pathics sought to allure the paederasts to them and invited them
to lewdness, as comes out more plainly in the following passage of
_Clemens Alexandrinus_[292]: Αἱ δὲ _ἀνδρογύνων συνουσίαις_ ἥδονται·
παρεισῥέουσιν δὲ ἔνδον κιναίδων ὄχλοι, ἀθυρόγλωσσοι· μιαροὶ μὲν τὰ
σώματα, μιαροὶ δὲ τὰ φθέγματα, εἰς ὑπουργίας ἀκολάστους ἠνδρωμένοι,
μοιχείας διάκονοι, κιχλίζοντες καὶ ψιθυρίζοντες, καὶ _τὸ πορνικὸν
ἀναίδην εἰς ἀσέλγειαν διὰ ῥινῶν ἐπιψοφοῦντες ἐπικιναίδισμα_, ἀκολάστοις
ῥήμασι καὶ σχήμασι τέρπειν πειρώμενοι, καὶ εἰς γέλωτας ἐκκαλούμενοι,
πορνείας παράδρομον· ἔστι δ’ ὅτε καὶ ὑπεκκαιόμενοι διὰ τὴν τυχοῦσαν
ὄργην, ἤτοι πόρνοι αὐτοὶ ἢ καὶ κιναίδων ὄχλον εἰς ὄλεθρον ἐζηλωκότες,
_ἐπικροτοῦσι τῇ ῥινὶ_, βατράχων δίκην, καθάπερ ἔνοικον τοῖς μυκτῆρσι
τὴν χολὴν κεκτημένοι. (But they delight in the _assemblies of the
Androgyni_ (men-women); and crowds of pathics hurry along to join them
within, everlasting chatterers, abominable in person and abominable in
voice; reared up to manhood for unchaste ministrations, servants of
adultery; tittering and whispering, and _sounding though their nose
the debauched cinaedus’ call to shameful licentiousness_, striving to
please with indecent words and gestures, and challenging to laughter, a
race and competition in harlotry. Then again at times kindled by some
chance gust of anger, whether debauchees themselves or roused to a
fatal emulation with the crowd of pathics, they make a rattling sound
with the nose, like frogs, as though they kept their stock of gall up
their nostrils).
But possibly the Tarsians were also _Fellatores_ (ii qui penem alienum
in os admittunt, ibique eo sugunt ut voluptas quaedam libidinosa
paretur,—those who allow another’s penis to be put in their mouth,
and suck it) (see later), and snorted as _fellatores_ did at their
task,—for the word ῥέγχειν (to snort) is manifestly used in several
different senses. It only remains to mention that a _pale complexion_
was also reckoned one of the signs of a _Cinaedus_, a fact to which
_Juvenal’s_ (II. 50.) words refer: _Hippo subit iuvenes et morbo pallet
utroque_. (Hippo submits to men, and is pale with two-fold disease). Of
these marks of the _Cinaedus_ we shall speak in greater detail directly.
Νοῦσος Θήλεια (Feminine Disease)[293].
§ 14.
The passage of _Dio Chrysostom_ discussed in the preceding section
brings us, in virtue of a variety of hints it contains, to the much
canvassed Νοῦσος Θήλεια (feminine disease) of the Scythians. _Stark_
has collected with the greatest care everything that has so far been
adduced by different authors in explanation of the subject; and on his
Work we must base our own efforts in the investigations that follow.
_Herodotus_[294] relates how the Scythians had made themselves masters
of all Asia, and how some of them on their homeward march had plundered
the very ancient temple of _Venus Urania_ at Ascalon, a town of Syria;
and then proceeds as follows:
“On such of the Scythians as plundered the temple at Ascalon, and on
their posterity for successive generations, the goddess inflicted the
θήλεια νούσος—feminine disease. And the Scythians say themselves it
is for this cause they suffer the sickness, and moreover that any who
visit the Scythian country may see among them what is the condition
of those whom the Scythians call Ἐναρέες”. (a Scythian word, probably
having the same meaning as Greek ἀνδρόγυνοι—men-women).
