ROMANS
In the first century B.C. the licentiousness of the Roman matron was
already a subject for grim condemnation. Horace, who was virtually the
Poet Laureate of the Augustan Age, laments the degeneration of morality.
The temples are abandoned, he bewails, and lie in ruins. The sacred
marriage vows are broken. The uprightness of the old domestic life is
gone. Our own generation is plunging headlong into destruction. Against
the women in particular he inveighs as follows:
The matron, when bidden, arises and goes forth publicly, not without the
knowledge of her husband, whether some pedlar invites her, or the
captain of a Spanish sailing vessel, who buys her shame at a high price.
* * * * *
A notorious, unsavory district in ancient Rome was known as the Subura.
It was a valley lying between the Esquiline and the Viminal Hills of the
city. This area was clamorous with brothels, with the dregs of Romans,
foreigners, slavers, pimps, and harlots. Loads of marble passed through
the narrow alleys. The lanes were cluttered with mules, dogs, goats, and
sheep.
There were also shops of various kinds, practically nothing but openings
in the wall spaces, where provisions were sold and various delicacies.
Barbers and tailors plied their occupations, while minor trades,
according to epigraphical evidence, were also conducted here. Julius
Caesar himself resided in the Subura. There was also a Jewish synagogue
in this district. The Subura is mentioned frequently in Roman
literature, in a derogatory and contemptuous sense, particularly by the
poets Juvenal, Persius, and Martial.
In the Subura all kinds of amatory contrivances, concoctions and aids
were offered to an eager clientele: amulets, incantations, spells,
philtres, drugs; and a flourishing market in these commodities
prevailed, at first furtively and warily: then with more determined and
acknowledged public awareness.
* * * * *
The Roman satirist Juvenal, who dates in the first century A.D.,
mentions potions and philtres used by women; frequently, however, for
purposes of torture or poisoning their husbands. Again, describing the
immoralities and licentiousness of the frantic Roman matrons of his own
days, Juvenal thunders:
From one person she secures magic incantations. From another,
she buys Thessalian love-potions to destroy her husband’s mind.
* * * * *
The Roman poet Lucan produced an epic poem entitled _Pharsalia_. Book 6
contains a vivid, elaborate description of magic scenes and practices.
The capacities of the witch are enumerated with a feeling of mounting
horror. Her skills come in for horrendous comment: brewing concoctions
for malefic purposes: pronouncing incantations that inspire strange
passions by virtue of their goetic potency. These spells, the poet
awesomely declares, are more effective than even love goblets.
The implication is that love philtres were manifestly in common use for
amatory purposes and in common knowledge.
* * * * *
Certain deities were anciently associated with particular sexual
practices. Volupia, an old Roman goddess mentioned by St. Augustine,
encouraged voluptuous pleasures. Strenia bestowed vigor on the male.
Stimula aroused the erotic desires of husbands.
* * * * *
The practice of amatory aids, among the Romans, reached as far as the
Imperial court. The Emperor Julian, known as the Apostate, for instance,
mentions, in a letter to his friend Callixenes, mandrake as a love
agent.
* * * * *
In antiquity, both Greek and Roman, Medea is the arch sorceress, the
supreme exemplar of witchcraft, the most powerful adept in the Black
Arts of Colchis.
Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and dramatist, who was also the tutor of
the Roman Emperor Nero, is the author of a drama entitled _Medea_, in
which he depicts the protagonist herself in frenzied action.
Medea’s nurse appears upon the scene, speaking of her mistress.
She describes Medea gathering potent herbs with her magic sickle, by the
light of the moon. Medea sprinkles the herbs with venom extracted from
serpents. Into this compound she thrusts the entrails and organs of
unclean birds: the heart of the screech owl, vampire’s vitals, torn from
the living flesh. Over the entire foul brew she murmurs her magic
incantations, concocting her philtres.
* * * * *
In spite of the frenzied commerce in philtres and other means of
stimulation, both in ancient and in modern times, Ovid himself, the
Roman poet who produced the superlative amatory guides in poetic form,
asserts categorically that invocations and formulas, enchantments and
sorcery, secretive recipes and exotic philtres are ultimately of no
avail in their purpose. Even witches and enchantresses such as Medea and
Circe, for all their skill in the goetic arts, could not circumvent
man’s own personal perversities, or prevent Jason, for instance, or
Ulysses, from amatory unfaithfulness.
In the contest of love, then, concludes the poet, philtres achieve
nothing but imbalanced minds, wrecked health, and, sometimes, death
itself.
* * * * *
Love philtres were not infrequently fatal in their effects. Such
veneficia amatoria were forbidden by imperial decree. But there were
furtive ways of circumventing these prohibitions.
Ingredients, apart from their poisonous nature, might be nauseating and
repulsive to administer. As an instance, the milk of an ass mixed with
the blood of a bat was considered a genesiac encouragement. The
ingredients, again, might induce sickness, madness, and even death.
Among known ingredients that went to form the final, putatively
effective brew were herbs, organs of birds, insects, blood, and
genitalia.
With the ages, the range of ingredients and recipes was extended. In
Mediterranean regions old traditional amatory philtres remained in folk
use. In other areas, particularly in the South American continent, the
natives used concoctions that were often virtual poisons. For they
ceaselessly ransacked the forests and jungles for amatory aids.
* * * * *
Among the Romans, the sepia octopus had a wide reputation for its
amatory potential. It is mentioned by the Roman comedy writer Plautus.
In a scene depicting an exhausted elder, an octopus is bought by him at
the market, as a rejuvenating aid.
* * * * *
In his _De Re Coquinaria_, a cookery book produced by Apicius, a Roman
of the first century A.D., there are many recipes for the preparation of
gourmet dishes as well as less luxurious fare: fish and game, meats,
vegetables, fruit, dessert, cereals.
Among the herbs that Apicius includes as ingredients in stews, roasts,
pottages, soups, and sauces, there are many that had and still have
reputedly, an amatory reaction, as: cumin and dill, aniseed, bay-berry,
celery-seed, capers and caraway, sesame, mustard, shallots, nard, thyme,
ginger and musk, wormwood, basil, parsley, origanum, pennyroyal, rocket,
safflower, rue-berry, flowers of mallow, rue-seed, lovage, hyssop and
garlic and capers.
Many vegetables, too, that are credited with genesiac virtue are
included in Apicius’ book, as: artichokes and beans, asparagus, turnips,
truffles, parsnips and leeks, beets and bryony, cabbage, chicory,
cucumbers, fenugreek, radishes, and lettuce.
