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diff --git a/old/pas6w10.txt b/old/pas6w10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b17efef --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pas6w10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2445 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, v6 +#6 in our series by Petronius Arbiter (Translated by Firebaugh) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Satyricon, v6 (Editor's Notes) + +Author: Petronius Arbiter + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5223] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 8, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATYRICON OF PETRONIUS, V6 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + + THE SATYRICON OF + PETRONIUS ARBITER + + Complete and unexpurgated translation by W. C. Firebaugh, + in which are incorporated the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena, + and the readings introduced into the text by De Salas. + + + + NOTES + + +PROSTITUTION. + +There are two basic instincts in the character of the normal individual; +the will to live, and the will to propagate the species. It is from the +interplay of these instincts that prostitution took origin, and it is for +this reason that this profession is the oldest in human experience, the +first offspring, as it were, of savagery and of civilization. When Fate +turns the leaves of the book of universal history, she enters, upon the +page devoted thereto, the record of the birth of each nation in its +chronological order, and under this record appears the scarlet entry to +confront the future historian and arrest his unwilling attention; the +only entry which time and even oblivion can never efface. + +If, prior to the time of Augustus Caesar, the Romans had laws designed to +control the social evil, we have no knowledge of them, but there is +nevertheless no lack of evidence to prove that it was only too well known +among them long before that happy age (Livy i, 4; ii, 18); and the +peculiar story of the Bacchanalian cult which was brought to Rome by +foreigners about the second century B.C. (Livy xxxix, 9-17), and the +comedies of Plautus and Terence, in which the pandar and the harlot are +familiar characters. Cicero, Pro Coelio, chap. xx, says: "If there is +anyone who holds the opinion that young men should be interdicted from +intrigues with the women of the town, he is indeed austere! That, +ethically, he is in the right, I cannot deny: but nevertheless, he is at +loggerheads not only with the licence of the present age, but even with +the habits of our ancestors and what they permitted themselves. For when +was this NOT done? When was it rebuked? When found fault with?" The +Floralia, first introduced about 238 B.C., had a powerful influence in +giving impetus to the spread of prostitution. The account of the origin +of this festival, given by Lactantius, while no credence is to be placed +in it, is very interesting. "When Flora, through the practice of +prostitution, had come into great wealth, she made the people her heir, +and bequeathed a certain fund, the income of which was to be used to +celebrate her birthday by the exhibition of the games they call the +Floralia" (Instit. Divin. xx, 6). In chapter x of the same book, he +describes the manner in which they were celebrated: "They were solemnized +with every form of licentiousness. For in addition to the freedom of +speech that pours forth every obscenity, the prostitutes, at the +importunities of the rabble, strip off their clothing and act as mimes in +full view of the crowd, and this they continue until full satiety comes +to the shameless lookers-on, holding their attention with their wriggling +buttocks." Cato, the censor, objected to the latter part of this +spectacle, but, with all his influence, he was never able to abolish it; +the best be could do was to have the spectacle put off until he had left +the theatre. Within 40 years after the introduction of this festival, +P. Scipio Africanus, in his speech in defense of Tib. Asellus, said: "If +you elect to defend your profligacy, well and good. But as a matter of +fact, you have lavished, on one harlot, more money than the total value, +as declared by you to the Census Commissioners, of all the plenishing of +your Sabine farm; if you deny my assertion I ask who dare wager 1,000 +sesterces on its untruth? You have squandered more than a third of the +property you inherited from your father and dissipated it in debauchery" +(Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, vii, 11). It was about this time that +the Oppian law came up for repeal. The stipulations of this law were as +follows: No woman should have in her dress above half an ounce of gold, +nor wear a garment of different colors, nor ride in a carriage in the +city or in any town, or within a mile of it, unless upon occasion of a +public sacrifice. This sumptuary law was passed during the public +distress consequent upon Hannibal's invasion of Italy. It was repealed +eighteen years afterward, upon petition of the Roman ladies, though +strenuously opposed by Cato (Livy 34, 1; Tacitus, Annales, 3, 33). The +increase of wealth among the Romans, the spoils wrung from their victims +as a portion of the price of defeat, the contact of the legions with the +softer, more civilized, more sensuous races of Greece and Asia Minor, +laid the foundations upon which the social evil was to rise above the +city of the seven hills, and finally crush her. In the character of the +Roman there was but little of tenderness. The well-being of the state +caused him his keenest anxiety. One of the laws of the twelve tables, +the "Coelebes Prohibito," compelled the citizen of manly vigor to satisfy +the promptings of nature in the arms of a lawful wife, and the tax on +bachelors is as ancient as the times of Furius Camillus. "There was an +ancient law among the Romans," says Dion Cassius, lib. xliii, "which +forbade bachelors, after the age of twenty-five, to enjoy equal political +rights with married men. The old Romans had passed this law in hope +that, in this way, the city of Rome, and the Provinces of the Roman +Empire as well, might be insured an abundant population." The increase, +under the Emperors, of the number of laws dealing with sex is an accurate +mirror of conditions as they altered and grew worse. The "Jus Trium +Librorum," under the empire, a privilege enjoyed by those who had three +legitimate children, consisting, as it did, of permission to fill +a public office before the twenty-fifth year of one's age, and in +freedom from personal burdens, must have had its origin in the grave +apprehensions for the future, felt by those in power. The fact that this +right was sometimes conferred upon those who were not legally entitled +to benefit by it, makes no difference in this inference. Scions of +patrician families imbibed their lessons from the skilled voluptuaries +of Greece and the Levant and in their intrigues with the wantons of those +climes, they learned to lavish wealth as a fine art. Upon their return +to Rome they were but ill-pleased with the standard of entertainment +offered by the ruder and less sophisticated native talent; they imported +Greek and Syrian mistresses. 