OF IRRUMATION[60]
TO put the member in erection into another’s mouth is called to
_irrumate_, a word, which in its proper sense means to give the breast;
in fact, according to _Nonius_, p. 579 (Gottfried’s edition), the
Ancients called the bosom _ruma_. The verge, introduced into the mouth,
wants to be tickled either by the lips or the tongue, and sucked; the
party who does this service to the penis is a fellator or sucker, for
with the Ancients _fellare_ meant to suck, also according to _Nonius_,
p. 547. The equivalent to _fellare_ in Greek is ——.
The Lesbians are believed to be the inventors of this particular
nastiness. The Scholiast, in verse 1337 of the _Wasps_ of Aristophanes,
cites Theopompus as vouching for the fact.
This is the reason why the Greeks apply the expression “Lesbianize” or
“Lesbize” to those who imitated the Lesbian usages, either as
_irrumants_, or as _fellators_. Suidas: “Lesbianize—to defile the mouth;
the Lesbians are in fact believed to give themselves to these shameful
acts.” The same author says under the word, “_Siphnianize_,—to
_Lesbianize_, that is to use the mouth abominably.”[61] Aristophanes has
employed the word in the sense of _sucking_ (_Wasps_, 1337).
“Look, how cleverly I kept you away, when you wanted to Lesbianize
the guests.”
And again in the _Frogs_ 1343:
“Has this Muse never used the Lesbian mode?”[62]
But Hesychius has employed it for _irrumate_: “Lesbianize, to defile a
man’s mouth.”
Lesbianize and Phœnicianize are generally used conjointly, as though
this practice had been equally common among the Phœnicians. Lucian says
in his _Apophras_ (ch. 26):
“In the name of the Gods tell me what you are thinking of, when it
is bruited about publicly that you Lesbianize and Phœnicianize?”
What the difference between the two may be is not known. At any rate
Timarchus, who is so bitterly attacked by Lucian, was a _fellator_, as
may be readily gathered from the following. Timarchus, having arrived at
Cyzicus to be present at a wedding feast, was turned out of doors
(_ibid._, ch. 26), the mistress of the house upbraiding him in these
words for the impurity of his mouth: “I would not have in my house a man
who must have a man himself!” The passage preceding the above is still
plainer and more to the point: What does the man reproach Timarchus
with, who has surprised him kneeling before a young lad (_ibid._, ch.
21), and who says farther on, “that he had seen him at work”, if this
does not apply to a _fellator_? Besides, what is the meaning of that
sore throat contracted by him in Egypt (_ibid._, ch. 27), where
according to rumour, he had been nearly suffocated by a sailor, who fell
upon him and stopped his mouth? Whence that nickname of the Cyclops
(_ibid._, ch. 28), which was given to him, because one day, when he was
lying drunk on the ground, a young man, “with an upstanding stake
exceeding well sharpened”, threw himself upon him, to force it into his
mouth, as Ulysses did with the eye of the Cyclops, “A new Cyclops, with
the mouth open at full stretch, you let him burst your cheeks.” It is
useless to add to this the passages with respect to those who repel his
kisses (ch. 23), or as to the use to which he puts his tongue (ch. 25),
for it is doubtful whether they are addressed to a _fellator_ or a
_cunnilingue_ (a licker of the vulva). That Timarchus was no stranger to
_irrumation_, seems implied (ch. 17) by the apostrophe, “Are you not all
that?” the more so as previously Lucian’s saying: “If any one sees a
cinede do or suffer the shameful act...” makes it apparent that the
active part was also one of the vices of Timarchus. Lucian could
therefore justly say of this Timarchus, that he Lesbianized and
Phœnicianized, if he wanted to imply by one of these words, “sucking”,
and by the other, “irrumating.” But it is uncertain which of these words
means “to suck”, and which “to irrumate.” But what does this matter?
There is no doubt that Lucian intended to make this distinction.
Phœnicianize might even be applied to a _cunnilingue_[63], an expression
which we shall dilate upon presently. Needless therefore in this place
to give examples of women who allowed their vulvas to be licked.
Very remarkable is a passage of Galen in book X., _De vi simplicium_, in
which he makes a distinction between Lesbianize and Phœnicianize,
demonstrating that the one is more shameful than the other:
“It is worse for an honest man to be spoken of as an eater of
excrements than as being a defiler or a cinede; and amongst the
defilers we execrate such as Phœnicianize more than those who
Lesbianize. The latter I consider to be doing what is as bad as the
habit of drinking menstrual discharge.[64]”
Galen means by this that the man who uses human excrements as medicine
is considered worse than a fellator or a cinede; that amongst the
fellators the Phœnicianists are more abominable than the Lesbianists.
There can therefore be no doubt that he designates the action of the
_fellators_ by the word Phœnicianizing, and by Lesbianizing that of the
_irrumants_. In fact, as he judges those the worst who come nearest to
the eaters of excrements, he could not detest less those who defile
their mouths by fellation than those who defile the mouths of other
people by irrumation; similarly he could not help holding in abhorrence
the _cunnilingues_ and the drinkers of menses, of whom more later on.