* * * * *
Apicius’ culinary directions and preparations include a variety of fish
that had, in Rome times and also in later ages, provocative amatory
properties. Among such piscatory agents are: Grilled red mullet, young
tunny, sea-bream, murena, horse-mackerel, gold-bream. And, among sea
food: octopus and mussels, sea-urchin, oysters, cuttlefish, squid,
sea-crayfish, electric ray.
* * * * *
In some of the fragments and extant verses of the Roman philosopher
Seneca, there are illustrations of the erotic theme. In one poem the
partly obliterated verses run:
Love, my darling, and be loved in turn always,
So that at no instant may our mutual love cease ...
From sunrise to sunset,
And may the Evening Star gaze
upon our love
And the Morning Star too.
An instance of abnormal lust also occurs:
Fortunate is she who caresses your neck.
Fortunate is the girl who presses close to you, body
To body,
And crushes her tongue against your soft lips.
Another fragment inveighs against a wealthy, beautiful, noble matron,
lustful and incestuous.
In ancient Italy the cult of Liber or Bacchus was so widespread that
festivals held in his honor and called Liberalia were continued for an
entire month. During this period the phallus, carried in procession
exultantly, to the accompaniment of lewd songs, lascivious talk, and
obscene gestures, was decked with garlands, while erotic acts in their
final consummation were freely performed in public view, as reverential
testimony to the potency of the deity so symbolized.
* * * * *
The cult of Bacchus and of his symbol the phallus was introduced among
the Romans by the priests of Cybele, the Mighty Mother of the Gods, who
were known as Corybantes. Clement of Alexandria, the Church Father, also
calls these priests Cabiri.
* * * * *
In the Imperial Age of Rome, a certain distinguished poet, Verginius
Rufus, an elderly friend of Pliny the Younger, was known for his erotic
poems. These, however, are no longer extant.
* * * * *
In Imperial Rome, the professors of grammar and of rhetoric, two of the
basic subjects taught to young Romans, used many Greek and Roman authors
in bowdlerized versions. In the case of the lyric poets in particular,
the suggestive and erotic elements were minimized or excised.
* * * * *
During the Imperial Age of Rome, writers appeared at intervals who were
cumulatively known as _scriptores erotici_—writers on love themes. Their
tales, elaborately expanded and decked out with circumstantial details,
were concerned with the amatory adventures of mythological
personalities, among them, for instance, Acontius and Cydippe.
* * * * *
The Roman epigrammatist Martial (c. 40 A.D.–c. 104) claimed that,
despite his obscene verses, his own personal life was unstained. He
produced a large body of epigrams and occasional poems dealing, to a
very considerable extent, with erotic and sexual topics: perversions,
sodomy and incest, adultery and pederasty. His pieces mention actual
contemporary figures, and thus present a realistic and intimate picture
of Roman salacious aberrations at all levels of society, as well as the
erotic degeneration of the age.
* * * * *
The Emperor Nero, with all his inhuman and vicious traits and bloody
crimes, was a versatile poet. He was the author of sportive and also
erotic pieces, none of which, however, are now extant.
* * * * *
Among the rites practiced by the Romans with respect to the cult of
Priapus, there was the custom of the bride who, seated before the
phallic image, made at least a symbolic contact, and most commonly an
actual one, with a view to encourage later marital fecundity. It was at
the same time an apotropaic measure as well. Married women were included
in this ritual, and participated in similar practices. These rites,
described in violently condemnatory terms, are mentioned by St.
Augustine and Lactantius and Arnobius, who take occasion to point out
the Roman pagan abominations in sexual matters.
* * * * *
With respect to the cult of Bacchus, the god himself had in his service
women as priestesses. In the fanes dedicated to the phallic god, these
priestesses celebrated nocturnal mystic rites. This practice is
described in some detail by Petronius, the author of the remarkable
Roman picaresque novel entitled the _Satyricon_:
We had resolv’d to keep out of the broad streets, and
accordingly took our walk thro’ that quarter of the city where
we were likely to meet least company; when in a narrow winding
lane that had not passage thro’, we saw somewhat before us, two
comely matron-like women, and followed them at a distance to a
chappel, which they entred, whence we heard an odd humming kind
of noise, as if it came from the hollow of a cave: Curiosity
also made us go in after them, where we saw a number of women,
as mad as they had been sacrificing to Bacchus, and each of them
an amulet, the ensign of Bacchus, in her hand. More than that we
could not get to see; for they no sooner perceived us, that they
set up such a shout, that the roof of the temple shook agen, and
withal endeavored to lay hands on us; but we scamper’d and made
what haste we could to the inn.
Nor had we sooner stuff’d our selves with the supper Gito had
got for us, when a more than ordinary bounce at the door, put us
into another fright; and when we, pale as death, ask’d who was
there, ’twas answered, “Open the door and you’ll see.” While we
were yet talking, the bolt drop’d off, and the door flew open,
on which, a woman with her head muffl’d came in upon us, but the
same who a little before had stood by the country-man in the
market: “And what,” said she, “do you think to put a trick upon
me? I am Quartilla’s maid, whose sacred recess you so lately
disturb’d: she is at the inn-gate, and desires to speak with ye:
not that she either taxes your inadvertency, or has a mind to so
resent it, but rather wonders, what gods brought such civil
gentlemen into her quarters.”
We were silent as yet, and gave her the hearing, but inclin’d to
neither part of what she had said, when in came Quartilla her
self, attended with a young girl, and sitting down by me, fell a
weeping: nor here also did we offer a word, but stood expecting
what those tears at command meant. At last when the showre had
emptied it self, she disdainfully turn’d up her hood, and
clinching her fingers together, till the joints were ready to
crack, “What impudence,” said she, “is this? or where learnt ye
those shamms, and that sleight of hand ye have so lately been
beholding to? By my faith, young-men, I am sorry for ye; for no
one beheld what was unlawful for him to see, and went off
unpunisht: and verily our part of the town has so many deities,
you’ll sooner find a god than a man in’t: And that you may not
think I came hither to be revenged on ye, I am more concern’d
for your youth, than the injury ye have done me: for unawares,
as I yet think, ye have committed an unexpiable abomination.”
* * * * *
Among the Romans the symbol of satisfied and contented love was the
myrtle branch, offered in sacrifice, along with milk and honey, to the
obscene deity Priapus.
* * * * *
As a fetish, an apotropaic periapt, protective against all kinds of
mishaps, the Romans made use of an amulet in the form of a fascinum. It
was fashioned of various materials, often in the shape of a phallic
symbol in high relief, on a plaque or medallion. The object was hung
round children’s necks, on garden walls, on doors, or chariots, and on
public buildings.