'Wealth increased, its message sped in +every direction, and the corruption of the world was drawn into Italy as +by a load-stone. The Roman matron had learned how to be a mother, the +lesson of love was an unopened book; and, when the foreign hetairai +poured into the city, and the struggle for supremacy began, she soon +became aware of the disadvantage under which she contended. Her natural +haughtiness had caused her to lose valuable time; pride, and finally +desperation drove her to attempt to outdo her foreign rivals; her native +modesty became a thing of the past, her Roman initiative, unadorned by +sophistication, was often but too successful in outdoing the Greek and +Syrian wantons, but without the appearance of refinement which they +always contrived to give to every caress of passion or avarice. They +wooed fortune with an abandon that soon made them the objects of contempt +in the eyes of their lords and masters. "She is chaste whom no man has +solicited," said Ovid (Amor. i, 8, line 43). Martial, writing about +ninety years later says: "Sophronius Rufus, long have I been searching +the city through to find if there is ever a maid to say 'No'; there is +not one." (Ep. iv, 71.) In point of time, a century separates Ovid and +Martial; from a moral standpoint, they are as far apart as the poles. +The revenge, then, taken by Asia, gives a startling insight into the real +meaning of Kipling's poem, "The female of the species is more deadly than +the male." In Livy (xxxiv, 4) we read: (Cato is speaking), "All these +changes, as day by day the fortune of the state is higher and more +prosperous and her empire grows greater, and our conquests extend over +Greece and Asia, lands replete with every allurement of the senses, and +we appropriate treasures that may well be called royal,--all this I dread +the more from my fear that such high fortune may rather master us, than +we master it." Within twelve years of the time when this speech was +delivered, we read in the same author (xxxix, 6), "for the beginnings of +foreign luxury were brought into the city by the Asiatic army"; and +Juvenal (Sat. iii, 6), "Quirites, I cannot bear to see Rome a Greek city, +yet how small a fraction of the whole corruption is found in these dregs +of Achaea? Long since has the Syrian Orontes flowed into the Tiber and +brought along with it the Syrian tongue and manners and cross-stringed +harp and harper and exotic timbrels and girls bidden stand for hire at +the circus." Still, from the facts which have come down to us, we cannot +arrive at any definite date at which houses of ill fame and women of the +town came into vogue at Rome. That they had long been under police +regulation, and compelled to register with the aedile, is evident from a +passage in Tacitus: "for Visitilia, born of a family of praetorian rank, +had publicly notified before the aediles, a permit for fornication, +according to the usage that prevailed among our fathers, who supposed +that sufficient punishment for unchaste women resided in the very nature +of their calling." No penalty attached to illicit intercourse or to +prostitution in general, and the reason appears in the passage from +Tacitus, quoted above. In the case of married women, however, who +contravened the marriage vow there were several penalties. Among them, +one was of exceptional severity, and was not repealed until the time of +Theodosius: "again he repealed another regulation of the following +nature; if any should have been detected in adultery, by this plan she +was not in any way reformed, but rather utterly given over to an increase +of her ill behaviour. They used to shut the woman up in a narrow room, +admitting any that would commit fornication with her, and, at the moment +when they were accomplishing their foul deed, to strike bells, that the +sound might make known to all, the injury she was suffering. The Emperor +hearing this, would suffer it no longer, but ordered the very rooms to be +pulled down" (Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Miscel. xiii, 2). Rent from a +brothel was a legitimate source of income (Ulpian, Law as to Female +Slaves Making Claim to Heirship). Procuration also, had to be notified +before the aedile, whose special business it was to see that no Roman +matron became a prostitute. These aediles had authority to search every +place which had reason to fear anything, but they themselves dared not +engage in any immorality there; Aulus Gellius, Noct. Attic. iv, 14, +where an action at law is cited, in which the aedile Hostilius had +attempted to force his way into the apartments of Mamilia, a courtesan, +who thereupon, had driven him away with stones. The result of the trial +is as follows: "the tribunes gave as their decision that the aedile had +been lawfully driven from that place, as being one that he ought not to +have visited with his officer." If we compare this passage with Livy, +xl, 35, we find that this took place in the year 180 B C. Caligula +inaugurated a tax upon prostitutes (vectigal ex capturis), as a state +impost: "he levied new and hitherto unheard of taxes; a proportion of the +fees of prostitutes;--so much as each earned with one man. A clause was +also added to the law directing that women who had practiced harlotry and +men who had practiced procuration should be rated publicly; and +furthermore, that marriages should be liable to the rate" (Suetonius, +Calig. xi). Alexander Severus retained this law, but directed that such +revenue be used for the upkeep of the public buildings, that it might not +contaminate the state treasure (Lamprid. Alex. Severus, chap. 24). This +infamous tax was not abolished until the time of Theodosius, but the real +credit is due to a wealthy patrician, Florentius by name, who strongly +censured this practice, to the Emperor, and offered his own property to +make good the deficit which would appear upon its abrogation (Gibbon, +vol. 2, p. 318, note). With the regulations and arrangements of the +brothels, however, we have information which is far more accurate. These +houses (lupanaria, fornices, et cet.) were situated, for the most part, +in the Second District of the City (Adler, Description of the City of +Rome, pp. 144 et seq.), the Coelimontana, particularly in the Suburra +that bordered the town walls, lying in the Carinae,--the valley between +the Coelian and Esquiline Hills. The Great Market (Macellum Magnum) was +in this district, and many cook-shops, stalls, barber shops, et cet. as +well; the office of the public executioner, the barracks for foreign +soldiers quartered at Rome; this district was one of the busiest and most +densely populated in the entire city. Such conditions would naturally be +ideal for the owner of a house of ill fame, or for a pandar. The regular +brothels are described as having been exceedingly dirty, smelling of the +gas generated by the flame of the smoking lamp, and of the other odors +which always haunted these ill ventilated dens. Horace, Sat. i, 2, 30, +"on the other hand, another will have none at all except she be standing +in the evil smelling cell (of the brothel)"; Petronius, chap. xxii, "worn +out by all his troubles, Ascyltos commenced to nod, and the maid, whom he +had slighted, and, of course, insulted, smeared lamp-black all over his +face"; Priapeia, xiii, 9, "whoever likes may enter here, smeared with the +black soot of the brothel"; Seneca, Cont. i, 2, "you reek still of the +soot of the brothel." The more pretentious establishments of the Peace +ward, however, were sumptuously fitted up. Hair dressers were in +attendance to repair the ravages wrought in the toilette, by frequent +amorous conflicts, and aquarioli, or water boys attended at the door with +bidets for ablution. Pimps sought custom for these houses and there was +a good understanding between the parasites and the prostitutes. From the +very nature of their calling, they were the friends and companions of +courtesans. Such characters could not but be mutually necessary to each +other. The harlot solicited