The different views that have been formulated at different times as to
the nature of the νοῦσος θήλεια may be readily classified as follows.
It was regarded as:—
1. _a Vice_, this vice being,
a) _Paederastia_; manifestly the oldest explanation,—already alluded
to by _Longinus_, but specially championed by _Bouhier_[295], also
entertained by the interpreters of _Longinus_, _Toll_ and _Pearce_, as
well as by _Casaubon_ (Epistolae) and _Costar_[296];
b). Onanism (Self Masturbation),—a view _Sprengel_[297] is inclined to
decide in favour of.
2. _a bodily Disease_,—to wit,
a). _Haemorrhoids_ (Piles); an opinion maintained by _Paul Thomas de
Girac_[298], _Valckenaar_ in his Notes to Herodotus, _Bayer_[299], and
the authors of the “General History of the World”[300];
b). _actual Menstruation_, for which _le Fèvre_ and _Dacier_ would seem
to have declared;
c). _Gonorrhoea_ (Clap), which _Patin_[301], _Hensler_[302] and
_Degen_[303] understood to be meant;
d). _actual loss of the Testicles, true Eunuchs_, _Mercurialis_[304]
considered must have been implied; and with this view _Stark’s_
conclusion in part coincides, who understood a disease involving
complete loss of virile power, both corporeal and mental, and producing
an actual metamorphosis of the male type into the female.
(3). _a mental Disease_, in fact a form of Melancholia. This is the
view adopted by _Sauvages_[305], _Heyne_, _Bose_, _Koray_[306] and
_Friedreich_.
It would naturally be our task to examine the reasons alleged for
and against these separate views. Supposing however we succeed in
satisfactorily proving one of them to be the right one, then _ipso
facto_ all the rest come to nothing; and so we propose here to essay
the advocacy of the oldest of them,—the view that makes the νοῦσος
θήλεια to be the vice of paederastia. _En passant_ we must call
attention to the fact that under the name of paederastia must be
understood not only the vicious habit of the paederast pure and simple,
of the man that is who _practices_ the act, but also of the _pathic_,
who offers opportunities for its commission. This is a point which
above all others has been quite left out of sight by the adversaries of
the view in question.
The next question we have to answer would seem to be this: Could
paederastia be regarded as a consequence of the vengeance of Venus?
As it is the Scythians that are in question, the first thing would
naturally appear to be to determine what conception the Scythians had
of Venus. But inasmuch as the data are lacking for any demonstration
of the sort, while the Scythians themselves ascribe the νοῦσος θήλεια
to the vengeance of Venus, we may very well refer for a reply to this
first question to the general character of the cult of the goddess[307]
and what has been said on the whole subject above; and herein there
seems to exist no reason why we should not answer the query asked above
in the affirmative. Granted that Venus was regarded as goddess of
fruitfulness or as dispenser of the joys of Love, then in either aspect
it was but natural she should withdraw the marks of her favour from
the culprits (the paederasts). These neither wished for posterity nor
enjoyed the delights connected with _natural_ coition, but were equally
indifferent towards the one and towards the other[308]; and the first
sign of the vengeance of the goddess consists in the withdrawal of her
benefits.
How _Stark_, following the lead of an anonymous French author quoted
by _Larcher_[309], can maintain there is no question of punishment
here, as in that case Venus would be acting against her own interest,
we fail to understand; and _Larcher_ himself calls this unknown writer
_un homme d’esprit, mais peu instruit_ (witty but superficial). This
is proof sufficient in our opinion that only a jest is intended, but
one that _Stark_, p. 7 (notes 19 and 20.), has taken with the utmost
seriousness.