* * * * *
The Roman historian Julian Capitolinus, in his biography of the Emperor
Pertinax, mentions glass vessels, phallic-shaped, that were used by the
Romans for drinking. These vessels were known as phallovitroboli.
* * * * *
The ithyphallic concept as the source of creation was so deeply
ingrained in the Roman consciousness, that they attached the ithyphallic
device on all manner of objects: stones, seals, rings, medals, and
lamps. As an extension of this concept, the Romans engraved on their
drinking vessels phallic designs, as well as lewd scenes that would
create in the drinker violent erotic provocations.
* * * * *
Sextus Pompeius Festus was a Roman lexicographer of the second century
A.D., who describes a shrine in Rome dedicated to the obscene deities
Mutunus and Tutunus. In this religious cult the suppliants were women.
With head veiled, they came to offer sacrifice to the phallic powers.
* * * * *
The lewd rites of the phallic god Bacchus were celebrated by the Romans
in a sacred wood near the River Tiber. Originally open to women only,
the ceremonies were later on extended to men also, particularly to young
men not over twenty years of age. At the nocturnal rituals there was
clashing of cymbals, beating of drums. After an interval of excessive
wine drinking, there ensued wild scenes of sexual promiscuity and
perversions unlimited. Those initiates who seemed to have any scruples
were sacrificed, and their bodies were thrown into the depths of a
cavern. Men and women went frantic, shrieking their exultation to the
deity, performing abandoned dance sequences. Sinister plots and furtive
machinations also formed part of the aftermath of these tenebrous rites,
malefic in their intentions, often fatal in their effects.
* * * * *
In addition to Priapus as the supreme generative deity, the Romans were
dedicated to a number of other divinities endowed with analogous
properties. Venus herself was worshipped at Rome in four temples.
A late Latin poem, entitled Pervigilium Veneris, _The Vigil of Venus_,
the date and authorship of which are unknown, is dedicated to Venus and
her spring festival. The poem itself is full of vernal descriptions. The
theme is a paean to erotic passion. Its amatory refrain, the sense of
which pervades the entire poem, runs:
Cras amet qui numquam amavit,
Quique amavit cras amet.
He who has never loved will love tomorrow.
And he who has loved will love tomorrow.
A still older deity was Flora, associated with the blossoming of plants
and hence with cosmic generation. At her festival, held during the month
of April, lewd farces were performed, all implicitly generative and
genesiac in intent.
* * * * *
One of the most mysterious and libidinous cults in Rome was that of the
Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, to which women only had access. An annual
ceremonial was held in her honor, when a sow was sacrificed to her.
Juvenal, the satiric poet, describes the excesses of the initiates.
Frenzied with intoxication, overwhelmed with deafening and clamorous
music, these women practiced the most salacious dances. In their
lubricity they were athirst for erotic conflict, and were even willing,
adds the poet, to submit to bestial caresses.
* * * * *
Among the Roman deities associated with marriage rites and connubial
consummations were: Stimula, who aroused the male erotic urges: Strenia,
who furnished vigor: Virginiensis, who detached the bride’s zona or
girdle: Volupia, who excited voluptuous sensations: Iugatinus, who
united the marital partners. Also Domiducus, who conducted the bride to
her new home: Munturnae, who presided over her settlement in her new
position: and, more intimately involved in the physiological
performance, Liber and Libera, Pertunda, Prema, and Subigus.
* * * * *
The Romans represented the male and female genitalia in the shapes of
their wheaten-flour loaves. The epigrammatist Martial, in Book 9, 2,
alludes to this priapic custom:
Illa siligineis pinguescit adultera cunnis.
* * * * *
The Roman poet Ovid (32 B.C.–17 A.D.) presents the ancient witch Medea
in action. She invokes aid in concocting a potion to refurbish old age
and induce youthful vigor:
Ye spells and arts that the wise men use; and thou, O Earth, who
dost provide the wise men with thy potent herbs; ye breezes and
winds, ye mountains and streams and pools; all ye gods of the
groves, all ye gods of the night; be with me now. With your help
I stir up the calm seas by my spell; I break the jaws of
serpents with my incantations. I bid ghosts to come forth from
their tombs. Now I have need of juices by whose aid old age may
be renewed and may turn back to the bloom of youth and regain
its earthly years.
* * * * *
The Roman elegiac poet Tibullus (c. 48 B.C.–19 B.C.) addresses Delia,
the girl who scorned him. He has employed magic means to regain her
love:
Thrice I with Sulphur purified you round,
And thrice the Rite, with Songs th’Enchantress bound:
The Cake, by me thrice sprinkled, put to flight
The death-denouncing Phantoms of the Night,
And I next have, in linen Garb array’d,
In silent Night, nine Times to Trivia pray’d.
* * * * *
In one of the Eclogues of the Roman poet Nemesianus, who flourished in
the third century A.D., there is a dialogue between two shepherds who
discuss their amatory affairs and love spells:
Mopsus: What does it benefit me that the mother of rustic Amyntas has
purified me thrice with fillets, thrice with a sacred bough,
thrice with the vapour of frankincense, burning the crackling
laurels with live sulphur, and pours the ashes out into the stream
with averted face, when thus wretched I am every way inflamed for
Meroë?
Lycidas: These same things the many-colored threads have done for me,
and Mycale has carried round me a thousand unknown herbs. She has
chanted the charm, by which the moon swells, by which the snake is
burst, the rocks run and standing corn removes, and a tree is
plucked up. Lo! My handsome Iollas is nevertheless more, is more
to me.
* * * * *
Horace, the Roman poet (65 B.C.–8 B.C.) depicts, in his _Satires_, a
scene in which a love philtre is prepared.
As thus the boy in wild distress
Bewail’d, of bulla stripp’d and dress,
So fair, that ruthless breasts of Thrace
Had melted to behold his face,
Canidia, with dishevell’d hair
And short crisp vipers coiling there,
Beside a fire of Colchos stands,
And her attendant hag commands
To feed the flames with fig-trees torn
From dead men’s sepulchres forlorn,
With dismal cypress, eggs rubb’d o’er
With filthy toads’ unvenom’d gore,
With screech-owl’s plumes, and herbs of bane,
From far Iolchos fetch’d and Spain,
And fleshless bones by beldam witch
Snatch’d from the jaws of famish’d bitch.
And Sagana, the while, with gown
Tucked to the knees, stalks up and down,
Sprinkling in room and hall and stair
Her magic hell-drops, with her hair
Bristling on end, like furious boar,
Or some sea-urchins wash’d on shore;
Whilst Veia, by remorse unstay’d,
Groans at her toil, as she with spade
That flags not digs a pit, wherein
The boy imbedded to his chin,
With nothing seen save head and throat,
Like those who in the water float,
Shall dainties see before him set,
A maddening appetite to whet,
Then snatch’d away before his eyes,
Till famish’d in despair he dies;
That when his glazing eyeballs should
Have closed on the untasted food,
His sapless marrow and dry spleen
May drug a philtre-draught obscene.