the acquaintance of the client or parasite, +that she might the more easily obtain and carry on intrigues with the +rich and dissipated. The parasite was assiduous in his attention to the +courtesan, as procuring through her means, more easy access to his +patrons, and was probably rewarded by them both, for the gratification +which he obtained for the vices of the one and the avarice of the other. +The licensed houses seem to have been of two kinds: those owned and +managed by a pandar, and those in which the latter was merely an agent, +renting rooms and doing everything in his power to supply his renters +with custom. The former were probably the more respectable. In these +pretentious houses, the owner kept a secretary, villicus puellarum, or +superintendent of maids; this official assigned a girl her name, fixed +the price to be demanded for her favors, received the money and provided +clothing and other necessities: "you stood with the harlots, you stood +decked out to please the public, wearing the costume the pimp had +furnished you"; Seneca, Controv. i, 2. Not until this traffic had become +profitable, did procurers and procuresses (for women also carried on this +trade) actually keep girls whom they bought as slaves: "naked she stood +on the shore, at the pleasure of the purchaser; every part of her body +was examined and felt. Would you hear the result of the sale? The +pirate sold; the pandar bought, that he might employ her as a +prostitute"; Seneca, Controv. lib. i, 2. It was also the duty of the +villicus, or cashier, to keep an account of what each girl earned: "give +me the brothel-keeper's accounts, the fee will suit" (Ibid.) + +When an applicant registered with the aedile, she gave her correct name, +her age, place of birth, and the pseudonym under which she intended +practicing her calling. (Plautus, Poen.) + +If the girl was young and apparently respectable, the official sought to +influence her to change her mind; failing in this, he issued her a +license (licentia stupri), ascertained the price she intended exacting +for her favors, and entered her name in his roll. Once entered there, +the name could never be removed, but must remain for all time an +insurmountable bar to repentance and respectability. Failure to register +was severely punished upon conviction, and this applied not only to the +girl but to the pandar as well. The penalty was scourging, and +frequently fine and exile. Notwithstanding this, however, the number +of clandestine prostitutes at Rome was probably equal to that of the +registered harlots. As the relations of these unregistered women were, +for the most part, with politicians and prominent citizens it was very +difficult to deal with them effectively: they were protected by their +customers, and they set a price upon their favors which was commensurate +with the jeopardy in which they always stood. The cells opened upon a +court or portico in the pretentious establishments, and this court was +used as a sort of reception room where the visitors waited with covered +head, until the artist whose ministrations were particularly desired, +as she would of course be familiar with their preferences in matters of +entertainment, was free to receive them. The houses were easily found by +the stranger, as an appropriate emblem appeared over the door. This +emblem of Priapus was generally a carved figure, in wood or stone, and +was frequently painted to resemble nature more closely. The size ranged +from a few inches in length to about two feet. Numbers of these +beginnings in advertising have been recovered from Pompeii and +Herculaneum, and in one case an entire establishment, even to the +instruments used in gratifying unnatural lusts, was recovered intact. +In praise of our modern standards of morality, it should be said that it +required some study and thought to penetrate the secret of the proper use +of several of these instruments. The collection is still to be seen in +the Secret Museum at Naples. The mural decoration was also in proper +keeping with the object for which the house was maintained, and a few +examples of this decoration have been preserved to modern times; their +luster and infamous appeal undimmed by the passage of centuries. + +Over the door of each cell was a tablet (titulus) upon which was the name +of the occupant and her price; the reverse bore the word "occupata" and +when the inmate was engaged the tablet was turned so that this word was +out. This custom is still observed in Spain and Italy. Plautus, Asin. +iv, i, 9, speaks of a less pretentious house when he says: "let her write +on the door that she is 'occupata.'" The cell usually contained a lamp +of bronze or, in the lower dens, of clay, a pallet or cot of some sort, +over which was spread a blanket or patch-work quilt, this latter being +sometimes employed as a curtain, Petronius, chap 7. + +The arches under the circus were a favorite location for prostitutes; +ladies of easy virtue were ardent frequenters of the games of the circus +and were always ready at hand to satisfy the inclinations which the +spectacles aroused. These arcade dens were called "fornices," from which +comes our generic fornication. The taverns, inns, lodging houses, cook +shops, bakeries, spelt-mills and like institutions all played a prominent +part in the underworld of Rome. Let us take them in order: + +Lupanaria--Wolf Dens, from lupa, a wolf. The derivation, according to +Lactantius, is as follows: "for she (Lupa, i. e., Acca Laurentia) was the +wife of Faustulus, and because of the easy rate at which her person was +held at the disposal of all, was called, among the shepherds, 'Lupa,' +that is, harlot, whence also 'lupanar,' a brothel, is so called." It may +be added, however, that there is some diversity of opinion upon this +matter. It will be discussed more fully under the word "lupa." + +Fornix--An arch. The arcades under the theatres. + +Pergulae--Balconies, where harlots were shown. + +Stabulae--Inns, but frequently houses of prostitution. + +Diversorium--A lodging house; house of assignation. + +Tugurium--A hut. A very low den. + +Turturilla--A dove cote; frequently in male part. + +Casuaria--Road houses; almost invariably brothels. + +Tabernae--Bakery shops. + +The taverns were generally regarded by the magistrates as brothels and +the waitresses were so regarded by the law (Codex Theodos. lx, tit. 7, +ed. Ritter; Ulpian liiii, 23, De Ritu Nupt.). The Barmaid (Copa), +attributed to Virgil, proves that even the proprietress had two strings +to her bow, and Horace, Sat. lib. i, v, 82, in describing his excursion +to Brundisium, narrates his experience, or lack of it, with a waitress in +an inn. This passage, it should be remarked, is the only one in all his +works in which he is absolutely sincere in what he says of women. "Here +like a triple fool I waited till midnight for a lying jade till sleep +overcame me, intent on venery; in that filthy vision the dreams spot my +night clothes and my belly, as I lie upon my back." In the AEserman +inscription (Mommsen, Inscr. Regn. Neap. 5078, which is number 7306 in +Orelli-Henzen) we have another example of the hospitality of these inns, +and a dialogue between the hostess and a transient. The bill for the +services of a girl amounted to 8 asses. This inscription is of great +interest to the antiquary, and to the archoeologist. That bakers were +not slow in organizing the grist mills is shown by a passage from Paulus +Diaconus, xiii, 2: "as time went on, the owners of these turned the +public corn mills into pernicious frauds. For, as the mill stones were +fixed in places under ground, they set up booths on either