disease) occurs, is a _scholion_ on the word γαλλιαμβικὸν (viz.
μέτρον—galliambic metre) in _Hephaestion_[388]. The Scholiast says:
Γαλλιαμβικὸν δὲ ἐκλήθη, ἐπεὶ λελυμένον ἐστὶ τὸ μέτρον· οἱ δὲ Γάλλοι,
διαβάλλονται ὡς _θήλειαν νόσον_ ἔχοντες, διὸ καὶ σώματα φόρον ἐτέλουν
Ῥωμαίοις εἰς τοῦτο· οἱ τοιοῦτοι δέ ἱερεῖς εἰσὶ Δήμητρος. (Now it was
called galliambic, because the metre is loose; and the Galli are evil
spoken of as having _feminine disease_. Wherefore also they used to
pay their bodies as tribute to the Romans—_or_, their bodies used
to pay tribute to the Romans—to this day; and such men are priests
of Demeter.) _Stark_ gives (p. 21.) the following translation of
this. “Galliambicum vocabatur, quod solutum est metrum; Galli enim
utpote _morbo muliebri_ laborantes inculpantur, quod Romanis corpora
ad hoc (tanquam) tributum persolverent,” (It was called galliambic,
because the metre is loose; for the Galli are accused as suffering
from _feminine disease_, inasmuch as they used to pay their bodies to
the Romans to this day as it were a tribute),—but without committing
himself to any more precise explanation of the words. The meaning
of the first two sentences is plain enough: The metre is called the
galliambic, because it is loose, resolved, i. e. instead of long
syllables short are used, and so the metres changed from masculine
to feminine. Now the Galli are charged with practising θήλεια νόσος
(feminine disease) (as _Homer_, Odyssey I. 368., says: ὑπέρβιον ὕβριν
ἔχοντες—having, practising very audacious insolence). But what do
the words that follow mean: διὸ καὶ σώματα φόρον ἐτέλουν Ῥωμαίοις
εἰς τοῦτο? The _tanquam_ (as it were) added in the Latin translation
shows that the translator took the sentence in a figurative sense. But
what is the subject of the sentence? is it σώματα or Γάλλοι—ἔχοντες?
The translator must necessarily have taken the latter as the subject:
“wherefore they paid or offered up their bodies to the Romans as it
were for tribute”; and this could imply nothing less than that the
Galli gave themselves up to the Romans as Pathics. Now does the
arrangement of the words admit of this? We think not; for in that case
the Scholiast must needs have put ἑαυτῶν with σώματα or at any rate the
article τὰ.
Therefore if we take the sentence literally and regard σώματα as being
the subject, it reads: “wherefore also the bodies (of the Galli) were
subject to tax to the Romans to this day.” We have seen already how the
word τέλος signified among the Greeks the “prostitution tax,” and how
the Septuagint translators rendered the Hebrew קְדֵשָׁה (Kêdeshah) and
קָדֵשׁ (Kâdesh), by which names the Priests of Cybelé were understood,
by τελεσφόρος and τελισκόμενος (subject to tax, paying tax), how the
Priests of Cybelé are characterised by other writers as men who were
Pathics in honour of their goddess, and how as a matter of fact the
_Cinaedi_ or _Exoleti_ at Rome in the time of the Emperor Severus had
to pay an impost similar to the prostitution-tax. The _scholion_ then
shows us that the Galli also were subjected to this impost payable to
the State. Were it a question merely of Castrated persons or indeed of
anything else but actual Paederastia, the whole _scholion_ would be
unintelligible; yet _Stark_ maintains that simply Eunuchs are intended,
and this because of the words that are appended, to the effect that the
Galli were Priests of Demeter. No doubt they may have been castrated,
but this is a side issue; the important point is, that they were
Pathics.
Finally we have still a passage from _Dio Chrysostom_[389] to mention,
in which however the hitherto almost stereotyped expression θήλεια
νόσος (feminine disease) is exchanged for γυναικεία νόσος (womanly
disease). The author is here expounding how all acts are under the
governance of a definite Genius or Spirit, and says: “for a weakling
and faint-hearted Spirit of this sort leads readily to the γυναικεία
νόσος (womanly disease) and other shames, to which is attached
punishment and disgrace.” Then in the following sentences the life and
appearance of one governed by this Spirit are more exactly described,
in such a way that there can be no possibility of supposing anything
else to be intended than the vice of the Pathic, and even _Stark_ (p.