Nor were these all the hideous crew,
But Ariminian Folia, too,
Who with unsatiate lewdness swells,
And drags by her Thessalian spells
The moon and stars down from the sky,
Ease-loving Naples’ vows, was by;
And every hamlet round about
Declares she was, beyond a doubt.
Now forth the fierce Canidia sprang,
And still she gnawed with rotten fang
Her long sharp unpared thumb-nail. What
Then said she? Yea, what said she not?
“O Night and Dian, who with true
And friendly eyes my purpose view,
And guardian silence keep, whilst I
My secret orgies safely ply,
Assist me now, now on my foes
With all your wrath celestial close!
Whilst, stretch’d in soothing sleep, amid
Their forests grim the beasts lie hid,
May all Suburra’s mongrels bark
At yon old wretch, who through the dark
Doth to his lewd encounters crawl,
And on him draw the jeers of all!
He’s with an ointment smear’d, that is
My masterpiece. But what is this?
Why, why should poisons brew’d by me
Less potent than Medea’s be,
By which, for love betray’d, beguiled,
On mighty Creon’s haughty child
She wreaked her vengeance sure and swift,
And vanish’d, when the robe, her gift,
In deadliest venom steep’d and dyed,
Swept off in flames the new-made bride?
No herb there is, nor root in spot
However wild, that I have not;
Yet every common harlot’s bed
Seems with some rare Nepenthe spread,
For there he lives in swinish drowse,
Of me oblivious, and his vows!
He is, aha! protected well
By some more skilful witch’s spell!
But, Varus, thou (doom’d soon to know
The rack of many a pain and woe!)
By potions never used before
Shalt to my feet be brought once more.
And ’tis no Marsian charm shall be
The spell that brings thee back to me!
A draught I’ll brew more strong, more sure,
Thy wandering appetite to cure;
And sooner ’neath the sea the sky
Shall sink, and earth upon them lie,
Than thou not burn with fierce desire
For me, like pitch in sooty fire!”
On this the boy by gentle tones
No more essay’d to move the crones,
But wildly forth with frenzied tongue
These curses Thyestean flung.
“Your sorceries, and spells, and charms
To man may compass deadly harms,
But heaven’s great law of Wrong and Right
Will never bend before their might.
My curse shall haunt you, and my hate
No victim’s blood shall expiate.
But when at your behests I die,
Like the Fury of the Night will I
From Hades come, a phantom sprite—
Such is the Manes’ awful might.”
* * * * *
The Roman poet Vergil (70 B.C.–19 B.C.) depicts, in one of his pastoral
Eclogues, a love episode that involves magic rites for the purpose of
winning the love of Daphnis:
Scarce had night’s cold shade parted from the sky, just at the
time that the dew on the tender grass is sweetest to the cattle,
when leaning on his smooth olive wand Damon thus began:
Rise, Lucifer, and usher in the sky, the genial sky, while I,
deluded by a bridegroom’s unworthy passion for my Nisa, make my
complaint, and turning myself to the gods, little as their
witness has stood me in stead, address them nevertheless, a
dying man, at this very last hour. Take up with me, my pipe, the
song of Maenalus.
Maenalus it is whose forests are ever tuneful, and his pines
ever vocal; he is ever listening to the loves of shepherds, and
to Pan, the first who would not have the reeds left unemployed.
Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.
Mopsus has Nisa given him; what may not we lovers expect to see?
Matches will be made by this between griffins and horses, and in
the age to come hounds will accompany timid does to their
draught. Mopsus, cut fresh brands for to-night; it is to you
they are bringing home a wife. Fling about nuts as a bridegroom
should; it is for you that Hesperus is leaving his rest on Oeta.
Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.
O worthy mate of a worthy lord! There as you look down on all
the world, and are disgusted at my pipe and my goats, and my
shaggy brow, and this beard that I let grow, and do not believe
that any god cares aught for the things of men. Take up with me,
my pipe, the song of Maenalus.
It was in our enclosure I saw you gathering apples with the dew
on them. I myself showed you the way, in company with my
mother—my twelfth year had just bidden me enter on it. I could
just reach from the ground to the boughs that snapped so easily.
What a sight! what ruin to me! what a fatal frenzy swept me
away! Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.
Now know I what love is; it is among savage rocks that he is
produced by Tmarus or Rhodope, or the Garamantes at earth’s end;
no child of lineage or blood like ours. Take up with me, my
pipe, the song of Maenalus.
Love, the cruel one, taught the mother to embrue her hands in
her children’s blood; hard too was thy heart, mother. Was the
mother’s heart harder, or the boy god’s malice more wanton?
Wanton was the boy god’s malice; hard too thy heart, mother.
Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.
Aye, now let the wolf even run away from the sheep; let golden
apples grow out of the tough heart of oak; let narcissus blossom
on the alder; let the tamarisk’s bark sweat rich drops of amber;
rivalry let there be between swans and screech-owls; let Tityrus
become Orpheus—Orpheus in the woodland, Arion among the
dolphins. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.
Nay, let all be changed to the deep sea. Farewell, ye woods!
Headlong from the airy mountain’s watchtower I will plunge into
the waves; let this come to her as the last gift of the dying.
Cease, my pipe, cease at length the song of Maenalus.
Thus far Damon; for the reply of Alphesiboeus, do ye recite it,
Pierian maids; it is not for all of us to have command of all.
Bring out water and bind the altars here with a soft woolen
fillet, and burn twigs full of sap and male frankincense, that I
may try the effect of magic rites in turning my husband’s mind
from its soberness; there is nothing but charms wanting here.
Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.
Charms have power even to draw the moon down from heaven; by
charms Circe transformed the companions of Ulysses; the cold
snake as he lies in the fields is burst asunder by chanting
charms. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my
Daphnis.
These three threads distinct with three colours I wind round the
first, and thrice draw the image round the altar thus; heaven
delights in an uneven number. Twine in three knots, Amaryllis,
the three colours; twine them, Amaryllis, do, and say, ‘I am
twining the bonds of Love.’ Bring me home from the town, my
charms, bring me my Daphnis.
Just as this clay is hardened, and this wax melted, by one and
the same fire, so may my love act doubly on Daphnis. Crumble the
salt cake, and kindle the crackling bay leaves with bitumen.
Daphnis, the wretch, is setting me on fire; I am setting this
bay on fire about Daphnis. Bring me home from the town, my
charms, bring me my Daphnis.
