miscuerint et [ut] eiusdem corporis [vim unam] faciant, unam congruam
sexui generent voluntatem. Si autem permixto semine corporeo virtutes
separatae permanserint utriusque Veneris natos adpetentia sequatur.
Multi praeterea sectarum principes genuinam dicunt esse passionem
et propterea _in posteros venire cum semine_, non quidem naturam
criminantes, quae suae puritatis metas aliis ex animalibus docet: nam
sunt eius specula a sapientibus nuncupata: sed humanum genus, quod ita
semel recepta tenet vitia, ut nulla possit instauratione purgari, nec
ullum novitati liquerit locum, sitque gravior senescentibus mentis
culpa, cum plurimae genuinae, seu adventitiae passionis corporibus
infractae consenescant, ut podagra, epilepsia, furor et propterea
aetate vergente mitiores procul dubio fiant. Omnia et enim vexantia
validos effectus dabunt firmitate opposita subiacentium materiarum,
quae cum in senibus deficit, passio quoque minuitur, ut fortitudo; sola
tamen supra dicta, quae subactos seu molles efficit viros, senescenti
corpore gravius invalescit et infanda magis libidine movet, non quidem
sine ratione. In aliis enim aetatibus adhuc valido corpore et naturalia
ventris [veneris] officia celebrante, gemina luxuriae libido non
divititur, animorum nunc faciendo, nunc facie iactata [animo eorum nunc
patiendo nunc faciendo iactato]: in iis vero qui senectute defecti
virili veneris officio caruerint, omnis animi libido in contrariam
ducitur appetentiam, et propterea femina validius Venerem poscit. Hinc
denique coniiciunt plurimi etiam pueros hac passione iactari. Similiter
enim senibus virili indigent officio, quod in ipsis est nondum, illos
deseruit.” (On effeminate men or _subservients_, called μαλθακοὶ—soft,
effeminate, by the Greeks.—Effeminate men, or _subservients_, were
called by the Greeks μαλθακοὶ. A _man_ finds it difficult to believe
in the existence of such creatures. For it was not nature prompted the
introduction of this as part of human habits; rather was it lust that,
expelling shame, subjected to foul uses parts of the body that should
never have been so employed. For no limit being set to passion, and
no hope of satiety being entertained, the several members find each
its own realm insufficient; whereas divine providence destined the
different portions of the body to perform definite functions. In fine
they go out of their way to allure by dress and gait and other feminine
attributes, things unconnected with bodily emotions, being rather due
to a corrupted mind. For often, moved by fear, or (however difficult to
believe) by shame, towards persons whom they happen to respect, they
change of a sudden and for a brief space seek to show marks of manly
power; but not knowing where to put the limit, they are again carried
away by excess, and going beyond what is fit for an honest man are
involved in yet greater offences. Thus it is evident, in _our_ opinion,
that such men have a sense of the true state of things. For theirs
is, as Soranus declares, the passion of a corrupt and utterly foul
mind. For as women that are called _Tribades_, because they practise
the love of either sex, are eager to have intercourse with women more
than with men, and pursue these with a jealousy almost as violent as
a man’s, and when they have been deserted by their love or for the
time being superseded, seek to do to other women what they are known
to suffer, and winning from their double sex a pleasure in giving
pleasure, like persons deboshed by constant drunkenness, being nurtured
on evil habitude, delight in wrongs to their own sex,—even so these
men (pathics) are seen by a comparison with women of this sort to be
tormented with a passion that is of the mind. For no bodily treatment
it is rightly deemed should be adopted to expel the passion, rather
must the mind be disciplined which is afflicted with such a pollution
of vices.