12.) admits this much.
On reviewing once again what has been said, we find that the Scythians
in Asia became acquainted with paederastia, when Pathics returned from
foreign lands, and henceforth practised the vice at home as well. Their
fellow-countrymen could only suppose an evil demon animated them. So
when at length as a natural result of their vice they fell sick in
body and in mind, when nervous disorders and imbecility visited the
unfortunates, they never for a moment ascribed this to the vice these
men practised, but rather regarded their condition as a consequence of
the avenging wrath of Venus, whose temple they had robbed, and thus
brought into connection an earlier incident and a later.
When the Greek became acquainted with the vice, he of course shared
at first the notion of the avenging action of a deity, but he directed
his attention less to the consequences of this vice, which in Greece
were generally slighter, than to the Vice itself, which robbed the
man of his manly characteristics and normal activity, and drove him
to take on him the rôle of the woman in exchange for that of the man.
But to be a woman was invariably among all nations a disgrace for the
man, whom _Plato_ (Timaeus 42.) considered the γένος κρεῖττον (superior
sex), while _Aristotle_ not merely represents the woman as owing her
existence to an ἀνάγκη (unavoidable necessity), but calls her an ἄῤῥεν
πεπηρωμένον (crippled male), an ἀναπηρία φυσική (natural crippling),
even a παρέκβασις τῆς φύσεως (aberration of nature)[390]. But no man of
sound intellect could possibly suffer himself to be used as a woman;
therefore he must needs be sick, be afflicted with a disease that
assimilated him to a woman (θήλεια—feminine). When _Herodotus_ wrote,
the Greeks to be sure knew the vice which was practised with _boys_
(Paederastia) or youths, who had not yet reached man’s estate, but
these were always first corrupted by adults; they did not practise the
vice of their own impulse and could not as a rule be held accountable.
When however they saw adults, men who were already in possession of
manly prerogatives, appear as Pathics—not merely boys and youths not
yet capable of the procreative act,—they could in no way explain the
phenomenon to their satisfaction except by supposing them to have been
attacked by a disease that changed them into women[391]. This also
gives the reason why the expression νοῦσος Θήλεια (feminine disease)
occurs so seldom in the Greek writers, for it was the violation of
boys, not the violation of _men_, that was a familiar fact to them.
For in the fact that the beautiful form of a boy was capable of firing
a sensual longing to enjoy it, the Greek saw nothing at all unnatural;
and he found excuses for the momentary forgetfulness of self-respect
on the part of the paederast, as he did in the case of the boy or
youth. But if there had been seduction, then the offence was strongly
reprobrated, unless the Pathic had been a slave.
Neither bodily nor psychical consequences of the vice of the Pathic
ever attained in Greece, as has been said, any very high degree of
development; and most of the characteristic marks of the _Cinaedus_
were regarded as artificial, worn half intentionally by him for show.
Even in his peculiar gait, voice and look, the Greeks saw more an
invitation to the perpetration of the vice than anything else; and if
_Plato_ denies to this class of persons the wish for natural coition,
this is rather a sign how completely the vice mastered them than a
proof of the annihilation of their power to procreate at all.
Even when positive diseases did actually occur in consequence of the
vice, public opinion was far from ascribing these to the vice itself;
nervous and mental affections were regarded as a punishment from the
gods, or else they were treated according to their several symptoms
without any examination into the original cause. Bodily ailments,
especially if they did not affect the posterior or penis, were set down
to any cause but the true one, often to quite ridiculous ones. The
νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease) was invariably thought of merely as a
form of vice dependent on a morbid imagination, while its consequences
as such were left entirely out of consideration. _Nam neque ulla
curatio corporis depellendae passionis causa recte putatur adhibenda,
sed potius animus coercendus, qui tanta peccatorum labe vexatur_, (For
the right opinion is this: no bodily treatment should be applied in
order to expel the complaint, rather should the mind be disciplined
that is vexed by so foul a stain of sinful indulgences), are the words
of _Coelius Aurelianus_ in the passage quoted on page 159.