May such be Daphnis’ passion, like a heifer’s, when, weary of
looking for her mate through groves and tall forests, she throws
herself down by a stream of water on the green sedge, all
undone, and forgets to rise and make way for the fargone
night—may such be his enthralling passion, nor let me have a
mind to relieve it. Bring me home from the town, my charms,
bring me my Daphnis.
These cast-off relics that faithless one left me days ago,
precious pledges for himself, them I now entrust to thee, Earth,
burying them even on the threshold; they are bound as pledges to
give me back Daphnis. Bring me home from the town, my charms,
bring me my Daphnis.
These plants and these poisons culled from Pontus I had from
Moeris’ own hand. They grow in plenty at Pontus. By the strength
of these often I have seen Moeris turn to a wolf and plunge into
the forest, often call up spirits from the bottom of the tomb,
and remove standing crops from one field to another. Bring me
home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.
Carry the embers out of doors, Amaryllis, and fling them into
the running stream over your head, and do not look behind you.
This shall be my device against Daphnis. As for gods or charms,
he cares for none of them. Bring me home from the town, my
charms, bring me my Daphnis.
Look, look! the flickering flame has caught the altar of its own
accord, shot up from the embers, before I have had time to take
them up, all of themselves. Good luck, I trust! Can I trust
myself? Or is it that lovers make their own dreams? Stop, he is
coming from town; stop now, charms, my Daphnis!
* * * * *
A renewal of vigor by magic means is described in Ovid’s
_Metamorphoses_. The scene involves the witch Medea, her lover Jason,
and Jason’s aged father, Aeson:
Unaccompanied, she stepped uncertainly through the still silence
of midnight. Deep slumber had relaxed men and birds and wild
beasts. Without a sound, the hedges, the motionless branches lay
still. The dewy air was still. Lonely, the stars glimmered.
Thrice extending her arms, she turned toward them. Thrice,
taking some water, she copiously bedewed her locks. Thrice she
uttered howls from her lips. Then, on bent knee, touching the
hard ground, she said:
“O night, most propitious for mysteries, and you, golden stars,
that, along with the moon, follow the fiery day, and you, triple
Hecate, who, aware of our undertaking come forth to help in
incantation and magic art, and you, Earth, who teach magicians
the potency of herbs, and you, zephyrs and winds and hills and
streams and lakes, and all you gods of the groves, be my aid. By
your aid, when I so willed, the streams returned to their
springs to the astonishment of the river banks, and by your aid
I stay the upturned waters and upheave the stagnant straits by
spells, and I drive away the clouds and bring them back, and
banish and summon the winds and break the jaws of snakes with my
words and spells, and move natural rocks and trees uprooted from
the ground and forests and I bid the mountains tremble and the
ground rumble, and the spirits of the dead arise from the tomb.
You also, O Moon, I draw down, and Helios’ chariot too pales at
my incantation. The Dawn grows pale with my poisons. All of you
have quenched the flames of the oxen for me and pressed their
necks, reluctant for the task, under the crooked plough. You
brought wars upon the serpent-born warriors and sleep upon the
grim guardian.
Now there is need of juices whereby old age revived may bloom
once more, and regain its former years. And you deities will
grant this request—for not in vain is the chariot at hand, drawn
by winged dragons.”
There was the chariot, sent from high heaven. No sooner had she mounted
and soothed the frenzied necks of the dragons and shaken the reins
lightly with her hands than she was whisked off aloft, and beheld the
herbs growing on Mount Ossa and lofty Pelion and Othrys and Pindus and
Olympus greater than Pindus. She plucked out suitable herbs by the root,
and some she cut away with the curved blade of a bronze sickle. The
herbs that grew thick on the banks of the Apidanus caught her fancy too
and those on the banks of the Amphrysus. Nor were you overlooked,
Enipeus: and the Peneus and the waters of the Spercheus contributed
their quota, and the reedy banks of the Boebeis. Medea gathered too the
sturdy grasses in Euboean Anthedon. And now when the ninth day had seen
her traversing all the fields in her winged-dragon chariot, she
returned.
As she advanced, she halted at the threshold and the gate, and stood
under the sky. And she shunned contacts with men: and set up two altars
of turf, on the right of Hecate, on the left of Youth. After she had
wreathed them with vervain and wild foliage, close by she made a
sanctuary by means of two ditches, and pierced the throat of a black ram
with the sacrificial knife, and soaked the wide ditches in the blood.
Then she poured over it a beaker of flowing wine and a bronze beaker of
warm milk and at the same time murmured words over it, and called upon
the divinities of the earth, and begged the King of the Lower Regions
and his stolen wife not to hasten to rob the limbs of the aged soul.
When she had propitiated them with prayer and many a chant, she bade
that the exhausted body of Aeson be carried out of doors, and on the
strewn herbs she extended the lifeless shape, relaxed by incantation in
deep slumber. She bade Aeson’s son stand clear away, and the attendants
too, and she admonished them to withdraw their profane sight from the
mysteries. So bidden, they scattered in different directions. With
disheveled hair, like a Bacchante, Medea encircled the blazing altars.
She dipped finely split torches in the dark pool of gore, and lighted
the bloody brands on the two altars. Thrice she encircled the aged body
with fire, thrice with water, thrice with sulphur.
Meanwhile the potent drug boiled in the bronze kettle and leapt and
whitened in the swelling froth. She threw in roots cut in Thessalian
valley and seeds and blossoms and pungent spices. She added pebbles
secured from the remote East and sands washed by the refluent Ocean
stream. She added too the frost caught in the full moon and the baleful
wings of a screech-owl together with the flesh itself, and the entrails
of a werewolf wont to change its animal form into a man. Nor was there
lacking the scaly skin of a water-serpent, the liver of a living stag.
In addition, she threw in the head of a crow nine centuries old. By
these and a thousand other unspeakable means she planned to delay the
destined function of Tartarus. With a dry twig of long softened olive
she stirred all the ingredients together, turning them over from top to
bottom.
Behold now the old twig stirring in the boiling kettle first turned
green, and presently put forth leaves, and suddenly became loaded with
heavy olives. But wherever the fire belched out foam from the hollow
kettle and the drops fell hot on the ground, the soil grew fresh, and
flowers and soft grass sprang up.
As soon as she beheld this sight, with drawn sword Medea pierced the
aged man’s throat and, allowing the old blood to exude, filled the spot
with juices. After Aeson had drunk them, either with his lips or through
his wound, his beard and hair, shedding their greyness, quickly assumed
a dark color. The emaciation vanished, and the pallor and decay
disappeared, and the hollow wrinkles were filled up in the fresh body,
and the limbs grew rapidly.