For no man ever remedied a prurient body by foul practices as a woman,
nor got mitigation by contact of the male member, but concurrently he
suffered some complaint or pain from a different (material) cause. So
in fact the history of a cure given by Clodius is found to be really
a case of recovery from “ascaridae”, which writers on intestinal
worms have shown are a kind of worm born in the region of the rectum
or straight gut. _Parmenides_ in his books on natural science says
“_Effeminate men or _subservients_ occasionally bring forth as a
result of conception_.” But as his Epigram is in Greek, I will imitate
it in verse; so I have composed Latin lines like the original so
far as I could make them, that there might not be a mixture of the
two languages:—“When a woman and a man together mingle in the veins
the seeds of love, the formative virtue that moulds of the diverse
blood, if it keep due proportion, makes well-framed bodies. But if the
virtues are discordant in the commingled seed, and have no unity, in
the commingled body furies will torment the nascent sex with two-fold
seed.” He means that over and above the material seed there are certain
virtues residing in it; and if these have commingled in such a way as
to have one and the same operative force in the same body, then they
produce one single will that tallies with the sex. But if when the
bodily seed was commingled, the virtues remained separate, the appetite
for love of both kinds must pursue the offspring.
Many leading doctors of the schools moreover declare that the passion
is innate, and _therefore passes on with the seed to descendants_, not
indeed hereby incriminating nature, which teaches men the bounds of
its purity by the example of other animals (for animals are called by
wise men nature’s mirrors), but rather the human race that retains so
obstinately vices once adopted, that by no renewal can it be purified,
and has left no room for change. Similarly a _mental_ depravity grows
graver as men advance in life, whereas most affections of the _body_,
whether innate or adventitious, get weaker as men get older, for
instance gout, epilepsy and madness, and so as age advances undoubtedly
grow milder. For all troublesome factors will produce strong effects in
proportion to the firmness to resist possessed by the affected parts,
and as this firmness is deficient in old men, so the complaint or
passion diminishes in intensity, as does the general strength. _But_
that passion which makes men subservient or effeminate, grows stronger
and more serious as the body grows old and stirs the sufferers with yet
more abominable lustfulness,—and not without a reason. For at other
ages, the body being still strong and capable of performing the natural
offices of love, there is no division of lust into double forms of
wantonness, through their mind being tossed to and fro now by passive
now by active lewdness. But in such as have failed from age, and become
incapable of the manly office of love, all the wantonness of the mind
is directed on the appetite for the opposite form of gratification; and
for this cause a woman demands love more strongly than a man. In fact
many conjecture it is for this reason that boys also are tormented by
this passion. For they resemble old men in lacking power for the virile
function. It is not yet born in boys; old men have lost it.)
To leave on one side for the present the many inferences of various
sorts that this passage of _Caelius Aurelianus_ must necessarily lead
us to, as they will find a more suitable place later on, and to return
to our question,—the mere fact of Herodotus mentioning posterity at
all ought of itself to be sufficient to negative any idea of actual
eunuchs, of loss of the generative power. For had the Scythians
returning from Ascalon lost this power, they could have had no more
descendants, and therefore the νούσος θήλεια could not have passed on
to these, but must have become extinct with the original sufferers. On
the other hand children already begotten by them before that period
could have been in no way influenced by a disease communicable through
the act of generation. Accordingly the νοῦσος θήλεια cannot possibly
have affected _these_ Scythians so as to annihilate the power of
generation. Both must have co-existed side by side; and the contrary
can never be proved from anything _Herodotus_ says. As to another
passage of Herodotus that might seem to demand some notice here, where
the expression ἀνδρόγυνος (man-woman) is put side by side with ἐνάρεες,
we will speak subsequently.
§ 16.