side of these +chambers and caused harlots to stand for hire in them, so that by these +means they deceived very many,--some that came for bread, others that +hastened thither for the base gratification of their wantonness." From a +passage in Festus, it would seem that this was first put into practice in +Campania:--"harlots were called 'aelicariae', 'spelt-mill girls, in +Campania, being accustomed to ply for gain before the mills of the +spelt-millers." "Common strumpets, bakers' mistresses, refuse the +spelt-mill girls," says Plautus, i, ii, 54. + +There are few languages which are richer in pornographic terminology +than the Latin. + +Meretrix--Nomus Marcellus has pointed out the difference between this +class of prostitutes and the prostibula. "This is the difference between +a meretrix (harlot) and a prostibula (common strumpet): a meretrix is of +a more honorable station and calling; for meretrices are so named a +merendo (from earning wages) because they plied their calling only by +night; prostibulu because they stand before the stabulum (stall) for gain +both by day and night." + +Prostibula--She who stands in front of her cell or stall. + +Proseda--She who sits in front of her cell or stall. She who later +became the Empress Theodora belonged to this class, if any credit is to +be given to Procopius. + +Nonariae--She that is forbidden to appear before the ninth hour. + +Mimae--Mime players. They were almost invariably prostitutes. + +Cymbalistriae--Cymbal players. They were almost invariably prostitutes. + +Ambubiae--Singing girls. They were almost invariably prostitutes. + +Citharistriae--Harpists. They were almost invariably prostitutes. + +Scortum--A strumpet. Secrecy is implied, but the word has a broad usage. + +Scorta erratica | Clandestine strumpets who were street walkers. +Secuteleia | + +Busturiae--Tomb frequenters and hangers-on at funerals. + +Copae--Bar maids. + +Delicatae--Kept mistresses. + +Famosae--Soiled doves from respectable families. + +Doris--Harlots of great beauty. They wore no clothing. + +Lupae--She wolves. Some authorities affirm that this name was given them +because of a peculiar wolflike cry they uttered, and others assert that +the generic was bestowed upon then because their rapacity rivalled that +of the wolf. Servius, however, in his commentary on Virgil, has assigned +a much more improper and filthy reason for the name; he alludes to the +manner in which the wolf who mothered Rotnulus and Reinus licked their +bodies with her tongue, and this hint is sufficient to confirm him in his +belief that the lupa; were not less skilled in lingual gymnastics. See +Lemaire's Virgil, vol. vi, p. 521; commentary of Servius on AEneid, lib. +viii, 631. + +AElicariae--Bakers' girls. + +Noctiluae--Night walkers. + +Blitidae--A very low class deriving their name from a cheap drink sold in +the dens they frequented. + +Forariae--Country girls who frequented the roads. + +Gallinae--Thieving prostitutes, because after the manner of hens, +prostitutes take anything and scatter everything. + +Diobolares--Two obol girls. So called from their price. + +Amasiae, also in the diminutive--Girls devoted to Venus. Their best +expression in modern society would be the "vamps." + +Amatrix--Female lover, frequently in male part. + +Amica--Female friend, frequently a tribad. + +Quadrantariae--The lowest class of all. Their natural charms were no +longer merchantable. She of whom Catullus speaks in connection with the +lofty souled descendants of Remus was of this stripe. + +From many passages in the ancient authors it is evident that harlots +stood naked at the doors of their cells: "I saw some men prowling +stealthily between the rows of name-boards and naked prostitutes," +Petronius, chap. 7. "She entered the brothel, cozy with its +crazy-quilt, and the empty cell--her own. Then, naked she stands, with +gilded nipples, beneath the tablet of the pretended Lysisca," Juvenal, +Sat. vi, 121 et seq. In some cases they had recourse to a gossamer +tissue of silk gauze, as was formerly the custom in Paris, Chicago, and +San Francisco. "The matron has no softer thigh nor has she a more +beautiful leg," says Horace, Sat. I, ii, "though the setting be one of +pearls and emeralds (with all due respect to thy opinion, Cerinthus), +the togaed plebeian's is often the finer, and, in addition, the beauties +of figure are not camouflaged; that which is for sale, if honest, is +shown openly, whereas deformity seeks concealment. It is the custom +among kings that, when buying horses, they inspect them in the open, +lest, as is often the case, a beautiful head is sustained by a tender +hoof and the eager purchaser may be seduced by shapely hocks, a short +head, or an arching neck. Are these experts right in this? Thou canst +appraise a figure with the eyes of Lynceus and discover its beauties; +though blinder than Hypoesea herself thou canst see what deformities +there are. Ah, what a leg! What arms! But how thin her buttocks are, +in very truth what a huge nose she has, she's short-waisted, too, and +her feet are out of proportion! Of the matron, except for the face, +nothing is open to your scrutiny unless she is a Catia who has dispensed +with her clothing so that she may be felt all over thoroughly, the rest +will be hidden. But as for the other, no difficulty there! Through the +Coan silk it is as easy for you to see as if she were naked, whether she +has an unshapely leg, whether her foot is ugly; her waist you can +examine with your eyes. As for the price exacted, it ranged from a +quadrans to a very high figure. In the inscription to which reference +has already been made, the price was eight asses. An episode related in +the life of Apollonius of Tyre furnishes additional information upon +this subject. The lecher who deflowered a harlot was compelled to pay a +much higher price for alleged undamaged goods than was asked of +subsequent purchasers. + +"Master," cries the girl, throwing herself at his feet, "pity my +maidenhood, do not prostitute this body under so ugly a name." The +superintendent of maids replies, "Let the maid here present be dressed up +with every care, let a name-ticket be written for her, and the fellow who +deflowers Tarsia shall pay half a libra; afterwards she shall be at the +service of the public for one solidus per head." + +The passage in Petronius (chap. viii) and that in Juvenal (Sat. vi, 125) +are not to be taken literally. "Aes" in the latter should be understood +to mean what we would call "the coin," and not necessarily coin of low +denomination. + + + + + + +PAEDERASTIA. + +The origin of this vice (all peoples, savage and civilized, have been +infected with it) is lost in the mists which shroud antiquity. The Old +Testament contains many allusions to it, and Sodom was destroyed because +a long-suffering deity could not find ten men in the entire city who were +not addicted to its practice. So saturated was this city of the ancient +world with the vice that the very name of the city or the adjective +denoting citizenship in that city have transmitted the stigma to modern +times. That the fathers of Israel were quick to perceive the tortuous +ramifications of this vice is proved by a passage in Deuteronomy, chap. +22, verse .5: "the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, +neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are +abominations unto the Lord thy God." Here we have the first regulation +against fetishism and the perverted tendencies of gynandry and androgeny. +Inasmuch as our concern with this subject has to do with the Roman world +alone, a lengthy discussion of the early, manifestations of this