But the Lesbians found imitators. The inhabitants of Nola were in bad
repute amongst the Ancients in that respect; in Ausonius, _Epigr._
LXXI., Crispa, a fellatrix, is said to practice the business “with which
an unprecedented effeminacy inspired the people of Nola.” However, here
is this spirited epigram in its entirety:
“Over and above the intimate joys of legitimate love, hateful lust
has found out other foul modes of pleasure, of the sort the
loneliness of Lesbos taught Hercules’ heir, of the sort smooth
tongued Afranius in his actor’s gown displayed upon the stage, of
the sort an unprecedented effeminacy inspired the men of Nola with.
Crispa, with but one body, yet practises them all: masturbates,
fellates, works by either orifice,—dreading to die in vain before
she has tried every mode.”
To explain,—of course Crispa did not neglect to have herself entered in
the usual way; these are “the intimate joys of legitimate love.” Then
she allowed herself to be pedicated; this is the vice of Philoctetes,
the inheritor of the arrows of Hercules, as also Afranius, of whom
Quintilian says: “He excelled in the Roman comedy; a pity that he
polluted his plays with infamous masculine amours! He thus bore witness
against his own morals” (_Inst. Orat._, X., I). Further Crispa did not
fail to allow herself to be _irrumated_, this is, “the vice their
unprecedented effeminacy instilled into the men of Nola.” Lastly the
whole is recapitulated quite plainly in the last line but one; to
masturbate is the genus, while to fellate, and to work by one and the
other orifices are so many species, three altogether.
There are authors who think that the celebrated riddle of Coelius in
Quintilian: _Clytaemnestram quadrantariam, in triclinio coam, in
cubiculo nolam_ (_Instit. Orat._, VIII., 6 p. 747), refers to a woman of
the name of Nola, she being a _fellatrix_ after the fashion of the
Nolans. But I prefer the interpretation of Alciatus; he believes that
the woman in question was Clodia, the notorious sister of Clodius, and
wife of Metellus, called _Coa_, because she liked coitus on the open
triclinium, and _Nola_ because she refused the same in bed. Spalding
evinces surprise at the want of exactitude, which the word
_quadrantaria_ would have in that case. To me that appears like looking
for knots in a rush. Why should we not suppose Clodia, disgusted, like
Messalina, by the facility of her adulteries, to have been drawn into
extraordinary excesses[65] to such a point that she would no longer have
commerce with men in the dark, but only in the glare of lighted torches,
as Martial confesses in speaking of himself (XI., 104):
“You love the game in the dark, I like it by lamp-light; my delight is
to make my entry with light to see by,”—and in the presence of living
witness, that she might be seen, if not actually on her back, at any
rate going away for it or just coming back afterwards. Do you think that
indecency could not possibly go so far? What did Augustus do, whom Marc
Anthony, according to Suetonius, “reproached for having at a festival
taken the wife of a Consular from the triclinium to a bedroom, in the
presence of her husband, and afterwards conducted her back to the table
with her face all on fire and her hair in disorder?” (_Augustus_, ch.
69). And Caligula, according to the same Suetonius, “when a guest at a
wedding-feast said to Piso, who was sitting close by him: “Do not push
up so close to my wife!” and immediately after made her rise from the
table and took her away with him” (_Calig._, ch. 25). The same author,
(_Calig._, ch. 36), speaking of the most illustrious Roman ladies, tells
us that Caligula “invited them to dinner with their husbands, passing
them in review before him, he examined them with the minute attention of
a slave dealer, lifting their heads up if any of them bowed them down
with shame. As often as he felt inclined, he left the triclinium and
took the chosen fair one aside with him; then after returning to the
room with the traces of his doing still upon him, he would praise or
criticize these ladies openly, speaking of the beauties or blemishes of
their bodies, and even how often he had repeated the enjoyment.” Horace
again speaks of an adulterous woman (_Odes_, III., vi, 25-32):
“Soon she looks out for fresher adulterous pleasures, while the
husband is drunk; and does not care to whom she grants the furtive
forbidden pleasures, which with the torches extinguished, she is
ready to give and take. Nay! she does not care for her very
husband’s presence, and with his knowledge she rises to meet
whosoever may call, say a merchant, say the commander of a Spanish
ship in harbour, who buys her favours by tariff!”
Again look at the feast of the Pope, Alexander VI., whom we have already
mentioned for your profit and amusement in our _Hermaphroditus_[66].
Is this evidence enough to satisfy you as to these _Coae_ of the
triclinium? Well! it was after this fashion Clodia preferred to be had.
Alone with a solitary lover in bed and no one by, she refused
(_nolebat_); in public on the triclinium, she was willing enough for
coition (_volebat coire_). Hence the jest; she was _Coa_ and _Nola_.
Coelius might have put it still more plainly; on the triclinium she was
_Vola_, in bed _Nola_.
It was not the inhabitants of Nola only who were addicted to the Lesbian
vice, the Oscans[67] generally were considered to be very much given
that way, so much so that certain authors trace to them (the Osci), in
earlier times called the Opsci or Opici, the etymology of the word
“Obscene”, Festus, p. 553:
“In almost all the old treatises the word is written _Opicum_
instead of _Oscum_; it is from the name of this people that
shameless and impudent expressions are called obscene, because
indulgence in filthy debauchery was very common among the Oscans.”