_But_, it is maintained by those who take a different view,—the
individuals who suffered from the νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease)
could be recognized as doing so by their looks; thus it cannot have
been a mere vice, it must have been an actual bodily complaint. We
will not say a word more insisting on the declarations general amongst
ancient writers, for example the words of _Ovid_: _Heu! quam difficile
est crimen non prodere vultu_ (Alas! how difficult it is not to betray
a vice by the look), but will simply ask the question,—_had the
Ancients really no bodily marks of identification_ by which they could
recognise in an individual the vice of the pathic or cinaedus? On this
point we must look to the Physiognomists for information, and as a
matter of fact they supply it in considerable completeness. First of
all Aristotle[329]:
“_Distinguishing Masks of the Cinaedus_:
“An eye broken-down, as it were, knees bent inwards, inclination of the
head to the right side; movements of the hands always back downwards
and flaccid, the gait double, as it were, one leg being crossed over
the other in walking, the gaze wandering; such a man for example was
the Sophist Dionysius.” Polemo enters into greater detail[330]:
“_Distinguishing Marks of the Androgynus_ (_Man-woman_): “The
_man-woman_ has a lecherous and wanton look, he rolls his eyes and
lets his gaze wander; forehead and cheeks twitch, eyebrows are drawn
together to a point, neck bent, hips in continual movement. All
the limbs twitch spasmodically, knees and hands seeming to crack;
like an ox he glares round him and fixes his eyes on the ground. He
speaks with a thin voice, at once croaking and shrill, exceedingly
uncertain and trembling.” In very similar terms the pathic is sketched
by Adamantus[331]. _Dio Chrysostom_ in his speech cited a little
above[332] relates how “a physiognomist had come into a certain city,
in order to give an exhibition of his art there, and declared he could
tell by looking at any individual whether he were brave or timid, a
boaster or a debauchee, a cinaedus or an adulterer. A man was brought
to him who had a meagre body, eyebrows grown together, a dirty look,
who was in evil condition, with callosities on his hands, and dressed
in coarse gray clothing, one that was overgrown with hair to the
knuckles, and ill-shaved, and the physiognomist was asked, what sort
of a man he was. When he had looked at him a considerable time, and
at the end was still uncertain, as it seems to me, what he should
finally say, he declared he did not know and ordered the man to go. But
when the latter sneezed, just as he was going, he cried out instantly
he was a cinaedus. Thus the sneeze betrayed the man’s habits, and
prevented them, in spite of all the rest, from continuing hid.” No
doubt the man’s walk had already given the Physiognomist an indication,
and the gesture he made when he sneezed, quickly confirmed his
Diagnosis. In fact the cinaedus probably made a grip at his posterior
as he sneezed, so as to close the orifice, the weakened or possibly
ruptured _Sphincter ani_ no longer being able to perform this office
(χαυνοπρώκτος,—wide-breeched, in Aristophanes!). Indeed with a healthy
_Sphincter_ it is often hardly possible during a sneeze to keep back
the out-rush of wind and even of the more liquid faeces.[333]
Further the following passage of Lucian should be quoted in this
connection:[334]
“But I tell you, pathic,—your habits are so obvious that even the
blind and the deaf cannot fail to recognise them. If you only open
your mouth to speak, only undress at the baths, nay, if you do not
yourself undress, but only your slaves put off their garments, what
think you,—are not all your secrets of the night at once revealed? Now
just tell me, if your Sophist Bassus, or the flute-player Batalus, or
the cinaedus Hemitheon of Sybaris, who wrote your beautiful laws, how
you must polish the skin, and pluck out the hair (with tweezers), how
you must submit to the performance of paederastia, and how yourselves
perform it,—now if one of these men should throw a lion’s skin round
him, and enter with a club in his hand, what would the spectators
really believe?—that it was Hercules? Surely not, unless they were
utterly blear-eyed. A thousand things betray such a masquerade,—gait,
look, voice,[335] the bowed neck, the ceruse, the mastich, the paint on
the cheeks that you make yourselves up with; in a word it were easier,
as the proverb says, to hide five elephants under your armpit than to
conceal one cinaedus!”
Now if the _natural_ marks of identification that have been specified
were sufficient to betray the cinaedus, even when he was devoid of all
external adornment from art,[336] how much more readily recognizable
must the pathic become, if he arranged his get-up and costume to match
his shameful practices,[337] and that this was so _Martial_ affords
evidence in countless places. In fact these male whores used to have the
beard quite clean shaven (ἐξυρημένοι close-shaven) and not merely on the
posteriors but generally all over the body, with the exception of the
head, carefully removed the hair, so as make themselves more like women.