vice +would be out of place here; nevertheless, a brief sketch should be given +to serve as a foundation to such discussion and to aid sociologists who +will find themselves more and more concerned with the problem in view of +the conditions in European society, induced by the late war. Their +problem will, however, be more intimately concerned with homosexuality +as it is manifested among women! + +From remotest antiquity down to the present time, oriental nations have +been addicted to this practice and it is probably from this source that +the plague spread among the Greeks. I do not assert that they were +ignorant of this form of indulgence prior to their association with the +Persians, for Nature teaches the sage as well as the savage. Meier, the +author of the article "Paederastia" in Ersch and Grueber's encyclopedia +(1837) is of the opinion that the vice had its origin among the +Boeotians, and John Addington Symonds in his essay on Greek Love concurs +in this view. As the two scholars worked upon the same material from +different angles, and as the English writer was unacquainted with the +German savant's monograph until after Burton had written his Terminal +Essay, it follows that the conclusions arrived at by these two scholars +must be worthy of credence. The Greeks contemporary with the Homeric +poems were familiar with paederasty, and there is reason to believe that +it had been known for ages, even then. Greek Literature, from Homer to +the Anthology teems with references to the vice and so common was it +among them that from that fact it derived its generic; "Greek Love." So +malignant is tradition that the Greeks of the present time still suffer +from the stigma, as is well illustrated by the proverb current among +sailors: "Englisha man he catcha da boy, Johnnie da Greek he catcha da +blame." The Romans are supposed to have received their first +introduction to paederasty and homosexuality generally, from the +Etruscans or from the Greek colonists in Italy, but Suidas (Tharnyris) +charges the inhabitants of Italy; with the invention of this vice and it +would appear from Athenaeus (Deiphnos. lib. xiii) that the native peoples +of Italy and the Greek colonists as well were addicted to the most +revolting practices with boys. The case of Laetorius (Valerius Maximus +vi, 1, 11) proves that as early as 320 B. C., the Romans were no +strangers to it and also that it was not common among them, at that time. + +As the character of the primitive Roman was essentially different from +that of the contemporary Greek, and as his struggle for existence was +severe in the extreme, there was little moral obliquity during the first +two hundred and fifty years. The "coelibes prohibeto" of the Twelve +Tables was also a powerful influence in preserving chastity. By the time +of Plautus, however, the practice of paederasty was much more general, as +is clearly proved by the many references which are found in his comedies +(Cist. iv, sc. 1, line 5) and passim. By the year 169 B. C., the vice +had so ravaged the populace that the Lex Scantinia was passed to control +it, but legislation has never proved a success in repressing vice and the +effectiveness of this law was no exception to the rule. Conditions grew +steadily worse with the passage of time and the extension of the Roman +power served to inoculate the legionaries with the vices of their +victims. The destruction of Corinth may well have avenged itself in +this manner. The accumulation of wealth and spoils gave the people more +leisure, increased their means of enjoyment, and educated their taste in +luxuries. The influx of slaves and voluptuaries from the Levant aided in +the dissemination of the vices of the orient among the ruder Romans. As +the first taste of blood arouses the tiger, so did the limitless power of +the Republic and Empire react to the insinuating precepts of older and +more corrupt civilizations. The fragments of Lucilius make mention of +the "cinaedi," in the sense that they were dancers, and in the earlier +ages, they were. Cicero, in the second Philippic calls Antonius a +catamite; but in Republican Rome, it is to Catullus that we must turn to +find the most decisive evidence of their almost universal inclination to +sodomy. The first notice of this passage in its proper significance is +found in the Burmann Petronius (ed. 1709): here, in a note on the correct +reading of "intertitulos, nudasque meretrices furtim conspatiantes," the +ancient reading would seem to have been "internuculos nudasque meretrices +furtim conspatiantes" (and I am not at all certain but that it is to be +preferred). Burmann cites the passage from Catullus (Epithalamium of +Manlius and Julia); Burmann sees the force of the passage but does not +grasp its deeper meaning. Marchena seems to have been the first scholar +to read between the lines. See his third note. + +A few years later, John Colin Dunlop, the author of a History of Roman +Literature which ought to be better known among the teaching fraternity, +drew attention to the same passage. So striking is his comment that I +will transcribe it in full. "It," the poem, "has also been highly +applauded by the commentators; and more than one critic has declared that +it must have been written by the hands of Venus and the Graces. I wish, +however, they had excepted from their unqualified panegyrics the coarse +imitation of the Fescennine poems, which leaves in our minds a stronger +impression of the prevalence and extent of Roman vices, than any other +passage in the Latin classics. Martial, and Catullus himself, elsewhere, +have branded their enemies; and Juvenal in bursts of satiric indignation, +has reproached his countrymen with the most shocking crimes. But here, +in a complimentary poem to a patron and intimate friend, these are +jocularly alluded to as the venial indulgences of his earliest youth" +(vol. i, p. 453, second edition). + +This passage clearly points to the fact that it was the common custom +among the young Roman patricians to have a bed-fellow of the same sex. +Cicero, in speaking of the acquittal of Clodius (Letters to Atticus, lib. +i, 18), says, "having bought up and debauched the tribunal"; charges that +the judges were promised the favors of the young gentlemen and ladies of +Rome, in exchange for their services in the matter of Clodius' trial. +Manutius, in a note on this passage says, "bought up, because the judges +took their pay and held Clodius innocent and absolved him: debauched, +because certain women and youths of noble birth were introduced by night +to not a few of them (there were 56 judges) as additional compensation +for their attention to duty" (Variorum Notes to Cicero, vol. ii, pp. 339- +340). In the Priapeia, the wayfarer is warned by Priapus to refrain from +stealing fruit under penalty of being assaulted from the rear, and the +God adds that, should this punishment hold no terrors, there is still the +possibility that his mentule may be used as a club by the irate +landowner. Again, in Catullus, 100, the Roman paederasty shows itself +"Caelius loves Aufilenus and Quintus loves Aufilena--madly." As we +approach the Christian era the picture darkens. Gibbon (vol. i, p. 313) +remarks, in a note, that "of the first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the +only one whose taste in love was entirely correct," but Claudius was a +moron. + +We come now to the bathing establishments. Their history in every +country is the same, in one respect: the spreading and fostering of +prostitution and paederastia. Cicero (Pro Coelio) accuses Clodia of +having deliberately chosen the site of her gardens with the purpose of +having a look at the young fellows who came to the Tiber to swim. +Catullus (xxxiii) speaks of the cimaedi who haunt the bathing +establishments: Suetonius (Tib. 43 and 44) records the desperate +expedients to which Tiberius had recourse to regain his exhausted +virility: the scene in Petronius (chap. 92). Martial (lib. i, 24) + +"You invite no man but your bathing companion, Cotta, only the baths +supply you with a guest. I used to wonder why you never invited me, now +I know that you did not like the look of me naked." Juvenal (ix, 32 et +seq.), "Destiny rules over mankind; the parts concealed by the front of +the tunic are controlled by the Fates; when Virro sees you naked and in +burning and frequent letters presses his ardent suit, with lips foaming +with desire; nothing will serve you so well as the unknown measure of a +long member." Lampridius (Heliogab. v), "At Rome, his principal concern +was to have emissaries everywhere, charged with seeking out men with huge +members; that they might bring them to him so that he could enjoy their +impressive proportions." The quotations given above furnish a sufficient +commentary upon the bathing establishments and the reasons for lighting +them. In happier times, they were badly lighted as the apertures were +narrow and could admit but little light. Seneca (Epist. 86) describes +the bath of Scipio: "In this bath of Scipio there were tiny chinks, +rather than windows, cut through the stone wall so as to admit light +without detriment to the shelter afforded; but men nowadays call them +'baths-for-night-moths.'" Under the empire, however, the bathing +establishments were open to the eye of the passer-by; lighted, as they +were by immense windows. Seneca (Epist. 86), "But nowadays, any which +are disposed in such a way as to let the sunlight enter all day long, +through immense windows; men call baths-for-night-moths; if they are not +sunburned as they wash, if they cannot look out on the fields and sea +from the pavement. Sweet clean baths have been introduced, but the +populace is only the more foul." In former times, youth and age were not +permitted to bathe together (Valer. Max. ii, 7.), women and men used the +same establishments, but at different hours; later, however, promiscuous +bathing was the order of the day and men and women came more and more to +observe that precept, "noscetur e naso quanta sit hasta viro," which Joan +of Naples had always in mind. Long-nosed men were followed into the +baths and were the recipients of admiration wherever they were. As +luxury increased, these establishments were fitted up with cells and +attendants of both sexes, skilled in massage, were always kept upon the +premises, in the double capacity of masseurs and prostitutes (Martial, +iii, 82, 13); (Juvenal, vi, 428), "the artful masseur presses the +clitoris with his fingers and makes the upper part of his mistress thigh +resound under his hands." The aquarioli or water boys also included +pandering in their tour of duty (Juvenal, Sat. vi, 331) "some water +carrier will come, hired for the purpose," and many Roman ladies had +their own slaves accompany them to the baths to assist in the toilette: +(Martial, vii, 3.4) "a slave girt about the loins with a pouch of black +leather stands by you whenever you are washed all over with warn water," +here, the mistress is taking no chances, her rights are as carefully +guarded as though the slave were infibulated in place of having his +generous virility concealed within a leather pouch. (Claudianus, 18, +106) "he combed his mistress' hair, and often, when she bathed, naked, +he would bring water, to his lady, in a silver ewer." Several of the +emperors attempted to correct these evils by executive order and +legislation, Hadrian (Spartianus, Life of Hadrian, chap. 18) "he assigned +separate baths for the two sexes"; Marcus Aurelius (Capitolinus, Life of +Marcus Antoninus, chap. 23) "he abolished the mixed baths and restrained +the loose habits of the Roman ladies and the young nobles," and Alexander +Severus (Lampridius, Life of Alex. Severus, chap. 24.) "he forbade the +opening of mixed baths at Rome, a practice which, though previously +prohibited, Heliogabalus had allowed to be observed," but, +notwithstanding their absolute authority, their efforts along those lines +met with little better success than have those of more recent times. The +pages of Martial and Juvenal reek with the festering sores of the society +of that period, but Charidemus and Hedylus still dishonor the cities of +the modern world. Tatian, writing in the second century, says (Orat. ad +Graecos): "paederastia is practiced by the barbarians generally, but is +held in pre-eminent esteem by the Romans, who endeavor to get together +troupes of boys, as it were of brood mares," and Justin Martyr (Apologia, +1), has this to say: "first, because we behold nearly all men seducing to +fornication, not merely girls, but males also. And just as our fathers +are spoken of as keeping herds of oxen, or goats, or sheep, or brood +mares, so now they keep boys, solely for the purpose of shameful usage, +treating them as females, or androgynes, and doing unspeakable acts. To +such a pitch of pollution has the multitude throughout the whole people +come!" Another sure indication of the prevalence of the vice of sodomy +is to be found in Juvenal, Sat. ii, 12-13, "but your fundament is smooth +and the swollen haemorrhoids are incised, the surgeon grinning the +while," just as the physician of the nineties grinned when some young +fool came to him with a blennorrhoeal infection! The ancient jest which +accounts for the shaving of the priest's crown is an inferential +substantiation of the fact that the evils of antiquity, like the legal +codes, have descended through the generations; survived the middle ages, +and been transmitted to the modern world. A perusal of the Raggionamente +of Pietro Aretino will confirm this statement, in its first premise, and +the experiences of Sir Richard Burton in the India of Napier, and Harry +Franck's, in Spain, in the present century, and those of any intelligent +observer in the Orient, today, will but bear out this hypothesis. The +native population of Manila contains more than its proportion of +catamites, who seek their sponsors in the Botanical Gardens and on the +Luneta. The native quarters of the Chinese cities have their "houses" +where boys are kept, just as the Egyptian mignons stood for hire in the +lupanaria at Rome. A scene in Sylvia Scarlett could be duplicated in any +large city of Europe or America; there is no necessity of appeal to +Krafft-Ebbing or Havelock Ellis. But there is still another and surer +method of gauging the extent of paederastic perversion at Rome, and that +is the richness of the Latin vocabulary in terms and words bearing upon +this repulsive subject. There are, in the Latin language, no less than +one hundred and fifteen words and expressions in general usage. + +But it is in Martial that we are able to sense the abandoned and +cynical attitude of the Roman public toward this vice: the epigram upon +Cantharus, xi, 46, is an excellent example. In commentating upon the +meticulous care with which Cantharus avoided being spied upon by +irreverent witnesses, the poet sarcastically remarks that such +precautions would never enter the head of anyone were it merely a +question of having a boy or a woman, and he mentions them in the order +in which they are set forth here. No one dreads the limelight like the +utter debauchee, as has been remarked by Seneca. We find a parallel in +the old days in Shanghai, before the depredations of the American +hetairai had aroused