However our view is _directly_ supported by another myth, which _Dio
Chrysostom_ mentions, speaking of the sweating at the armpits with
which the Lemnian women were afflicted. According to this legend Venus
punishes the women of Lemnos[310]:
“Haec Dea veluti etiam ceteri, sua sacrificia praetermitti non
aequo animo ferebat: quae cum Lemniae mulieres Veneris sacrificia
sprevissent, Deae maxime iram in se concitasse creditae sunt, quod
etiam non impune putantur fecisse. _Nam tantum foetorem illis excitasse
feminis Dea perhibetur, ut a suis maritis contemnerentur._” (This
goddess, no less than other deities, could not bear the neglect of her
proper sacrifices with equanimity. Thus the women of Lemnos, having
omitted to perform these sacrifices of Venus, are believed to have
brought down on themselves the most serious anger of the goddess,
and this they are accounted not to have done with impunity. _For
the goddess, as is related, caused such a foul odour to arise among
the women, that they were scorned by their husbands._) If the view
mentioned just above as taken by the Apostle Paul and by St. Athanasius
is the right one, it would seem that the Lemnian women had suffered
themselves to be used by their husbands for purposes of paederastia;
then as a consequence there had been set up the evil odour of the mouth
and breath, and this had driven the men to desert their wives to live
with the captive Thracian slave-women (_Apollonius_).
But indeed the Ancients generally, or at any rate the Greeks and
Romans, seem to have always held the opinion that unnatural coition,
as well as all the similar forms of indulgence taking its place, were
a consequence of the wrath of Venus, against whom the individuals had
offended[311]. This appears also from the play of _Philoctetes_, of
whom the _Scholiast_ to _Thucydides_[312] says: “Moreover Philoctetes,
having on account of the death of Paris fallen sick of the _feminine
disease_, and being unable to bear the shame of it, left his country
and founded a city, which in memory of his misfortune he named
Malacia—Effeminacy.” _Martial_[313] had the same myth in his mind when
he wrote:
In Sertorium
Mollis erat, facilisque viris Paeantius heros,
Vulnera sic Paridis dicitur ulta Venus.
Cur lingat cunnum Siculus Sertorius, hoc est,
Ex hoc occisus, Rufe, videtur Eryx.
(To Sertorius.—The Hero, son of Paeas (Philoctetes), was effeminate
and easy of access to men; in this way Venus is said to have avenged
the murder of Paris. Why should Sicilian Sertorius lick the pudendum
of women? this is why, because it would appear, he was the slayer,
Rufus, of a man of Eryx.) Of course there can be no question here of
the disease which detained Philoctetes at Lemnos and prevented his
taking part in the expedition to Troy; and if the older legend says
nothing as to the νοῦσος θήλεια of Philoctetes, it is clear from this
(as Meier, loco citato, has shown) that only in times when paederastia
was becoming prevalent, were all these legends invented, to get as it
were a sort of excuse by alleging a distinguished predecessor in the
practice. So _Martial_ says, addressing _Gaurus_:[314]
Quod nimio gaudes noctem producere vino,
Ignosco: vitium, Gaure, Catonis habes.
Carmina quod scribis Musis et Apolline nullo,
Laudari debes: hoc Ciceronis habes.
Quod vomis: Antoni, quod luxuriaris: Apici;
Quod fellas—vitium dic mihi, cuius habes?
(That you love to prolong the night with excess of wine, I can excuse;
you have the vice, Gaurus, of Cato. That you write verses with no
inspiration of Muses and Apollo, for this, you should be praised; it
is a fault of Cicero’s you have. That you vomit, well! ’twas a habit
of Antony’s; that you are a gourmand, ’twas Apicius’ weakness.—That
you suck (as a _fellator_), whose vice have you here, pray tell me!)
The above Epigram of _Martial’s_ (To Sertorius) shows very clearly
how the poets represented each form of unnatural indulgence of the
sexual impulse as vengeance of Venus. It is a _cunnilingus_ that is
in question here, and his vice is accounted for in this way:—just as
Philoctetes on account of the slaying of Paris had been punished by
Venus with paederastia, so the Sicilian Sertorius probably became a
_cunnilingus_ because he had killed an inhabitant of Eryx, where was
situated a famous temple of the goddess. Similarly it will not surprise
us if besides paederastia Philoctetes was saddled with the vice of
Onanism at a later period, as is implied in the following poem of
_Ausonius_:[315]
SUBSCRIPTUM PICTURAE CRISPAE MULIERIS IMPUDICAE
Praeter legitimi genitalia foedera coetus,
Repperit obscoenas Veneres vitiosa libido.