αὐτίκα γυναικεῖ’ ἢν ποιῇ τις δράματα,
μετουσίαν δεῖ τῶν τρόπων τὸ σῶμ’ ἔχειν,
(Directly, if a man play women’s parts, the body must have its share
in the characterization), Aristophanes makes Agatho say at the
Thesmophoria, where Mnesilochus has been transformed into a woman
by means of depilation, so as to be able to back up the women in
opposition to Euripides in their attacks on him at that festival.
On the other hand cinaedi let the hair of the head grow long[338]
(comae,—long locks), and dressed altogether like women. Hence the reply
of the Cynic _Diogenes_[339] to a young man clothed after this fashion,
who had asked him a question on some subject or other; he would not
answer, he said, till his questioner had lifted up his clothes, and
shown him his sex! Equally important is the conversation of _Socrates_
with _Strepsiades_ in the “Clouds” of _Aristophanes_:[340]
_Στρεψιάδης_.... Λέξον δή μοι τὶ παθοῦσαι,
εἴπερ Νεφέλαι γ’ εἰσὶν ἀληθῶς, θνηταῶς εἴξασι γυναιξίν·
οὐ γὰρ ἐκεῖναί γ’ εἰσὶ τοιαῦται....
Σωκράτης. Γίγνονται πάνθ’ ὅ τι βούλονται· κᾆτ’ ἢν μὲν ἴδωσι κομήτην,
ἄγριόν τινα τῶν λασίων τούτων, οἷόν περ τὸν Ξενοφάντου,
σκώπτουσαι τὴν μανίαν αὐτοῦ, Κενταύροις ᾔκασαν αὐτάς.
Καὶ νῦν ὅτι Κλεισθένη εἶδον, ὁρᾷς, διὰ τοῦτ’ ἐγένοντο γυναῖκες.
(_Strepsiades._—Now tell me, how comes it that, if these are really and
truly clouds, they resemble women? Common clouds are not like that....
_Socrates._—They can easily make themselves anything they please. And
so, if they but catch sight of one of those long-haired, ruffianly,
shaggy fellows, such a man as Xenophantus’ son for example, straightway
in derision of their folly they change into Centaurs. And now when they
beheld Cleisthenes, see you? they became women!) _Cleisthenes_ was a
notorious cinaedus at Athens, whom Aristophanes had made a special
butt for his wit; for example, he makes Mnesilochus, mentioned just
above, after his transformation into a woman, say,—he looks just like
Cleisthenes now.
The evidence adduced will, we think, be sufficient to show that the
Scythians had good reason for saying, that with persons in this case
(cinaedi) it was easy to _recognise by looking at them_ what stamp of
men they were: and that _Juvenal_[341] was right when he wrote:
Verius ergo
Et magis ingenue Peribomius: _hunc ego fatis
Imputo, qui vultu morbum incessuque fatetur_.
(More truly then and more candidly Peribomius says: the man I consider
a victim of fate, who in face and gait betrays the disease he suffers
from.)—a passage that strongly confirms what has been advanced.
Peribomius is quite candid, he confesses to being a pathic, for in any
case his appearance would betray the fact. He finds the less reason to
deny it, as he regards the vice which has mastered him as an infliction
of providence (_fatis imputo_). Here is proof that the opinion of the
Greeks as to the pathic’s being one who had incurred the anger of
the gods, was still commonly held in Juvenal’s time, though perhaps
less as a matter of conviction than in order to provide an excuse for
indulgence. So we must further read _hoc_ for _hunc_ in the passage
(_hoc ego fatis imputo_,— _this_ I regard as an infliction of fate);
unless indeed we construe thus, _ego, qui morbum vultu incessuque
fatetur, hunc (sc. morbum) fatis imputo_. “I in truth,—as for the man
who confesses by look and gait his disease, _this disease_ I regard
as an infliction of fate.” The words are obviously Peribomius’ own
expression of opinion; and directly afterwards the poet goes on:
Horum simplicitas miserabilis, his furor ipse
Dat veniam: sed peiores, qui talia verbis
Herculis invadunt et de virtute locuti
Clunem agitant.