The Ancients employed many forms of circumlocution to convey the meaning
of their filthy practices. For instance, instead of _irrumate_, they
said: to offend the mouth[68], corrupt the mouth[69], to attack the
head[70], to defy to the face[71], insult the head, not to spare the
head[72], to split open the mouth[73], gain the heights[74], mount to
loftier regions[75], compress the tongue[76], to indulge in abominable
intercourse[77], and instead of receiving the member into the mouth they
said: to lend the mouth in kind complaisance[78], work with the
mouth[79], lick men’s middle parts[80], lick simply[81], or lastly to be
silent[82]. Just as Persius has employed the word _cevere_, to wriggle
in the sense of flattering, so Catullus uses _irrumate_ as meaning to
treat ignominiously[83].
It is thus he complains of having been irrumated by Memmius XXVIII., 9,
10:
“Oh, Memmius, well and long and leisurely, laid on my back all the
length of that beam, you irrumated me.”
He had, in fact, experienced in Bithynia the meanness and avarice of
this Praetor, Memmius, who had not cared a rap for his comrades’ honour,
and who is alluded to in _Epigr._ X., 12, “Praetor and irrumator.” In
_Epigr._ XXXVII., he threatens his boon companions in debauchery, with
whom his mistress has taken refuge:
“... Do you think I dare not irrumate alone, as I stand here, two
hundred pothouse-heroes?” And he adds that he would write on the front
of the tavern the infamy of these blackguards:
“... Your names I shall chalk up all over the tavern’s front.”
Other passages of Catullus, XXI., 12, and LXXIV., 5, are also quoted to
prove the various employment of the word _irrumate_; but they do not
seem to me to bear upon the question.
The epithet _shameless_ was especially given to the man who allowed
himself to be pedicated or irrumated. _Priapeia_ LIX.:
“If you come to steal, you will return _shameless_.”
Cicero, _De Oratore_, II., 257:
“If you are _shameless_ before and behind....”
Horace, _Epistle_, I., xvi., 36:
“If he calls me a thief, he denies that I am chaste.”
Lampridius, _Commodus_, ch. 10:
“Already as a child he was a glutton and _shameless_, which is
explained by what he says in ch. 5: “He gave himself up to the
infamous abuses of young men and to their assaults”, and ch. i:
“From his tenderest age he was depraved, mischievous, cruel, a
libertine; he allowed his mouth to be soiled and defiled.”
On the other hand, a woman who had never submitted to a man, was called
_chaste_ (_Priapeia_ XXXI.):
“You are allowed to be as chaste as Vesta;” The same epithet was given
to a wife that was faithful to her husband such a one as is praised by
Martial in _Epigr._ X., 63.
“My couch is lighted by the rarest glory,—one member, one mentula
alone has known my chastity.”
To the preceding examples of _fellators_ and _fellatrices_ we will now
add, from Aloysia Sigaea’s book, that of Crisogono, who cleverly
persuades Sempronia to lend him her mouth:
“The day before yesterday (it is Ottavia speaking), Crisogono came
to see my mother in the afternoon. All was quiet and silent. He had
scarcely begun to wanton a little with her, when he became very
importunate. “Yesterday morning”, he said, “I learned a new kind of
pleasure. One of our grand personages, who had certainly tasted it,
says that there is nothing so disgusting and repulsive as those
parts of his wife which stamp her as a woman,—and he has a very
pretty wife, mind! In that sink every thing is foul, while in this
(kissing my mother on the mouth), dwells the true Venus. He
therefore abominates that illfavoured cavern, and adores that pure
mouth, that charming head. He looks to nothing else, his member
rises for nothing else. His wife is as spirited as she is beautiful,
and even more obliging. She knows no other pleasure than her
husband’s; what he thinks right she thinks proper, and abets all the
caprices of her husband; so she lends him the service of her mouth.
What would you do, Sempronia, if I asked you? If you were to refuse
I should say that you have forgotten all your promises and your
pledged faith. You know that Socrates said, the beautiful body of a
pretty woman is nothing but a living treasure chamber of
voluptuousness, the storehouse whereto men resort to find their
pleasures, whereto they direct the burning floods of their
lubricity. What matter whether you fulfil your duty through that
pure canal (kissing her mouth), or through that other (touching
below), which is infect?” He persuaded her to what she was willing
to do without persuasion. “Oh!” she said, smiling, “what an air you
want me to play, and upon what a flute, in our concert!” taking in
her hand his member, which began to rise. She seized the point of
his dart between her lips and turning her tongue around it, caused
novel transports of delight to the member that slid into its new
receptacle. But feeling that the fountains of the brine of Venus
were on the point of bursting forth, she recoiled with horror. “You
would not degrade me so far”, said my mother, “as to make me drink a
man in a liquid form?” She had scarcely spoken, when an abundant
shower fell upon her robe. He showed some anger, “How could you be
so foolish,” he cried, “as to spoil such good work!” She replied:
“Forgive me, the next time you will find me more obedient.” She kept
her word, and actually drank men in a liquid state,—a spicy thing,
for indeed the seed is spicy with salt!” (Dial. VII.)
