and Lydian, now it is the music of Aradus and the Phoenician
modes that please you; you love this rhythm _par excellence_,
as others do the Spondaic. Was ever a race of men that were good
musicianers—through the nose?!
(p. 409). “But such a rhythm must needs have something to follow. You
would seem not to know what; just as with other nations the wrath
of the gods overtook some single part, the hands, the feet or the
face[286], in the same way among you an endemic disease has attacked
the nose. Just as the angry Aphrodité they say made the Lemnian women’s
armpits abominable, know now that the gods in their anger have played
havoc with the noses of most of your fellow citizens, and that is why
they have this characteristic voice of their own. Indeed from where
else could it have come?
“But _I_ say this thing is the mark of most infamous lewdness, of most
infamous madness, of contempt for all decency (all morality), and (a
proof) of the fact that there is no more any single thing held to be
disgraceful. Their speech, their gait, their look, proclaim it.”
From this passage of Dio Chrysostom, who lived at the end of the First
and beginning of the Second Century A.D., we see that at that period
the vice of paederastia prevailed at Tarsus to an appalling extent;
and very possibly it is this circumstance that gave occasion to the
declaration of the Apostle St. Paul[287], whose native town of course
Tarsus was, when he says:
“Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto
uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonoured among
themselves.... For their women[288] changed the natural use into
that which is against nature; and likewise also the men, leaving the
natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another,
men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that
recompense of their error which was due.” This recompense was no doubt
the ῥέγχειν (snoring), which according to _Reiske_ was the consequence
of an affection of the throat and nose in which the breath was exhaled
with a characteristic noise. To corroborate this view he quotes in
his edition of Dio Chrysostom the following passage from _Ammianus
Marcellinus_[289], who picturing the habits of the Romans in the
middle of the Fourth Century, wrote thus: “Haec nobilium instituta. Ex
turba vero imae sortis et pauperrimae, in tabernis aliqui pernoctant
vinariis: nonnulli velabris umbraculorum theatralium latent, quae
Campanam imitatus lasciviam Catulus in aedilitate sua suspendit omnium
primus; aut pugnaciter aleis certant, _turpi sono fragosis naribus
introrsum reducto spiritu concrepantes_.” (Such are the usages of the
nobles. But of the masses, those of lowest and poorest lot, certain
spend the night in wine-taverns, some lurk under the curtains of the
theatre awnings,—which Catulus in his aedileship, imitating Campanian
luxury, was the very first to erect; or quarrel and fight at dice,
_making an ugly rattling sound the while by drawing in the breath
through their rough nostrils_).
Now we know that paederasts had foul breaths, as _Martial_[290] indeed
noted, consequently the mucous membrane of the mouth was morbidly
affected in its action, and further that they spoke _raucidulo ore_
(with hoarse voice)[291], which must have been with many the ordinary
consequence of a thickening of the tissues by previous ulceration; and
at this fact this Speech of Dio Chrysostom, as _Reiske_ understands it,
may very well hint. But to take the main gist of his speech, the author
of the “Tarsica” signifies by ῥέγχειν (to snort) something quite
different from this, as the whole context shows clearly.