_Herculis haeredi quam Lemnia suasit egestas_,
Quam toga facundi scenis agitavit Afrani,
Et quam Nolanis capitalis luxus inussit;
Crispa tamen cunctas exercet corpore in uno:
Deglubit, fellat, molitur per utramque cavernam,
Ne quid inexpertum frustra moritura relinquat.
(Inscribed beneath a Portrait of Crispa,—an immodest woman.—Over and
above the natural modes of intercourse in legitimate coition, vicious
lust has discovered impure ways of love: the way that his loneliness
at Lemnos taught the heir of Hercules (Philoctetes), that which the
comedies of eloquent Afranius displayed on the stage, and that which
deadly luxury branded on the men of Nola. But Crispa practises them all
in her sole person: she skins, she sucks, she works by either aperture,
that she may not leave anything untried, and so have lived in vain!)
No doubt _Stark_, p. 19, is quite right in saying this passage has
nothing to do with the θήλεια νοῦσος; but the poet has by no means,
as he puts it in his note, _temporum ordine lapsus_,—committed an
anachronism. He makes no mention whatever of any vengeance of Venus,
saying nothing more than that loneliness led the inheritor (of
the arrows) of Hercules to Onanism. This is not merely advancing
a conjecture, as _Stark_ does, but (to say nothing of the _Lemnia
egestas_—Lemnian loneliness), admits of being legitimately developed
from the whole sequence of thought in the Epigram. Crispa’s vices are
mentioned in the order of their shamefulness. The least disgraceful is
Onanism, such as Philoctetes practised, next comes the vice of the
_cinaedus_ and of the _pathic_, for which Afranius serves as example,
and lastly _fellation_. Thus it shows a complete want of comprehension,
when the commentators quote the scholion to Thucydides given a little
above as an explanation. Had Philoctetes been referred to as a
_pathic_, the succeeding verse would be entirely superfluous; which
verse does not receive a word of notice from the expositors, presumably
because they failed to understand the allusion. The true explanation is
afforded by a passage in _Quintilian_:[316] “Togatis excellit Afranius,
_utinamque non inquinasset argumenta puerorum foedis amoribus_, mores
suos fassus.” (Afranius excels in _fabulae togatae_ (polite comedies),
and it were to be wished he had not defiled his plots by disgusting
intrigues with boys, thereby discovering his own morals). _Forberg_,
loco citato p. 283, quotes this passage indeed, but explains (both here
and on p. 343) the _libido_ (lust) of Philoctetes as being that of the
_pathic_.
To prove that Venus manifested her wrath in the way specified, we may
further cite the race of the daughters of Helios, whom she punished by
the infliction of licentious love. Thus _Hyginus_ says:[317] Soli ob
indicium (concubitus cum Marte) Venus ad _progeniem_ eius semper fuit
inimica, (Because of the Sun’s revelation (of her intrigue with Mars)
Venus was ever a bitter enemy of his posterity); and Seneca:[318]
Stirpem perosa Solis invisi Venus
Per nos catenas vindicat Martis sui
Suasque: _probris_ omne Phoebeum genus
Onerat _infandis_.
(Venus, loathing the posterity of the hated Sun, punishes on us the
fetters that bound her lover Mars and her. _With abominable and
disgraceful practices_ she afflicts the whole race of Phoebus).