Mancia also proved complaisant in that way to Marino; Eleanor tells it
in Aloysia Sigaea:
“My cousin, Mancia, has married a Neapolitan of the name of Marino.
Marino is burning all over with debauchery. The libertine looks for
the woman in Mancia even above the breasts; he wants her mouth, as
though the vulva of the young wife had taken refuge there, or as if
the mouth had made a bargain with the vulva to participate in the
games of Venus. I blamed her for allowing so unnatural an act. “What
would you have?” she said. “Marino’s instrument occupies my mouth,
so I cannot complain. We please our husbands only by reason of being
women. Never mind where she is taken, if a woman only proves that
she is a woman, she will please.”” (Dial. VII.)
So too Alfonso tries to engage Eleanor herself in the same fashion:
“Look you! Ottavia”, added Eleanor, “how passionately loving Alfonso
is. Some days ago, after having several times plied his javelin in
the legitimate way, he presented it to my mouth. “Your catapult, my
Alfonso”, said I, “is not made for breaching this door; you are mad,
and you want to make me the same.” “No! I would fain have you mad,
not myself; for that you love me, I owe to your madness, not to any
merits of my own. If I get delirious, I may forget the respect which
I owe you, and I would rather die than cease to live for you alone.”
These words softened my heart, and decided me to assist him in that
game. I seized his inflamed dart with a good heart between my lips.
But that was all, his member returned voluntarily to the place it
had left, and finished its exploits, which it had impudently begun
above, properly in the region of the middle.” (Dial. VII.)
Gonzalvo of Cordova was another amateur of this mode. Aloysia Sigaea:
“Gonzalvo of Cordova, a celebrated general, is said to have taken
very much to this kind of voluptuousness in his old age.” (Dial.
VII.)
The prurient ingenuity of Tiberius invented a new species of
_fellation_.
“His turpitude went still farther, to such infamous excesses, that
it is as difficult to relate them as to listen to them; they are
scarcely credible. He caused little children, of the tenderest age
to be taught to play between his legs, while he was swimming in his
bath, calling them his little fishes, to touch him lightly with
tongue and teeth, and like babies of some little strength and
growth, though not yet weaned, to suck his privates as they would
their mother’s breast. His age and his inclination predisposed him
for this sort of pleasure before all others.” (Suetonius,
_Tiberius_, ch. 44).
A representation of this ingenious libertine while tickled by what he
called his little fishes, is to be seen on plate XVIII. of the
_Monuments de la vie privée des douze Césars_.
Men advanced in age, whose member will no longer obey their will, are
more inclined to irrumate than others. To this circumstance the passage
in Martial, IV., 50, refers:
“No man is too old to irrumate.”
XI., 47:
“Gain the heights; there your old member will revive.”
And III., 75:
“Your mentula, Lupercus, has long ceased to stiffen; nevertheless,
in your folly you strive to make it rise. You are fain now to
corrupt pure lips for gold; but even so your Venus is stimulated in
vain.”
For this reason irrumators are less feared by married men. Thus Martial
dealt more lightly with Lupus, whom he had surprised while irrumating
his Polla, in the passage (X., 40) quoted previously. The husband of
Glycera, if so be that she had one, also need not have feared that
Lupercus would do duty for him, Martial, XI., 41:
“Lupercus loves the beautiful Glycera; he is her lord and master,
and he alone. He was complaining bitterly he had not loved her for a
month; Aelianus asked the reason,—he replied Glycera had the
toothache.”
Lepidinius, in the _Hermaphroditus_ (I., 13), is of opinion, that anyone
who has once irrumated can never get rid or renounce the habit. I must
leave it to experts to decide upon this. So also thinks Aloysia Sigaea:
“Such as have once tasted it, are mad after this pleasure.” (Dial. VII.)
No wonder that after fellation, the mouth has to be washed out with
water. Martial alludes to this, II., 50;
“You lend your mouth, and then drink water, Lesbia; quite
right,—where your work is, there you take water.”
_Priapeia_, XXX., says:
“Walk in the vineyards, and if you steal any of the grapes, you
shall have water, stranger, to take in another way.”
Priapus means: “You came to get water to drink; but if you pluck any
grapes, I shall irrumate you, and then you will want water to rinse your
mouth rather than to drink.” Martial says as much to Chioné in _Epigram_
III., 87, quoted before.
To ask for the loan of the mouth is to demand a thing much more shameful
than the other two orifices. Martial, IX., 68:
“All the night long I possessed a lewd young girl; I never knew
anyone more naughty. Tired of a thousand postures, I asked for the
puerile service; before I had done asking, she turned at once in
compliance. Laughing and blushing, I asked something worse than
that,—the wanton consented instantly”[84].
Those that found themselves thus situated took good care not to be
surprised; Martial, XI., 46:
“When you have crossed the threshold of a chamber with name on
signboard, whether it be boy or girl that smiled on you in welcome,
doors and hangings and locks do not content you, and you want to be
yet more certain you are not watched. Mystery is what you want; you
look suspiciously on the smallest crack in the door and stop it; the
same with the tiniest pinhole made by some inquisitive hand. Nobody
can be more modest or circumspect in his doings, Cantharus, than the
man who wants to pedicate or copulate.”