From this it is evident the later enquirers quoted above could take the
νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease) for a purely mental affection, and be
right in a sense,—but a sense that certainly never entered into their
heads to consider. For they looked upon the intellectual imbecility
that resulted from the vice of the Pathic as being the essence of the
νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease), and the bodily derangements as merely
secondary and dependent on the psychica disturbances. Thus to some
extent they confounded cause and effect, putting one for the other; yet
without hitting on the true explanation, against which the meritorious
_Stark_ has tried so hard not perhaps to shut his eyes, but rather to
forcibly remove it in any possible way out of the range of his ideas.
For this very reason it has pursued him from beginning to end of his
investigations, and in spite of all his struggles has found at last a
reluctant and partial recognition from him.
As to the remaining views cited above, no attentive reader surely needs
any further confutation of these.
§ 20.
We have now, we think sufficiently, proved that _Herodotus_ as well
as the other writers who use the expression νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine
disease), denoted by it merely a _Vice_, which lent a feminine
character to the behaviour and indeed to the whole look and mode
of life of a man, assimilating him equally in body and in mind to
the woman. Throughout the enquiry we have kept our eyes fixed on
the _cause_ of this transformation; and we shall now find it easy
to estimate the value of a passage of _Hippocrates_, originally
brought forward by _Mercurialis_ (loco citato, p. 143. Note 10.)
later by _Zwinger_[392] and others, but which _Stark_ in particular
has characterised as _a more complete delineation of the disease,
merely pointed out and named νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease)by
Herodotus_. On the other hand _Bouhier_ specially and strenuously
denies the identity of the two, yet without accurately recognising the
true relationship.
Hippocrates in his well-known Work on _Air, Water and Environment_,
describes the country of the Scythians as a bare but well-watered
tableland, with so cold and damp a climate that a heavy mist covered
the fields all day long and only a short summer was enjoyed. The
inhabitants he says are arrogant, puffed up and exceedingly idle
creatures, in outward look and mode of life having little distinctly
marked characteristics of sex, the men having only very moderate desire
for coition, and the women, whose menstruation is less frequent,
possessing little capacity for conception. Then he goes on[393]:
“Moreover there are very many men amongst the Scythians resembling
Eunuchs (εὐνουχίαι); these not only follow women’s occupations
(show feminine inclinations, behave as women?—γυναικεῖα ἐργάζονται)
just like the women, but also bear a name signifying this, for such
men are called No-men (ἀνανδριεῖς). The natives ascribe the cause
to a deity; they are afraid of these men, and show them a slavish
respect (προσκυνέουσι[394]), though each individual dreads such a
fate for himself. It seems to me that affections of this sort may
be said to have come from a deity to exactly the same degree as all
other diseases,—no single one is more than any other in a sense of
divine origin. Each one of them has its own peculiar nature, and
nothing happens outside its nature. Now how these affections arise in
my opinion, I will proceed to state. From constant riding they get
κέδματα[395] (varicose dilatations), because their feet always hang
away from the horse. Hence they become lame, and get, those that are
seriously ill, ulcers on the hips (in the region of the _ischium_,
festering of the _cotyla_ or joint-socket?[396]). Then they treat
themselves with a view to cure in the following fashion. So soon as
the complaint breaks out, they open their veins on either side of the
ear; then when the blood has flowed, they fall asleep from weakness,
and go on sleeping till they wake, some of them cured and some of
them not. But it appears to me that by such a treatment they ruin
themselves[397]. For there lie near the ears certain veins, and
when these are severed, the men so cut become seedless (unfruitful);
and it is these veins that, _as I think_, they sever. But when
subsequently they approach women, and find themselves in no condition
to use them (to consummate coition with them), at the first they are
not discouraged, but keep quiet. However later, after they have tried
twice, three times, or oftener, with no better success, they believe
themselves to have sinned against the deity, whom they hold to be
to blame, put on a woman’s frock, and acknowledge their unmanliness
(ἀνανδρίην), behave as women, and in company with the women perform the
same tasks as they do. The like of this however happens only to the
rich Scythians, not to the poor, in fact to the nobler classes and such
as have attained to some considerable wealth, to a smaller degree to
those of lesser position, because these latter do not ride.