(These men’s simplicity moves our pity; their very infatuation craves
pardon. But worse are they who enter such courses with Hercules’ words
on their lips, and prating of manly virtue, heave the wanton buttocks.)
§ 17.
But the passage just quoted from _Juvenal_ is of still greater
importance for another reason. In it the vice of the cinaedus is
called _morbus_ (a disease); and in virtue of its explicitness it is
sufficient by itself to settle all doubts as to this being a usual
mode of expression with the Romans, who ordinarily designated any
vice by this name[342]. The only question remaining will be, Did the
_Greeks_ also use this form of expression? Any scholar possessed of a
special acquaintance with the Greek language will most certainly not
hesitate an instant to answer this question in the affirmative, the
Lexicographers having long ago collected an exhaustive list of examples
of such use[343].
_Plutarch_[344] says, comparing the action of the Sun with that of
Love:— Καὶ μὴν οὔτε σώματος ἀγύμναστος ἕξις ἥλιον, οὒτε Ἔρωτα δύναται
φέρειν ἀλύπως τρόπος ἀπαιδεύτου ψυχῆς· ἐξίσταται δ’ ὁμοίως ἐκάτερον καὶ
_νοσεῖ, τὴν του θεοῦ δύναμιν, οὐ τὴν αὑτοῦ μεμφόμενον ἀσθένειαν_.—(ch.
XXIII.) Τὴν μὲν πρὸς ἄῤῥενα ἄῤῥενος ὁμιλίαν, μᾶλλον δὲ ἀκρασίαν καὶ
ἐπιπήδησιν εἴποι τις ἂν ἐννοήσας,
_Ὕβρις_ τάδ’ _οὐχ_ ἡ Κύπρις ἐξεργάζεται.
Διὸ τοὺς μὲν ἡδομένους τῷ πάσχειν εἰς τὸ χείριστον τιθέμενοι γένος
κακίας, οὔτε πίστεως μοῖραν, οὔτε αἰδοῦς.... Ἀλλὰ πολλὰ φαῦλα καὶ
μανικὰ τῶν γυναικῶν ἐρώτων· Τὶ δὲ οὐχὶ πλείονα τῶν παιδικῶν; Ἀλλ’
ὥσπερ τοῦτο παιδομανία _τὸ πάθος_, οὐδέτερον δὲ Ἔρως ἔστιν. (And in
fact neither can an untrained body bear the sun, nor can any fashion
of uneducated soul bear Love (Eros) without pain; but each equally is
disorganized and grows sick, having to blame the power of the god,
not its own weakness.—ch. XXIII.—Now intercourse of male with male
one would rather call, after due reflection, incontinence and violent
assault.
“’Tis _overmastering insolence_ works this result, not love
(Cypris).”[345]
Wherefore such as take pleasure in pathic lust, devoting themselves
to the vilest kind of wickedness, have no portion in honour or in
modesty.—Indeed much there is base and insane in amours with women; how
much more so in those with boys! Now the name of the latter passion is
paedomania—[346]madness for boys,—but _neither_ kind is Love—Eros).