However, the old Romans did not blush to irrumate, as is evident by the
use Catullus makes of that word, contemptuous though it be. What they
_were_ ashamed of was _fellation_. Indeed there is a certain bold
audacity in playing the active part, but none in the passive one,
particularly when the mouth, the noblest organ of the body, has to
perform such vile offices. Add to this that a fetid breath was acquired
by this habit, which _fellators_ took every means to hide, afraid of
putting to flight fellow-guests at table and acquaintances who should
greet them with a kiss in the street.
_Fellators_ were so repugnant to the guests at table, that no cups[85]
were offered to them, or when they had been offered, they were
afterwards broken[86], and that it was only with the greatest
unwillingness any one would kiss their mouth[87], when presented for
salute. Thus it was preferable to be taken for a _cinede_ to being taken
for a _fellator_[88], like Phœbus in Martial, III., 73:
“You sleep with youths whose members are full size, and what rises
with them, will not rise with you. Pray, Phœbus, tell me, what must
I suspect? If I could think that you were but effeminate! But rumour
says, you are not a _cinede_!”
The case of Callistratus, in XII., 35 of our author, is a similar one:
“You are very frank, Callistratus, with me, and you tell me that
they often do it to you. You are not quite so simple, as you would
appear; the man that tells such things does not tell of others
worse.[89]”
For the same reason, as Charidemus will not be called a _patient_, and
shows his legs and chest covered with hair. Martial tells him (VI., 56),
to arrange himself in such a way as to appear a minion rather than a
_fellator_:
“Because your legs are covered with bristles, your chest with hair,
you think, Charidemus, to hand down your words to posterity; take my
advice, and pluck the hair from all over your body, and get it
certified you depilate your buttocks. Why so? you ask.—You know the
world tells many tales; try to make them believe you are merely
pedicated.”
_Fellation_, as was but fair, received payment, and high payment.
Martial, XI., 67 shows this:
“Informer you are and blackmailer, swindler and trickster,
_fellator_ and bully. The wonder is you have no money.”
And again, III., 75:
“Your member, Lupercus, has long ceased to stiffen; nevertheless in
your folly, you strive to make it rise. Of no avail is cole-wort or
salacious onions, of no use to you the provocative savory. You are
fain now to corrupt pure lips for gold; but even so your Venus is
stimulated in vain. But,—a thing to be marvelled at and scarce
believed,—what will not rise, Lupercus, does rise if you pay a heavy
fee.”
But when on the subject of fellation, we must not pass over in silence
the raven, whom our standing authority (Martial, XIV., 74), calls a
_fellator_:
“Saluting raven[90], why do they call thee _fellator_? Never a
mentula entered your beak.”
The fact is ignorant people believed the raven fulfilled the coitus with
his beak:
Pliny says: “The vulgar herd believes that it operates the coitus and
procreates with its beak. Aristotle denied this, saying that ravens
merely exchange kisses in the same way, familiar to everybody, that
pigeons do.” (_Natural History_, X., 12.)
Erasmus denies in his _Adagia_, under the word _Lesbiari_ (p. 409 of the
Frankfort edition, 1670), that in his time the obscene practice of
irrumation was still known:
“A**** (to lick), if I am not mistaken, is with the Greeks the same
thing as _fellare_ with the Latins. The word indeed remains; but the
thing itself has been, I think, long done away with.”
I fear this is not really the case. At any rate I am informed that this
practice is not entirely opposed to the habits of libertines of the
present day; those must decide whose opportunities take them to great
cities. Plate XXI., in the _Monuments de la vie privée des douze Césars_
represents a _fellator_. However the graceful picture in question really
belongs more properly to the category of “spintrian postures”, of which
more anon, than to the present chapter.
FOOTNOTES - OF IRRUMATION
-----
Footnote 60:
You see we follow the same general order as in the _Priapeia_, VII.
“_I_ warn you, boy, I mean to pedicate you; with you, my girl, I
will copulate. The _third_ penalty is kept for the bearded
ruffian.”
Footnote 61:
Eustathius, p. 741, is very ambiguous: “Lesbianize,—to commit a
shameful action.”
Footnote 62:
I do not quite know whether the following passage from the
_Thesmophoriazusae_ (915-917) refers to this or no:
“Now, unhappy girl, you long for pleasure after the Ionian mode.
Besides I think you are a Labda, as is the way of the Lesbians.”
A fellatrix seems to have borne the name of Labda, by reason of the
first letter of the word Lesbianize: but the passage stands quite
isolated, for in that of Varro, preserved by Nonius, and referring to
the annotation of Scaliger on the _Priapeia_ LXXVIII., where we find:
“Depsistis, decite. Labdae.”
The reading is doubtful, and the sense not clear. The verse of
Ausonius, _Epigr._ 128:
“When he puts his tongue in, then he is a Labda,” has nothing to
do with this question, as we shall show later on.
Footnote 63:
I do not know whether the nickname of Rododaphné (rose-laurel), given
to Timarchus in Syria (_ibid._, ch. 27), does not mean _cunnilingue_,
as by rose is understood the female parts, while the laurel leafs
means the licking tongue. This surname had no doubt for Lucian an
obscene sense which he would not disclose: “In Syria they call you
Rododaphné, why? I should blush to say it.”