An example of such vengeance is afforded by Pasiphaë, of whom
the Scholiast on the passage of Lucian cited below relates how,
Ἡλίου οὖσα ἐκ μήνιδος Ἀφροδίτης ταύρου ἠράσθη, (being a
daughter of the Sun, she became enamoured of a bull through the
influence of angry Aphrodité), a fable which might very well be
explained—for ταύρος (a bull), like κένταυρος (a Centaur), occurs
in the sense of paederast—as meaning that she had become a female
pathic. So Theomnestus says in _Lucian_:[319] “So lecherous a look
resides in the eyes, that compelling all beauty to its will, it can
find no satiety. And often was I uncertain whether this were not some
spite of Aphrodité. Yet am I none of the children of Helios, neither
a natural heir of the Lemnian women, nor puffed up with the scornful
insensibility of Hippolytus, that I could have provoked against me such
an implacable hatred on the part of the goddess)”. _Philo Judaeus_[320]
also represents paederastia as a punishment of such men as married a
woman legally repudiated, and the like: πρὸς δὲ συμβάσεις εἴ τις ἐθέλοι
χωρεῖν ἀνὴρ τῇ τοιαύτῃ γυναικὶ, _μαλακίας καὶ ἀνανδρίας ἐκφερέσθω
δόξαν_, ὡς ἐκ τετμημένος τῆς ψυχῆς τὸ βιωφελέστατον μισοπόνηρον
πάθος.... δίκην οὖν τινέτω σὺν τῇ γυναικί. (But if any man should wish
to enter into contracts with such a woman, let him bear the _ill-repute
of softness and effeminacy_, as having eradicated from his soul that
sentiment of hatred for ill-doers which is most useful for life,—So
let him pay his penalty along with the woman). In _Athenaeus_ one
of the speakers exclaims (Deipnos., XIII. p. 605 D.): Ὁρᾶτε οὖν καὶ
ὑμεῖς, οἱ φιλόσοφοι _παρὰ φύσιν τῇ_ Ἀφροδίτῃ χρώμενοι, καὶ _ἀσεβοῦντες
εἰς τὴν θεὸν_, μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν διαφθαρῆτε τρόπον. (Beware then ye too,
philosophers who indulge the pleasures of Aphrodité _against nature,
and act impiously towards the goddess_, that ye be not destroyed in the
same way).
According to _Diodorus_ (V. 55) the sons of Neptune in consequence of
the wrath of Venus plunged into such madness that they violated their
mother. The Propontides, who had denied the godhead of Venus, were cast
by her into such an amorous phrenzy that they publicly gave themselves
to men, and they were subsequently turned into stones.[321] Myrrha,
whose mother proclaimed herself to be fairer than Venus, was driven by
the goddess into unchastity with her own father.[322]
In later times this idea was even transferred to the Star of Venus. The
following appears in _Firmicus_ “In octavo ab horoscopo loco, Mercurius
cum Venere, si vespertini ambo, inefficaces et apocopos reddent, et qui
nihil agere possint.” (In the eighth place of the horoscope, Mercury
in conjunction with Venus, if both are evening stars, will make men
impotent eunuchs and such as can effect nothing.)—a notion that first
arose perhaps from the name Hermaphroditus[323].
Thus there would be nothing inconsistent with the views universally
held in Antiquity in considering the νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease)
of the Scythians, and equally that of Philoctetes, as consequences
of the wrath of Venus. That paederastia was invariably regarded
as a _Vice_ by the Ancients (and particularly by the Greeks) we
have already, following the lines laid down by _Meier_, we think
sufficiently proved. _Stark_, who repeatedly (pp. 12, 16, 20.) denies
this, has been led into error merely by the mistake that was generally
prevalent in his time of confusing paedophilia and paederastia; and it
is on this misapprehension he bases his argument. How the Scythians
came to hold this belief that the wrath of Venus was to blame for
what they suffered, must indeed be left an open question. But it
should be remembered it was not the _pathics_ themselves who advanced
this opinion, but only the rest of the Scythians; for Herodotus says
expressly, λέγουσί τε οἱ Σκύθαι διὰ τοῦτο _σφεας_ νοσέειν (and the
Scythians say that for this cause _they_ were afflicted). Again it was
only ὀλίγοι τινὲς αὐτῶν ὑπολειφθέντες (a few of the Scythians who were
left behind), a few of the stragglers, who would seem to have plundered
the temple of Aphrodité; and it certainly was only later that this act
of impiety was brought into connection with the vice,—in the same way
as the killing of Paris by Philoctetes was with the legend of his lewd
practices.
§ 15.