the hostility of the American judge, in 1907-8. Men +of unquestioned respectability and austere asceticism were in the habit +of making periodic trips to this pornographic Mecca for the reason that +they could there be accommodated with the simultaneous ministrations of +two or even three soiled doves of the stripe of her of whom Martial (ix, +69) makes caustic mention: + +"I passed the whole night with a lascivious girl whose naughtiness none +could surpass. Tired of a thousand methods of indulgence, I begged the +boyish favor: she granted my prayers before they were finished, before +even the first words were out of my mouth. Smiling and blushing, I +besought her for something worse still; she voluptuously promised it at +once. But to me, she was chaste. But, AEschylus, she will not be so to +you; take the boon if you want it, but she will attach a condition." In +all that could pertain to accomplished skill in their profession, the +"limit was the ceiling," they were there to serve, and serve they did, +as long as the recipient of their ministrations was willing to pay or as +long as his chits were good. With them, secrecy was the watchword. +Tiberius, probably more sinned against than sinning (he has had an able +defender in Beasley) is charged, by Suetonius, with the invention of an +amplification and refinement of this vice. The performers were called +"spinthriae," a word which signified "bracelet." These copulators could +be of both sexes though the true usage of the word allowed but one, and +that the male. They formed a chain, each link of which was an individual +in sexual contact with one or two other links: in this diversion, the +preference seems to have been in favor of odd numbers (Martial, xii, 44, +5), where the chain consisted of five links, and Ausonius, Epigram 119, +where it consisted of three. + + + + +CHAPTER NOTES + + +CHAPTER 9. Gladiator obscene:-- + +The arena of his activities is, however, that of Venus and not Mars. +Petronius is fond of figurative language, and in several other passages, +he has made use of the slang of the arena: (chap. 61 ), "I used to fence +with my mistress herself, until even the master grew Suspicious"; and +again, in chapter 19, he says: "then, too, we were girded higher, and I +had so arranged matters that if we came to close quarters, I myself would +engage Quartilla, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the girl." + +Dufour, in commentating upon this expression, Histoire de la +Prostitution, vol. III, pp. 92 and 93, remarks: It is necessary to see in +Petronius the abominable role which the "obscene gladiator" played; but +the Latin itself is clear enough to describe all the secrets of the Roman +debauch. "For some women," says Petronius, in another passage, "will +only kindle for canaille and cannot work up an appetite unless they see +some slave or runner with his clothing girded up: a gladiator arouses +one, or a mule driver, all covered with dust, or some actor posturing in +some exhibition on the stage. My mistress belongs to this class, she +jumps the fourteen rows from the stage to the gallery and looks for a +lover among the gallery gods at the back." + +On "cum fortiter faceres," compare line 25 of the Oxford fragment of the +sixth satire of Juvenal; "hic erit in lecto fortissimus," which Housman +has rendered "he is a valiant mattress-knight." + + + + +CHAPTER 17. "In our neighborhood there are so many Gods that it is +easier to meet one of them than it is to find a man." + +Quartilla is here smarting under the sting of some former lover's +impotence. Her remark but gives color to the charge that, owing to the +universal depravity of Rome and the smaller cities, men were so worn out +by repeated vicious indulgences that it was no easy matter for a woman to +obtain satisfaction at their hands. + +"Galla, thou hast already led to the nuptial couch six or seven +catamites; thou went seduced by their delicate coiffure and combed +beards. Thou hast tried the loins and the members, resembling soaked +leather, which could not be made to stand by all the efforts of the +wearied hand; the pathic husband and effeminate bed thou desertest, but +still thou fallest into similar couches. Seek out some one rough and +unpolished as the Curii and Fabii, and savage in his uncouth rudeness; +you will find one, but even this puritanical crew has its catamites. +Galla, it is difficult to marry a real man." Martial, vii, 57. + +"No faith is to be placed in appearances. What neighborhood does not +reek with filthy practices'?" Juvenal, Sat. ii, 8. + +"While you have a wife such as a lover hardly dare hope for in his +wildest prayers; rich, well born, chaste, you, Bassus, expend your +energies on boys whom you have procured with your wife's dowry; and thus +does that penis, purchased for so many thousands, return worn out to its +mistress, nor does it stand when she rouses it by soft accents of love, +and delicate fingers. Have some sense of shame or let us go into court. +This penis is not yours, Bassus, you have sold it." Martial, xii, 99. + +"Polytimus is very lecherous on women, Hypnus is slow to admit he is my +Ganymede; Secundus has buttocks fed upon acorns. Didymus is a catamite +but pretends not to be. Amphion would have made a capital girl. My +friend, I would rather have their blandishments, their naughty airs, +their annoying impudence, than a wife with 3,000,000 sesterces." Martial +xii, 76. + +But the crowning piece of infamy is to be found in Martial's three +epigrams upon his wife. They speak as distinctly as does the famous +passage in Catullus' Epithalamium of Manilius and Julia, or Vibia, as +later editors have it. + +"Wife, away, or conform to my habits. I am no Curius, Numa, or Tatius. +I like to have the hours of night prolonged in luscious cups. You drink +water and are ever for hurrying from the table with a sombre mien; you +like the dark, I like a lamp to witness my pleasures, and to tire my +loins in the light of dawn. Drawers and night gowns and long robes cover +you, but for me no girl can be too naked. For me be kisses like the +cooing doves; your kisses are like those you give your grandmother in +the morning. You do not condescend to assist in the performance by your +movements or your sighs or your hand; (you behave) as if you were taking +the sacrament. The Phrygian slaves masturbated themselves behind the +couch whenever Hector's wife rode St. George; and, however much Ulysses +snored, the chaste Penelope always had her hand there. You forbid my +sodomising you. Cornelia granted this favor to Gracchus; Julia to +Pompey, Porcia to Brutus. Juno was Jupiter's Ganymede before the Dardan +boy mixed the luscious cup. If you are so devoted to propriety--be a +Lucretia to your heart's content all day, I want a Lais at night." xi, +105. + +"Since your husband's mode of life and his fidelity are known to you, and +no woman usurps your rights, why are you so foolish as to be annoyed by +his boys, (as if they were his mistresses), with whom love is a transient +and fleeting affair? I will prove to you that you gain more by the boys +than your lord: they make your husband keep to one woman. They give what +a wife will not give. 