Footnote 64:
Here is the preceding sentence, “which will better elucidate Galen’s
meaning: To drink sweat, urine or menses is an abominable and
detestable practice; human excrements still more so, in spite of what
Xenocrates has written about their beneficial action when applied in
lieu of ointment about the mouth or throat, or when swallowed. He has
also spoken of the absorption through the mouth of ear-wax. I myself
could not make up my mind to eat of them, though it were to cure my
sickness right off. Of all abominable things the most abominable, I
think, are human excrements.”
Footnote 65:
Tacitus, _Annals_, XI., 26.
Footnote 66:
We will here reproduce the curious passage of Jean Burchard, to whom
we owe this story. It is taken from his _Diarium_, edited by Leibnitz,
in 1696, p. 77:
“On the last Sunday in October the Duke of Valentinois had invited
to supper in his chamber” (the chamber of Alexander VI), “in the
Apostolical palace, fifty beautiful prostitutes, called
courtesans, who, after supper danced with the valets and other
persons present, first in their clothes, and then naked. After
this the table, chandeliers were placed on the floor here and
there, with lighted candles, and chestnuts were thrown about,
which the courtesans collected moving on their hands and knees
quite naked among the chandeliers, the Pope, the Duke and his
sister Lucrezia being present and looking on. Finally presents
were brought in: silk mantles, pairs of shoes, head-dresses, and
other objects, to be given to those who had copulated with the
greatest number of these courtesans: they were publicly enjoyed in
the room there, the lookers-on acting as umpires, and awarding the
prizes to the victors.”
Footnote 67:
Nola was a city in the territory of the Campanians. It is for this
reason that the _Campanian malady_, mentioned by Horace (_Sat. I._,
V., 62), has been connected with debauchery, but without sufficient
reason.
Footnote 68:
Varro, is his _Marcipor_, according to Nonius: “He introduced
afterwards into his gullet the virile verge: he offends the mouth of
Volumnus.”
Footnote 69:
Martial, III., 75:
“You make it your work to corrupt pure lips for gold.”
And Again II., 28:
“Not even Vetustilla’s warm mouth give you more pleasure.”
Footnote 70:
“How accustomed he was to assault the heads of the most illustrious
women, is plainly evidenced by the adventure of Mallonia, who,
debauched by him, refused to submit to him again. He caused her to be
accused by his informers, and kept asking her during her trial,
whether she had anything to reproach herself with. Without waiting for
the verdict, she ran home and transfixed herself with a poniard,
upbraiding loudly the foul, hairy dotard for having wanted to abuse
her mouth.” (Suetonius, _Tiberius_, ch. 45).
Footnote 71:
He was so glad to have won Transalpine Gaul that he could not help
announcing some days after in the Senate, that he had reached the
fulfillment of his wishes, in spite of the hatred and malice of his
enemies, and that he defied them to their face. Somebody having said
to him offensively that this could not so easily be done with a woman,
he replied jokingly, that Semiramis had gained a kingdom, and the
Amazons had occupied a great part of Asia (Suetonius, _Caesar_, ch.
22). Caesar employed the expression: “defying to the face” in the
honest sense, while his adversary invested it with an obscene
signification, in allusion to his infamous acts in Bithynia.
Footnote 72:
I speak of those whose abominable lasciviousness and execrable lust do
not even spare the head. (Lactantius, _Instit. Div._ VI., 23.)
Similarly Juvenal, VI., v. 299, 300:
“For what cares the drunken Venus? She knows not the difference
between groin and head.”
Footnote 73:
Martial, II., 72:
“They say Posthumus, that they did to you last night, at supper,
what I would not have let them do;—who could approve such doings?
They split your mouth! ...”
Then playing upon the words rumour and irrumate he adds:
“... As the author of this crime, the town’s rumour designates
Caecilius.”
And again III., 73, _ibid._:
“Rumour denies you are a Cinede.”
III., 80:
“Rumour says, you have an evil tongue.”
And III., 87:
“Rumour says, Chioné, that your vulva is intact, that nothing
could be purer than it. Yet you bathe without covering the thing
that should be covered; if you have any shame, then put your
drawers upon your face.”
_Percidere_ employed alone means to pedicate. _Martial_ IV., 48; VII.,
61; IX., 48; XI., 29; XII., 35; and _Priapeia_, XII., XIV. Some copies
have _praecidere_ for _percidere_, but this seems to be an untenable
reading.
Footnote 74:
_Martial_, XI., 47:
“Why do you plague in vain unhappy vulvas and posteriors; gain but
the heights, for there any old member revives.”
_Priapeia_ LXXV.:
“Through the middle of boys and girls travels the member; when it
meets bearded chins then it aspires to the heights.”
Footnote 75:
_Priapeia_ XXVII.:
“A footlong amulet will pedicate you; if that will not cure you, I
go higher.”
Footnote 76:
Plautus, in the _Amphytrion_, I sc. 1, 192:
“I shall compress to-day the wicked tongue.”
The Latins employed the verb “compress” for _irrumate_, as if it were
a form of fornication; and similarly “split open”, as if it were a
form of pedication.