The second question we have to answer will be this: how could Herodotus
write _that the descendants of these few stragglers alive in his time
suffered from the νοῦσος θήλεια_ (_feminine disease_)? From the
fact that, while descendants are named, strictly speaking only _male_
descendants can be in question, it is clear the statement is only a
general one, and must not be understood to imply more than that certain
members of these families were Cinaedi, not of course that the _whole_
posterity was afflicted with the νοῦσος θήλεια. We see at the
present day how the impurity of the father passes on to the son; so
it need be matter for no surprise whatever to find the vice of the
cinaedi descending in the same way among certain members of a family.
As a matter of fact these Scythian temple-robbers are by no means the
only examples Antiquity holds up to us of such a thing, for the Orator
_Lysias_[324] says of the family of _Alcibiades_, that _most members of
it had become prostitutes_.
What is more, the opinion was avowedly and directly held by the
Ancients, that pathics were born with the predisposition to the
vice. In particular _Parmenides_ (509 B.C.) expressed this view in a
Fragment, which _Caelius Aurelianus_[325] has preserved in a chapter of
his Work. This chapter treats solely of the vice of the pathic, and is
of the greatest importance for our subject. We could not forgo quoting
it in full, particularly as it is the sole authority for the views held
by physicians on this vice, and up to now appears to have been entirely
overlooked.
DE MOLLIBUS SIVE SUBACTIS; QUOS GRAECI _μαλθακοὺς_ VOCANT.
“Molles sive subactos Graeci μαλθακοὺ vocaverunt, quos quidem esse
nullus facile virorum credit. Non enim hoc humanos ex natura venit in
mores, sed pulso pudore, libido etiam indebitas partes obscoenis usibus
subiugavit. Cum enim nullus cupiditati modus, nulla satietatis spes
est, singulis Sparta non sufficit sua. Nam sic nostri corporis loca
divina providentia certis destinavit officiis. Tum denique volentes
alliciunt veste atque gressu, et aliis femininis rebus, quae sunt a
passionibus corporis aliena, sed potius corruptae mentis vitia. Nam
saepe tumentes [timentes], vel quod est difficile, verentes quosdam,
quibus forte deferunt, repente mutati parvo tempore virilitatis
quaerunt indicia demonstrare, cuius quia modum nesciunt, rursum
nimietate sublati, plus quoque quam virtuti convenit, faciunt et
maioribus si peccatis involvunt. Constat itaque etiam nostro iudicio,
hos vera sentire. Est enim, ut Soranus ait, malignae ac foedissimae
mentis passio. Nam sicut feminae _Tribades_[326] appellatae, quod
utramque Venerem exerceant, mulieribus magis quam viris misceri
festinant et easdem, invidentia pene virili sectantur, et cum passione
fuerint desertae, seu temporaliter relevatae, ea quaerunt aliis
obiicere, quae pati noscuntur, iuvamini humilitate [iuvandi voluptate
ex] duplici sexu confecta, velut frequenti ebrietate corruptae in novas
libidinis formas erumpentes, consuetudine turpi nutritae, sui sexus
iniuriis gaudent, illi comparatione talium animi passione iactari
noscuntur. Nam neque ulla curatio corporis depellendae passionis causa
recte putatur adhibenda, sed potius animus coercendus, qui tanta
peccatorum labe vexatur. Nemo enim pruriens corpus feminando correxit,
vel virilis veretri tactu mitigavit, sed communiter querelam sive
dolorem alia ex materia toleravit. Denique etiam a Clodio historia
curationis data ascaridarum esse perspicitur, quos de lumbricis
scribentes vermiculos esse docuimis longaonis[327] in partibus natos.
_Parmenides_[328] libris quos de natura scripsit, _eventu_, inquit
_conceptionis molles aliquando seu subactos homines generare_. Cuius
quia graecum est epigramma et hoc versibus intimabo [imitabo]: Latinos
enim, ut potui, simili modo composui, ne linguarum ratio misceretur.
Femina, virque simul Veneris cum germina miscent
Venis, informans diverso ex sanguine virtus
Temperiem servans bene condita corpora fingit.
At si virtutes permixto semine pugnent,
Nec faciant unam, permixto in corpore dirae
Nascentem gemino vexabunt semine sexum.