But surely the complaint, since it is above all others of divine
origin, must attack not solely the noblest and richest Scythians, but
all equally,—or even to a greater extent those who possess little,
and therefore fail to make offerings; if that is to say the gods take
pleasure in (active) veneration on the part of men and see that they
win a due return for it[398]. For naturally the rich offer much to
the gods, bring correspondingly great contributions from their goods
as marks of their veneration; but the poor less, because they possess
nothing. Then are these discontented, because they have given them no
wealth; so that those who possess little suffer more of the punishments
for such faults than the rich. But as a matter of fact, as I have said
before, these things come from the deity to just the same degree as the
others; for everything happens in accordance with nature, and so does
this affection arise among the Scythians from the original cause I have
pointed out. Now it is precisely the same among the rest of mankind;
where riding is practised most and most continuously, there very many
suffer from κέδματα (varicose dilatations), hip and foot affections,
and accomplish coition very badly (are only slightly disposed to
coition). And this is the case with the Scythians, and they are of all
men most like eunuchs, for the following reasons: Because they always
wear trousers, and besides that pass the greatest part of their time
on horseback, so that they cannot touch the genitals with the hand,
through cold and lassitude forget the desire for coition and coition
itself, and (in their senseless infatuation) think of nothing else but
how to resign their manly privilege[399]. This is an account of how it
is with the stock of the Scythians.”
Now if we separate the facts which are brought forward in this passage
of Hippocrates from his attempted explanations, there can be no doubt
that the same thing is in question here as that which Herodotus
describes. There are men amongst the Scythians who behave as women,
speak as women, perform women’s work and keep with the women, and their
condition the Scythians consider as something sent by the deity, and
for this reason honour and fear these men. All the rest is part of
the attempted explanations of the author, who brings together every
possible consideration in order to discover a natural cause of the
phenomenon, leaving utterly and entirely unrecognized all the time the
most natural cause of all. This of course was due to no other reason
except that it was _unknown_ to him, and that he was acquainted with
the circumstances not from his own observation, but only from hearsay.
This is a conjecture which _Heyne_ (_loco citato_) had already made
in his time, but which has met with many opponents, yet without the
argument having ever been properly brought to the test of the evidence.
In favour of Heyne’s view a passage from the book περὶ ἄρθρων (On
Joints)[400] might be cited, in which the limping of the men of the
Amazons in consequence of the dislocation of the limbs is clearly
declared to be an unauthenticated myth; for which reason _Gruner_[401]
denied Hippocrates’ authorship of this work in opposition to the
general witness of Antiquity.
But really and truly we are as well without the passage; for if what he
relates were the result of his own observation, how could the author
write in connexion with his remark that the Scythians bled themselves
behind the ears, ταύτας τοίνυν _μοι δοκέουσι_ τὰς φλέβας ἐπιτάμνειν
(now these are the veins, _as it seems to me_, that they cut)? Is the
actual fact possibly, that all these attempted explanations flowed
from the pen of some later, or of several later, writers? At any rate
for ourselves, we have never yet been able to get rid of a suspicion
to that effect. But be this as it may, so much at least is certain,
as was stated above; viz. that the Author was unacquainted with the
actual cause of attempts to explain it, probably from misunderstanding
the effemination of the Scythians, and that all of the words ἀνανδρίες
and εὐνουχίαι (unmanly, eunuch-like), aim at referring the loss of the
generative power, i.e. ἀνανδρία in its strict sense, to some natural
reason, while the effemination is looked upon merely as a secondary
circumstance.
That Hippocrates was not, any more than the later Physicians of
antiquity, fully and exactly acquainted with the consequences of the
vice of the Pathic as affecting the body, we see from the following
passage, appearing in an exceedingly corrupt form in the text of
Foesius[402]: εὐνοῦχος ἐκ κυνηγεσίης καὶ διαδρομῆς ὑδραγωγὸς γίνεται·
ὁ παρὰ τὴν Ἐλεαλκέος κρήνην· ὁ περὶ τὰ ἓξ ἄτεα _ἱππουρίν_ τε καὶ
βουβῶνα καὶ _ἴξιν_ καὶ κέδματα· ὁ τὸν _κενεῶνα_ φθινήσας ἑβδομαῖος
ἀπέθανεν, _προπιούντων ἄπεπτον_, ἁλμυρὰ μετὰ μέλιτος· _πορνείη ἄχρωμος_
δυσεντερίης ἄκος. (a eunuch by hunting or running becomes dropsical;
he that is beside the fountain of Elealces; he that about six years
[suffered from] “_horse-tail_” [a disease of the groin due to too
much riding], swelling of the groin, _varicocele_ and dilatations;
he that was sick in the _flank_ died the seventh day, when they were
about to administer a raw drink, salt liquid with honey; inordinate
fornication is a cure for dysentery.??) All editors of Hippocrates
have been especially scandalized by the connection in which πορνείη
ἄχρωμος (inordinate fornication) stands in this passage; only _Foesius_
defended it, referring to other passages in _Aëtius_[403] and _Paul
of Aegina_[404], in which coition is recommended in chronic diarrhœa
as drying up the humours. This he might equally well have established
from Hippocrates himself, for the latter says (Epidem. bk. VI. sect. 5.