Footnote 77:
Plutarch: “It is reported that in the night before the passing of the
Rubicon, Caesar had a frightful dream; he dreamt that he was indulging
in abominable intercourse with his mother.” (_Lives_, _Julius Cæsar_,
XXXII.) Hesychius’ interpretation refers to this:—to perform
abominable acts.”
Footnote 78:
Suetonius: “A picture of Parrhasius, representing Atalanta in the act
of complacently lending her mouth to Meleager was bequeathed to him
with the alternative that he might have a million sesterces instead,
if the subject offended him. He not only preferred the picture, but
had it solemnly hung in his bedroom.” (_Tiberius_, ch. 44.)
Footnote 79:
Horace, _Epode_ VIII., 17-20:
“The member of the uneducated is it less rigid? does it not long,
like those of lettered men? To make it stand superbly from the
groin, you need but to work it with your mouth.”
Footnote 80:
Martial, II., 62:
“A doubtful down did scarcely deck your cheek, when your tongue
already licked men’s middle parts.” The same III., 81:
“Baeticus, you, a Gaul, what have you to do with the female pit?
that tongue of yours should lick men’s middles.”
Ausonius, _Epigr._ CXX:
“When Castor longed in vain to lick men’s middles, but could take
no one home with him, he found means not to lose all pleasure of
the sort, fellator as he was; he started to lick his own wife’s
organs.” In other words from being a _fellator_ Castor became a
_cunnilingue_.
Footnote 81:
Martial, III., 88:
“They are twin brothers, but they suck different teats: tell me
are they more unlike or like?”
The one was a _fellator_, the other a _cunnilingue_.
Again, VII., 54:
“You shall suck not mine, which is honest and small, but a member
escaped from the fire of Solyma’s city and condemned to tribute.”
I do not know whence Scioppius (_Priap._ X), has it, that Martial was
well furnished; the latter avows in that passage, that his mentula was
quite small. To affront Chrestus, he orders him to lick, not his, but
the mentula of a Jewish slave. He has mentioned this Jewish slave
already in _Epigr._ 34 of the same book:
“My slave carries a heavy Jewish parcel without skin to cover it.”
That means his member is circumcized, the gland being uncovered,
without prepuce, in one word, “recutitus.” So, I think, is to be
understood the _recutitorum inguine virorum_ of Martial, VII., 29: he
means, “the virile parts of circumcized men,” the skin of whose glands
is drawn back. _Recutitus_ stands for _recinctus_, _regelatus_,
_reseratus_. Many other words, _e.g._ revincire, similarly admit of
two meanings, and thus, no doubt should arise about Martial’s
expression: _recutita colla mulae_ (IX., 58), which refers to the
mules having a new skin covering their necks. I differ from those who
think that those were called _recutiti_ whose prepuce began to grow
again; a _recutitus_ was to the Romans an object of contempt.
Petronius: “He has two faults, else he would be like any other man
_recutitus est et sertit_. He is circumcized and snores” (_Satyr._,
ch. 28). It is impossible to suppose the _glans_ could have been
thought more disgusting covered by a new prepuce than with none at
all.
Footnote 82:
A man that is being irrumated cannot speak, his mouth being obstructed
by the mentula, thus: he is silent. Martial, III., 96 says to
Gargilius, a _cunnilingue_, menacing him with the third punishment, if
he should catch him in the fact:
“If I should catch thee at it, Gargilius, I’ll make thee silent.”
Married men were in the habit of pedicating beardless adults, and of
irrumating the bearded ones. For which reason Martial warns Gallus
(II., 47) to shun the seductions of a famous rakish lady, as he was
running the risk, if taken by the husband in flagrante delicto, of
being irrumated by him:
“Your buttocks you rely on? But the husband is no pederast; he
likes but two ways, either mouth or vulva.”
And for the same reason he consents to _marry_ Thelesina (II., 49):
“No Thelesina for me as my wife! Why?—She is a prostitute. Nay!
but she pays young lads. Then I consent.”
Then there is a complaint for having been deceived with respect to the
lover of Polla, his mistress (X., 40):
“Constantly was I told that my Polla was on intimate terms with an
unknown cinede. Well, I surprise them, Lupus; no cinede was he.”
Instead of a lad, whom he would have pedicated, he finds a cool,
experienced gallant, not at all likely to expiate his crime by means
of his buttocks. Martial might, however, have punished him more
cruelly by forcing into his fundament, either a mullet (Juvenal, X.,
317):
“There are adulterers whom the mullet pierces”; or a radish. “In
Armenia, taken in the act of adultery, he ran away plugged with a
radish in his posteriors.” (Lucian, _De Morte Peregrini_,—Works, vol.
VII., p. 425.) Catullus XV., 18, 19:
“Drawing your feet asunder, your postern wide open, they will
insert into you radish and mullet.”
Martial also has used the expression of _being silent_, in the above
stated sense but, somewhat more obscurely, IX., 5:
“If in two apertures you can work, Galla, and can do more than
double work in both, why, Aeschylus, does she get tenfold pay? She
fellates, but that is not a matter of such price surely. Nay! it
is because she must be silent!”
It is not her infamy that Galla sells so dear; it is the inconvenience
of having to be silent during the process, which, for a prattler, “is
a very serious matter,” as Martial says, IV., 81. Book XII., _Epigr._
35, quoted later on, also refers to this.