Aeson stood amazed, recalling that this was how he was forty years back.
* * * * *
Petronius, who belongs in the first century A.D., produced a remarkable
novel entitled _The Satyricon_, in which he describes an instance of
renewed virility by means of witchcraft:
“This is the custom, Sir,” said she, “and chiefly of this City,
where the women are skill’d in Magick-charms, enough to make the
Moon confess their power, therefore the recovery of any useful
Instrument of Love becomes their care; ’tis only writing some
soft tender things to my Lady, and you make her happy in a kind
return. For ’tis confest, since her Disappointment, she has not
been her self.”
I readily consented, and calling for Paper, thus addrest myself:
“’Tis confest, Madam, I have often sinned, for I’m not only a
Man, but a very young one, yet never left the Field so
dishonorably before. You have at your Feet a confessing
Criminal, that deserves whatever you inflict: I have cut a
Throat, betray’d my Country, committed Sacrilege; if a
punishment for any of these will serve, I am ready to receive
sentence. If you fancy my death, I wait you with my Sword; but
if a beating will content you, I fly naked to your Arms. Only
remember, that ’twas not the Workman, but his Instruments that
fail’d: I was ready to engage, but wanted Arms. Who rob’d me of
them I know not; perhaps my eager mind outrun my body; or while
with an unhappy haste I aim’d at all; I was cheated with
Abortive joys. I only know I don’t know what I’ve done: You bid
me fear a Palsie, as if the Disease cou’d do greater that has
already rob’d me of that, by which I shou’d have purchas’d you.
All I have to say for my self, is this, that I will certainly
pay with interest the Arrears of Love, if you allow me time to
repair my misfortune.”
Having sent back Chrysis with this Answer, to encourage my jaded
Body, after the Bath and Strengthening Oyles, had a little
rais’d me, I apply’d my self to strong meats, such as strong
Broths and Eggs, using Wine very moderately; upon which to
settle my self, I took a little Walk, and returning to my
Chamber, slept that night without Gito; so great was my care to
acquit my self honourably with my Mistress, that I was afraid he
might have tempted my constancy, by tickling my Side.
The next day rising without prejudice, either to my body or
spirits, I went, tho’ I fear’d the place was ominous, to the
same Walk, and expected Chrysis to conduct me to her Mistress; I
had not been long there, e’re she came to me, and with her a
little Old Woman. After she had saluted me, “What, my nice Sir
Courtly,” said she, “does your Stomach begin to come to you?”
At what time, the Old Woman, drawing from her bosome, a wreath
of many colours, bound my Neck; and having mixt spittle and
dust, she dipt her finger in’t, and markt my Fore-head, whether
I wou’d or not.
* * * * *
In Rome the inns—the tabernae, the popinae, and the ganea—were
virtually, in addition to their primary purpose in serving drink, houses
of prostitution and assignation.
* * * * *
In wedding celebrations among the Romans, ribald and licentious songs
played no mean part. These songs were known as Fescennini Versus, and
were believed to have apotropaic significance, while they also recalled
the primary purpose of the nuptial union.
At harvest festivals similar lewd verses were exchanged between masked
performers.
* * * * *
As visual guides to the lupanaria in ancient Rome, there were lighted
lamps, of phallic shape, near the doors. Seneca the philosopher refers
to this custom. Also the poet Juvenal in the sixth satire:
fumoque lucernae
Foeda lupanaris
An old commentator adds: Prostabant autem meretrices ad lucernas.
* * * * *
Acca Larentia was a Roman goddess whose festival—the Larentalia or
Larentinalia—fell on December 23. The tradition was that she herself had
been a prostitute. Her festival was a fertility ritual, as in the case
of Lupa and Flora.
* * * * *
There was a tradition that the Emperor Heliogabalus sponsored a brothel
in Rome called Senatulus Mulierum: The Little Senate of Women.
* * * * *
Nonariae were public prostitutes in Rome who were not allowed to appear
before the ninth hour. The satirist Persius refers to this custom:
Si Cynico barbam petulans Nonaria vellat.
* * * * *
The ancients believed that the feminine lips had some relation to the
genitalia: and likewise that a prominent nose indicated a corresponding
membrum virile. There is evidence of this view in a short epigram by the
Roman poet Martial:
Mentula tam magna est quantus tibi, Papyle,
nasus, ut possis, quotiens arrigis, olfacere.
* * * * *
_Ovid_
One of the richest sources of eroticism is the Roman poet Publius
Ovidius Naso, commonly called in English Ovid. Born in 43 B.C., he
reached the greatest literary and social heights of his time, but,
falling under imperial disfavor, he ended his life in bleak and desolate
banishment.
At Rome he acquired a deep knowledge of rhetoric, both academic and
applied, and then continued his studies in Athens. As was then usual, he
subsequently made the grand tour of the East. Although he was destined,
by his family’s wishes, for a career in law, Ovid dedicated himself to
his supreme and exclusive love, the poetic Muse.
His output was tremendous. He addressed a certain Corinna in a series of
love elegies. He wrote fictional poetic letters of enamoured women. His
_Metamorphoses_ describes strange changes undergone by mortals and
divinities in pursuit of love. His Love Letters of Heroines, Directions
for a Lady’s Cosmetic Preparations, the Art of Love, and the Remedies
for Love belong in a common category.
The principal climactic situation in his life was his banishment, by the
imperial mandate of the Emperor Augustus, to the desolation of Tomis, on
the Black Sea. He had to abandon his wife and home—he had been married
three times—, his literary friends, and his social circle. It was a kind
of living death, a spiritual and intellectual cataclysm. At Tomis, a
wild, barbaric, inhospitable spot, Ovid spent the remaining years of his
life, in regret and supplications fruitlessly addressed to the Emperor,
and in writing, particularly his _Tristia_, Sad Themes.
The reason for the banishment is still obscure, although Ovid himself
hints at a ‘poem and a blunder.’ The poem was his Art of Love, which was
frowned upon imperially and excluded from the public libraries in the
Roman capital. The blunder of which Ovid was apparently guilty was
associated, as he declares, with his possession of eyes—that is, he may
have been a spectator or observer of some adulterous act involving the
imperial family. Whatever the factual reason, the Emperor remained
obdurate to the poet’s pleas, and Ovid died in exile.