These passages are of the highest importance in connection with our
subject, as confirming in the most distinct manner what has been said
above as to the wrath of Venus; but for the sake of greater clearness
they had to be held over for discussion till now. It is clearly stated
in them: that paederastia is no work of Venus, i.e. not an expression
or consequence of the customary activity of the goddess, but a ὕβρις
(act of insolent violence) and the consequence of ὕβρις i.e. of some
act that has roused the anger of the gods. Here we have the oldest
view of all: that paederastia is a consequence of the vengeance of
Venus, arising in consequence of a ὕβρις, and again in turn itself
constituting a ὕβρις.[347]
But besides this the later view of a more enlightened time is also
implied. According to this it was not any δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ (operation
of a god’s might), but simply an ἀσθενεία or ἀκρασία[348] (weakness,
incontinence) of the individual that was in question, (and it is
for this reason _Plutarch_ quotes the line of _Manetho_, an old and
obscure poet, in this sense); Paederastia was called a πάθος, a form
of insanity (παιδομανία—madness for boys), and was not looked upon
in any sense as a consequence of the power of Eros—Love. That the
vice was also called νόσος (a disease) is shown,—not to mention the
expression νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine _disease_), which we have yet to
fully explain,—by the Speech of Dio Chrysostom cited above, as well as
by a number of passages quoted in the course of our investigation,—e.g.
on p. 125. In the “Wasps” of _Aristophanes_, _Xanthias_ relates how a
son had confined his father and put him under surveillance, and then
goes on (vv. 71 sqq.):
_νόσον_ γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ἀλλόκοτον αὐτοῦ _νοσεῖ _,
ἣν οὐδ’ ἂν εἷς γνοίη ποτ’ οὐδὲ ξυμβάλῃ,
εἰ μὴ πύθοιθ’ ἡμῶν· ἐπεὶ τοπάζετε·
(For his father is _sick_ of a portentous _sickness_, one that no one
would ever know or conjecture the nature of, unless he should have
learned it from us; for if you doubt me, guess yourselves.)
Love of play is suggested, and love of drink, love of sacrifice
and finally love of winning guests and seeing them at his house
(φιλόξενον—lover of guests), which last conjecture Sosias understands
in an obscene sense as implying a cinaedus, and (vv. 84 sqq.) says:
μὰ τὸν κύν’, ὦ Νικόστρατ’, οὐ φιλόξενος,
ἐπεὶ καταπύγων ἐστὶν ὅγε Φιλόξενος,
(No! no! by heavens! Nicostratus, not a lover of guests (φιλόξενος)
for our friend Philoxenus is a man given to unnatural lust,) where
φιλόξενος and καταπύγων are explained as being synonymous. Now if
paederastia had not been a disease, how should they have come to call a
man φιλόξενος, when guessing the form his sickness took? For the rest
there was a well-known cinaedus Philoxenus, to whom allusion is made.
The scholiast quotes a very noteworthy line from _Eupolis_ (in the
“Urbes”) or else from Phrynichus (“in the Satyrs”) as follows:
ἔστι δέ τις _θήλεια_ Φιλόξενος ἐκ Διομείων.
(And there is a certain _female_ Philoxenus of Diomeia);
The healthy good sense of the Greeks could not possibly regard the vice
of the Pathic otherwise than as a deviation from Nature, an _unnatural_
appetite; _and_ every _unnatural_ appetite (ἀκολασία—“intemperance”)
was a νόσος or πάθος (disease, or suffering, passion), or a consequence
of these, as the passages quoted from _Aristotle_ and elsewhere show
conclusively. From the point of view of the paederast reasons perhaps
were to be discovered, that appeared to justify his peculiar taste; and
the mode in which he obtained the titillation of sensual pleasure was
looked upon merely as one way of getting rid of the semen, as a _figura
Veneris_ (mode of Love) standing in close relationship with Onanism.
The paederast was relegated to the category of voluptuaries, but
without his incurring any special condemnation. On the other hand for
the pathic who lent himself as subject of the vice, no excuse of this
sort was forthcoming. His lust was not seen (this was impossible at the
time) to have a bodily origin in “prurigo ani” (itching of the anus),
and could only be regarded as springing from a _depraved imagination_
(ἀνίατον νόσον ψυχῆς ἡγούμενος—deeming it an incurable disease of the
soul); it must be that a demon had dragged him along irresistibly in
his train, and drove his victim who was incapable of helping himself
(ἀσθενής—“weak”) to degradation.