Footnote 83:
It is the same with the word _stuprum_. Festus: The ancients employed
the word stuprum for turpitude, as appears in the Song of Neleus.
“Foede stupreque castigor cotidie.” (I am foully and disgracefully
beaten every day.)
Naevius: “They would rather die than return to their co-citizens _cum
stupro_.”
Footnote 84:
First the rogue lends her vulva, then her buttocks, and lastly her
mouth. Some suppose the full-bosomed Spatalé of Martial, II., 52 was
just as prodigal:
“Dasius was astute at counting the bathers; he asked full-bosomed
Spatalé the fee of three women, and she paid.”
But I believe they wrong the good Spatalé. Dasius, the bathing man,
wanted only that Spatalé, whose charms were ample and buxom, she
taking up as much room as three other women, should pay for three.
The Phyllis of Martial, XII., 65, showed herself liberal in every way:
“The beautiful Phyllis, who throughout the whole night had proved
herself right liberal in every way....”
From this you will understand what Martial means by “refusing nothing”
(XI., 50):
“I will not deny you anything, Phyllis; for you deny me nothing.”
And similarly, IV. 12:
“You refuse no one, Thaïs. If you know no shame for this, blush at
least that you refuse nothing, Thaïs!”
And again, XII., 72:
“There is nothing, Lygdus, that you do not now deny me; there was
a time when there was nothing you did deny!”
And he says (XII., 81) right out:
“Whoso refuses nothing, Atticilla, sucks.”
It is in this sense that Mallonia refused to be entirely at the mercy
of Tiberius; she had already admitted him to her vulva and anus, but
when it came to the mouth the poor girl could not overcome her
disgust. We have before quoted the passage of Suetonius. Of a woman
who refuses nothing, Arnobius (II., 42) says: “That she is ready to
undergo anything,” and of a woman that is drunk, “so much so as not to
able to refuse anything.” Ovid says (_Art of Love_, III., v. 766):
“She is meet to undergo all kinds of assaults.”
Footnote 85:
Martial, II., 15:
“You do not offer your cup to any man; it is discretion, Hermus,
forbids, not pride.”
And VI., 44:
“No one, Calliodorus may drink from your cup.”
Seneca: When Caius Caesar accepted sums of money for the expense of
the games from friends who brought them to him, he refused to take a
large amount from Fabius Persicus. His friends not looking at the
character of the sender, but at the value of the sum sent, reproached
him for having refused. “What!” said he, “am I to accept the service
of a man from whose cup I should decline to drink?” (_De Beneficiis_,
II., 21.) Fabius Persicus was a _fellator_ not a _cunnilingue_; this
is apparent from the controversy in which Seneca engaged about him,
viz: what a prisoner should do whom a man promised to buy off, at the
price of having his body prostituted, and his mouth sullied.
Footnote 86:
Martial, XII., 75:
“It is no little matter, Flaccus if you drink with them; and then
have to break the cup they touched.”
And Macedonius in the _Analecta_ of Brunck, III., 116:
“There drank a woman with me yesterday, whose fame is anything but
good;—go break the cups, my lads!”
Footnote 87:
Martial, XI., 96:
“Every time you happen to meet a _fellator’s_ kisses, I can fancy,
O Flaccus, how you plunge your head in water.”
And I., 95:
“You sung but badly, Agelé, when you were loved _per vulvam_. Now
no one kisses you, and you sing well.”
And I., 84:
“Your lap-dog, Manneia, licks your mouth and lips I am not a bit
surprised; dogs like dirt.”
Seneca: “And mark! he made that Fabius Persicus, whose kisses are
shunned even by people who know no shame, a priest only the other
day.” (_De Beneficiis_, IV., 30.)
Footnote 88:
It appears from Martial’s _Epigram_ (XI., 99), that the kiss on the
mouth was the regular thing with the Romans; _fellators_, therefore,
could not be surprised at their kisses being avoided. The poet of
Bilbilis makes yet another mock at their expense (II., 42):
“Zoilus, why spoil the bath by bathing your bottom in it? If you
would make it still dirtier, plunge your head in.”
And VI., 81:
“You bathe, Charidemus, as though you had a grudge against
mankind, entirely submerging in the bath your privates. I should
not like you to wash your head that way, Charidemus; and now look!
you are washing your head. I had rather it were your privates!”
Footnote 89:
In the last verse there are two furtive stings; the first is about not
telling (_tacet_,—is silent), an expression, which was used as
denoting a _fellator_; the second is the word “tell,” (_narrat_), the
honourable use of the mouth being put for the dishonourable, as in
Epistle III., 84:
“What tells (_narrat_) your harlot.—No! I don’t mean your girl,
Tongilion!—What then?—Your tongue!”
Footnote 90:
You will find in Macrobius (_Saturnalia_, II., 4), why he was called
saluting. Augustus returned as victor from Actium; amongst those who
came to congratulate him was a man holding a raven, which he had
taught to cry: “I salute thee, Caesar Victor and Emperor!” Caesar,
admiring this flattering bird, bought it for 20,000 sesterces.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MANUAL
_OF CLASSICAL EROTOLOGY_
SECOND VOLUME
------------------------------------------------------------------------