In the voluminous corpus of poetic accomplishment, Ovid produced many
major contributions to erotic literature. His _Ars Amatoria_ is a
universal handbook to love and its manifestations. His _Amores_ is a
sequence of amorous vignettes. His _Remedia Amoris_, Remedies for Love,
constitutes a body of amatory expiations that in spite of their negative
tone are as voluptuously and cynically libidinous as his forthright
prescriptions. In all, here is a body of themes, views, techniques that
expound the most intimate secrets of the boudoir and the salon, of the
entire range of erotic manifestations. Among his known contemporaries
Ovid became a kind of arch-consultant in love, the ultimate arbiter of
dalliance, the poetic confessor of sensual delights. And continuously
through the ages his poetic presentations, descriptions, enumerations,
his almost legalized counsel in debauchery, translated into most
European languages, have served as a final, authoritative, cynical and
libidinous source book.
Ovid probes into both normal and perverted forms of amatory experience,
and reveals in vivid and not infrequently lurid detail, the
sophisticated gallantries, the urbane wantonness, the suave and polished
salaciousness, and the cultivated prurience of the Roman capital during
the first century before the Christian era.
In respect of the means of inspiring and promoting amatory activity,
both in men and women, Ovid has many pointed things to say about
potions. In Latin, the _poculum amatorium_ is the common expression used
to designate the potion, that is, the love-goblet.
Ovid’s primary theme, in these exciting productions of his, is: Love is
a campaign, long and ruthless. It requires skill, training, equipment,
strategy, vision. So, in his pleas to Corinna his poetic offerings are
in the nature of addresses to Woman, tantalizing, shameless, an epitome
of feminine wiles and graces.
As stimuli toward erotic diversions, Ovid generously and without
resentment recommends, in addition to his own poetic manuals, his Roman
contemporaries Propertius and Tibullus, the elegiac poets, as well as
Vergil: and, among the Greeks, the erotic lyrics and occasional pieces
of Callimachus and Philetas, Anacreon and Sappho.
In Book 3 of the _Metamorphoses_ we have the story of Narcissus,
enamoured aphrodisiacally by his own image reflected in a pool. The
image of himself is so clearly defined, the lips move so appealingly in
response to his own pleas, that he is ready to succumb amorously. Then
he realizes the truth, that he and his reflection are one, his own self,
his very identity. And he longs to free himself from himself, to escape
the duplication. By this imaginative and symbolical mythological design,
Ovid is unquestionably stressing the erotic passion itself, the frenzied
ecstasy to detach oneself from one’s own being, the clamor of man
against his fettered self and his erotic agonies.
A potion may appear in various guises. A vision of beauty can itself act
like an enriched, stimulating philtre. The enraptured glance sends its
erotic pronouncement to the enraptured heart, and the potion is
virtually consummated. So, it seemed to Ovid, was the strange episode
involving the sculptor Pygmalion:
Pygmalion loathing their lascivious life,
Abhorr’d all womanhood, but most a wife:
So single chose to live, and shunn’d to wed,
Well pleas’d to want a consort of his bed.
Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill,
In sculpture exercis’d his happy skill;
And carv’d in iv’ry such a maid, so fair,
As nature could not with his art compare,
Were she to work; but in her own defence,
Must take her patterns here, and copy hence.
Pleas’d with his idol, he commends, admires,
Adores; and last, the thing ador’d, desires.
A very virgin in her face was seen,
And had she mov’d, a living maid had been:
One wou’d have thought she could have stirr’d; but strove
With modesty, and was asham’d to move.
Art hid with art, so well perform’d the cheat,
It caught the carver with his own deceit:
He knows ’tis madness, yet he must adore,
And still the more he knows it, loves the more:
The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft,
Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft.
Fir’d with this thought, at once he strain’d the breast,
And on the lips a burning kiss impress’d.
’Tis true, the harden’d breast resists the gripe,
And the cold lips return a kiss unripe:
But when, retiring back, he look’d again,
To think it iv’ry, was a thought too mean:
So wou’d believe she kiss’d, and courting more,
Again embrac’d her naked body o’er;
And straining hard the statue, was afraid
His hands had made a dint, and hurt his maid:
Explor’d her, limb by limb, and fear’d to find
So rude a gripe had left a livid mark behind:
With flatt’ry now he seeks her mind to move,
And now with gifts, (the pow’rful bribes of love:)
He furnishes her closet first; and fills
The crowded shelves with rarities of shells;
Adds orient pearls, which from the conch he drew,
And all the sparkling stones of various hue:
And parrots, imitating human tongue,
And singing-birds in silver cages hung;
And ev’ry fragrant flow’r, and od’rous green,
Were sorted well, with lumps of amber laid between:
Rich, fashionable robes her person deck:
Pendants her ears, and pearls adorn her neck:
Her taper’d fingers too with rings are grac’d,
And an embroider’d zone surrounds her slender waist.
Thus like a queen array’d, so richly dress’d,
Beauteous she shew’d, but naked shew’d the best.
Then, from the floor, he rais’d a royal bed,
With cov’rings of Sidonian purple spread:
The solemn rites perform’d, he calls her bride,
With blandishments invites her to his side,
And as she were with vital sense possess’d,
Her head did on a plumy pillow rest.
The feast of Venus came, a solemn day,
To which the Cypriots due devotion pay;
With gilded horns the milk-white heifers led,
Slaughter’d before the sacred altars, bled:
Pygmalion off’ring, first approach’d the shrine,
And then with pray’rs implor’d the pow’rs divine:
“Almighty gods, if all we mortals want,
If all we can require, be yours to grant;
Make this fair statue mine,” he would have said,
But chang’d his words for shame; and only pray’d,
“Give me the likeness of my iv’ry maid.”
The golden goddess, present at the pray’r,
Well knew he meant th’inanimated fair,
And gave the sign of granting his desire;
For thrice in cheerful flames ascends the fire.
The youth, returning to his mistress, hies,
And, impudent in hope, with ardent eyes,
And beating breast, by the dear statue lies.
He kisses her white lips, renews the bliss,
And looks and thinks they redden at the kiss:
He thought them warm before: nor longer stays,
But next his hand on her hard bosom lays:
Hard as it was, beginning to relent,
It seem’d, the breast beneath his fingers bent;
He felt again, his fingers made a print,
’Twas flesh, but flesh so firm, it rose against the dint:
The pleasing task he fails not to renew;
Soft, and more soft at ev’ry touch it grew;
Like pliant wax, when chafing hands reduce
The former mass to form, and frame for use
He would believe, but yet is still in pain,
And tries his argument of sense again,
Presses the pulse, and feels the leaping vein.
Convinc’d, o’erjoy’d, his studied thanks and praise,
To her who made the miracle, he pays:
Then lips to lips he join’d; now freed from fear,
He found the savor of the kiss sincere:
At this the waken’d image op’d her eyes,
And view’d at once the light and lover, with surprise.