note 29.), λαγνεία τῶν ἀπὸ φλέγματος νούσων ὠφέλιμον (lasciviousness
is advantageous in diseases that arise from phlegm) and (note 26.),
μίξις τὰ κατὰ τὴν γαστέρα σκληρύνει (sexual intercourse hardens the
contents of the belly)[405]. However this holds good only of the
man who performs coition, inasmuch as the effusion of semen compels
the body to supply what is lost, and this can only be done at the
cost of other secretions, and so must stop the flow of any morbid
secretions as well to a greater or less degree. But the question here
is not of the coition the man performs, but of that which he suffers
another to perform on him, in fact the vice of the Pathic, as the word
(fornication) clearly shows; and that Pathics have habitually a pallid
complexion has been already mentioned (p. 144).
To bring some sort of sense into the passage quoted above,
_Mercurialis_ would read πόρνη ὡς ἄχρωμος (like a shameless
harlot), _Dacier_ πορνείη ἄχρωμον ἄκος, (fornication is a shameless
remedy ...) and _Richard Mead_ προῤῥοὴ ἄχρωμος (an inordinate
effusion). But _Triller_[406] was the first to come to the conclusion
that the words were in the wrong order, and emends the sentence thus:
ὁ τὸν _αἰῶνα_ φθινήσας, _πορνείῃ_ ἄχρωμος, ἑβδομαῖος ἀπέθανεν,
_προϊόντων ἀπέπτων_. Ἁλμυρὰ μετὰ μέλιτος δυσεντερίης ἄκος, (he that
destroyed his life and vigour, being inordinate in fornication, died
on the seventh day, undigested matters coming from him. Salt drinks
with honey are a remedy for dysentery). This certainly makes it more
readable, particularly if πορνείη ἄχρωμος is put _before_ ὁ τὸν αἰῶνα,
inasmuch as the pallid complexion was undoubtedly a forerunner of
phthisis. His reasons, which we beg the reader to peruse for himself in
the author’s work, are at any rate to us so convincing that we do not
hesitate a moment to adopt his emendations. These have unfortunately
hitherto gone entirely unnoticed; for _Grimm_, who appears to have
taken no exception to the passage generally, has translated entirely
in accordance with the old text, and not added any note at all. The
same is the case with _Lilienhain_, who has more recently gone over the
same ground again; though both have restored instead of κενεῶνα (belly)
αἰῶνα (life) previously conjectured by _Foesius_.
Granted that by these means the last sentence is made intelligible, and
justice done Hippocrates by no longer making him recommend coition as a
remedy against dysentery, still the preceding sentence likewise stands
in need of correction. For ἴξιν obviously ἰξίαν or ἰξίας (varicosities)
must be read, which indeed was done by former translators, and long
ago suggested by Foesius; but as to ἱππουρίν, no sufficient account
has ever yet been given by any editor. The word appears to us to be
corrupt, and to have got into the text owing to the fact that in the
Manuscript, instead of προπιούντων,—which indeed no single Codex has,
the majority reading ὑποπνοιούντων, there stood in the next line
ὑποπορούντων, ὑποῤῥυόντων or ὑπποῤῥεόντων. _Cornarius_ read, περὶ ἓξ
ἔτεα _ἐξ ἱππασίης_ βουβῶνα, ἰξίας, κ. τ. λ. (for about six years, _in
consequence of riding_, inguinal swellings, varicosities, etc.), but
without assigning his reasons; in all probability however he made this
conjecture, which does not commend itself at any rate to us, with the
passage about the Scythians in his mind’s eye.