The goddess present at the match she made,
So bless’d the bed, such fruitfulness convey’d,
That e’er ten moons had sharpen’d either horn,
To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born;
Paphos his name, who, grown to manhood, wall’d
The city Paphos, from the founder call’d.
The realism of the sculptured figure, together with the aroused passion
of the artist, produced a kind of symbiotic philtre, a flaming, kinetic
periapt.
In Book 1 of the _Ars Amatoria_ Ovid introduces his basic subject: love
unrestrained, Aphrodite Pandemos, patroness of free love, of passion
unconfined:
Far hence, ye Vestals, be, who bind your hair;
And wives, who gowns below your ankles wear.
I sing the brothels loose and unconfin’d,
Th’unpunishable pleasures of the kind;
Which all alike, for love, or money find.
And, in a brief preface, he offers an epitome of early Roman history,
which is equated succinctly with military prowess and sexual prowess:
Thus Romulus became so popular;
This was the way to thrive in peace and war;
To pay his army, and fresh whores to bring:
Who wou’d not fight for such a gracious king!
Now Ovid dwells on wine as an amatory stimulant, a virtual flaming
potion:
But thou, when flowing cups in triumph ride,
And the lov’d nymph is seated by thy side;
Invoke the God, and all the mighty pow’rs,
That wine may not defraud thy genial hours.
Then in ambiguous words thy suit prefer;
Which she may know were all addrest to her.
Practice all the variations conceivable in winning your designated
conquest, Ovid advises recurrently. Your wit and suavity will prevail:
far more, in fact, than artificial aids, such as philtres. Philtres,
Ovid asserts from the richness of his erotic experience, are futile in
the contests of love:
Pallid philtres given to girls were of no avail. Philtres harm
the mind and produce an impact of madness.
He enumerates many items that were popularly reputed to possess
aphrodisiac properties. But you should shun them, he reiterates, for
their effect is minimal. Hippomanes, the excrescence on a new-born colt,
is ineffectual: similarly with the traditional magic herbs purchased
furtively from some wizened old hag. Reject, equally, formulas for
exorcism and similar enchantments. The best love philtre, in short, is
the lover’s own passion. Even the ancient enchantress Circe, whom Homer
describes so vividly, could not, by the aid of her occult devices,
prevent the unfaithfulness of Ulysses: nor could the tumultuous Medea,
practiced in the lore of the sorceress, combat the waywardness of Jason.
It is true, the poet acknowledges, that in the popular mind many
objects, grasses, roots are associated with the virtues of the love
potion: but erroneously so, he adds. He lists the items as follows:
Some teach that herbs will efficacious prove,
But in my judgment such things poison love.
Pepper with biting nettle-seed they bruise,
With yellow pellitory wine infuse.
Venus with such as this no love compels,
Who on the shady hill of Eryx dwells.
Eat the white shallots sent from Megara
Or garden herbs that aphrodisiac are,
Or eggs, or honey on Hymettus flowing,
Or nuts upon the sharp-leaved pine-trees growing.
* * * * *
Morality, especially sexual morality, descended to its most degenerative
nadir in the period of the Roman Empire. The poets and satirists, the
historians and the moralists all uniformly fulminate against the
profligacies of Roman matrons, particularly in the upper social levels
and in the court circles, and blast and condemn the utter
licentiousness, lewdness, and abandonment of all restraints.
Seneca the philosopher asserts:
Anything assailed by countless desires is insecure. And the
young and even more mature matrons, descendants of distinguished
figures in the tumultuous sequence of Roman history, were
exposed to every kind of inducement to laxity, every urgent
temptation, domestically, publicly, and politically. There was a
vogue of indiscriminate flirtation, highly skilled, ingeniously
practiced, that led into violent passion and into adultery, into
incest and multiple perversions. Lust became the primary
satisfaction, and its consummation was the most common, the most
clamant factor in the social frame.
Even the earlier days of the Roman Republic were, as the poet Horace
declares—and he was the Augustan Poet Laureate—‘rich in sin.’ Propertius
too confirms this view, and goes one step further. The sea, he suggests,
will be dried up and the stars torn from heaven before women reform
their immoral ways.
The entire nation, rich and prosperous, masters of the universe,
overwhelmed and sated with exotic luxuries, attended, for their every
whim, by hordes of slaves, had lost all human modesty, all human
virtues. Yet all was not entirely lost, for voices cried out, however
feebly and helplessly, in the midst of their successions of wantonness
and orgies.
The poet Ovid wryly says:
Only those women are chaste who are unsolicited, and a man who
is enraged at his wife’s amours is merely a boor.
Seneca says again, in respect of married women: A woman who is content
to have two lovers only is a paragon.
For adultery and divorce were the usual recreations of many Roman
matrons in Imperial times. Marriage itself was often a mere formality,
and it implied no loyalties, no honor. Some women, declares Seneca,
counted the years not by the consuls, but by the number of husbands they
had.
And the Church Father, Tertullian, added later, in the same vein: Women
marry, only to divorce. Ovid himself, the archpoet of love, was married
three times. Caesar had four wives in succession. Mark Antony also had
four. Sulla the statesman and Pompey each had five wives. Pliny the
Younger had three wives. Martial the epigrammatist mentions a certain
Phileros who had seven wives.
Women were no better, no less restless. Tullia, Cicero’s daughter, had
three husbands. The Emperor Nero was the third husband of Poppaea, and
the fifth of Messalina. The poet Martial refers to a woman who had eight
husbands, and to another who was suspected of murdering her seven
husbands, one after the other.
Every passion, every illicit amour, was a provocation to the Roman
women. They had intrigues with their slaves, with actors and
pantomimists, with jockeys, charioteers, gladiators, and flute-players.
Roman temples were rendez-vous, and prostitution and adultery were
practiced among the altars and in the cells that were heavy with
incense. In a striking passage, Tertullian personifies Idolatry, who
confesses: My sacred groves of pilgrimage, my mountains and springs, my
city temples, all know how I corrupt chastity.
Astrological and magic techniques contributed to the already degenerate
Romans of the Empire. Old hags practiced procuring and other dubious
trades. They prepared drugs and potions and salves for beauty and
passion and poisoning. In time, these practices assumed a mysterious
aura. They absorbed the secret cults of the Nile and the Ganges and the
Euphrates. Some of the practitioners were actually reputable, dignified,
eagerly sought after by women. Lucian describes a certain Alexander of
Abonuteichos—stately, with well-trimmed beard, penetrating look,
modulated voice. He wore a wig of flowing locks. He was dressed in a
white and purple tunic, and a white cloak, and in his hand he carried a
scythe.