'I grant that favor,' you say, 'sooner than that +my husband's love should wander from my bed.' It is not the same thing. +I want the fig of Chios, not a flavorless fig; and in you this Chian fig +is flavorless. A woman of sense and a wife ought to know her place. Let +the boys have what concerns them, and confine yourself to what concerns +you." xii, 97. + +"Wife, you scold me with a harsh voice when I'm caught with a boy, and +inform me that you too have a bottom. How often has Juno said the same +to the lustful Thunderer? And yet he sleeps with the tall Ganymede. The +Tirynthian Hero put down his bow and sodomised Hylas. Do you think that +Megaera had no buttocks? Daphne inspired Phoebus with love as she fled, +but that flame was quenched by the OEbalian boy. However much Briseis +lay with her bottom turned toward him, the son of AEacus found his +beardless friend more congenial to his tastes. Forbear then, to give +masculine names to what you have, and, wife, think that you have two +vaginas." xi, 44 + + + + +CHAPTER 26. "Quartilla applied a curious eye to a chink, purposely made, +watching their childish dalliance with lascivious attention." + +Martial, xi, 46, makes mention of the fact that patrons of houses of ill +fame had reason to beware of needle holes in the walls, through which +their misbehaviour could be appreciatively scrutinized by outsiders; and +in the passage of our author we find yet another instance of the same +kind. One is naturally led to recall the "peep-houses" which were a +feature of city life in the nineties. There was a notorious one in +Chicago, and another in San Francisco. A beautiful girl, exquisitely +dressed, would entice the unwary stranger into her room: there the couple +would disrobe and the hero was compelled to have recourse to the "right +of capture," before executing the purpose for which he entered the house. +The entertainment usually cost him nothing beyond a moderate fee and a +couple of bottles of beer, or wine, if he so desired. The "management" +secured its profit from a different and more prurient source. The male +actor in this drama was sublimely ignorant of the fact that the walls +were plentifully supplied with "peep-holes" through which appreciative +onlookers witnessed his Corybantics at one dollar a head. There would +sometimes be as many as twenty such witnesses at a single performance. + + + + +CHAPTER 34. Silver Skeleton, et seq. + +Philosophic dogmas concerning the brevity and uncertainty of life were +ancient even in the time of Herodotus. They have left their mark upon +our language in the form of more than one proverb, but in none is this +so patent as "the skeleton at the feast." In chapter lxxviii of Euterpe, +we have an admirable citation. In speaking of the Egyptians, he says: +"At their convivial banquets, among the wealthy classes, when they have +finished supper, a man carries round in a coffin the image of a dead body +carved in wood, made as life-like as possible in color and workmanship, +and in size generally about one or two cubits in length; and showing this +to each of the company, he says: 'Look upon this, then drink and enjoy +yourself; for when dead you will be like this.' This is the practice +they have at their drinking parties." According to Plutarch, (Isis and +Osiris, chapter 17.) the Greeks adopted this Egyptian custom, and there +is, of course, little doubt that the Romans took it from the Greeks. +The aim of this custom was, according to Scaliger, to bring the diners +to enjoy the sweets of life while they were able to feel enjoyment, and +thus to abandon themselves to pleasure before death deprived them of +everything. The verses which follow bring this out beautifully. In the +Copa of Virgil we find the following: + +"Wine there! Wine and dice! Tomorrow's fears shall fools alone benumb! +By the ear Death pulls me. 'Live!' he whispers softly, 'Live! I come.'" + +The practical philosophy of the indefatigable roues sums itself up in +this sentence uttered by Trimalchio. The verb "vivere" has taken a +meaning very much broader and less special, than that which it had at +the time when it signified only the material fact of existence. The +voluptuaries of old Rome were by no means convinced that life without +license was life. The women of easy virtue, living within the circle +of their friendships, after the fashion best suited to their desires, +understood that verb only after their own interpretation, and the +philologists soon reconciled themselves to the change. In this sense it +was that Varro employed "vivere," when he said: "Young women, make haste +to live, you whom adolescence permits to enjoy, to eat, to love, and to +occupy the chariot of Venus (Veneris tenere bigas)." + +But a still better example of the extension in the meaning of this word +is to be found in an inscription on the tomb of a lady of pleasure. This +inscription was composed by a voluptuary of the school of Petronius. + + ALIAE. RESTITVTAE. ANIMAE. DVLCISSIMAE. + BELLATOR. AVG. LIB. CONIVGI. CARISSIMAE. + AMICI. DVM. VIVIMVS. VIVAMUS. + +In this inscription, it is almost impossible to translate the last three +words. "While we live, let us live," is inadequate, to say the least. +So far did this doctrine go that latterly it was deemed necessary to have +a special goddess as a patron. That goddess, if we may rely upon the +authority of Festus, took her name "Vitula" from the word "Vita" or from +the joyous life over which she was to preside. + + + + +CHAPTER 36. "At the corners of the tray we also noted four figures of +Marsyas and from their bladders spouted a highly seasoned sauce upon fish +which were swimming about as if in a tide-race." + +German scholars have adopted the doctrine that Marsyas belonged to that +mythological group which they designate as "Schlauch-silen" or, as we +would say in English, "Wineskin-bearing Silenuses." Their hypothesis +seems to be based upon the discovery of two beautiful bas-reliefs of the +age of Vespasian, which were excavated near the Rostra Vetera in the +Forum. Sir Theodore Martin has a note on these bas-reliefs which I quote +in extenso: + +"In the Forum stood a statue of Marsyas, Apollo's ill-starred rival. It +probably bore an expression of pain, which Horace humorously ascribes to +dislike of the looks of the Younger Novius, who is conjectured to have +been of the profession and nature of Shylock. A naked figure carrying a +wineskin, which appears upon each of two fine bas-reliefs of the time of +Vespasian found near the Rostra Vetera in the Forum during the +excavations conducted within the last few years by Signor Pietro Rosa, +and which now stand in the Forum, is said, by archaeologists, to +represent Marsyas. Why they arrive at this conclusion, except as +arguing, from the spot where these bas-reliefs were found, that they were +meant to perpetuate the remembrance of the old statue of Marsyas, is +certainly not very apparent from anything in the figure itself." +Martin's Horace, vol. 2, pp 145-6. + +Hence German philologists render "utriculis" by the German equivalent for +"Wineskins." + +"The Romans," says Weitzius, "had two sources of water-supply, through +underground channels, and through channels supported by arches. As +adjuncts to these channels there were cisterns (or castella, as they were +called). From these reservoirs the water was distributed to the public +through routes more or less circuitous and left the cisterns through +pipes, the diameter of which was reckoned in either twelfths or +sixteenths of a Roman foot. At the exits of the pipes were placed stones +or stone figures, the water taking exit from these figures either by the +mouth, private parts or elsewhere, and falling either to the ground or +into some stone receptacle such as a basket. Various names were given +these statuettes: Marsyae, Satyri, Atlantes, Hermae, Chirones, Silani, +Tulii." + +No one who has been through the Secret Museum at Naples will find much +difficulty in recalling a few of these heavily endowed examples to mind, +and our author, in choosing Marsyae, adds a touch of sarcastic realism, +for statues of Marysas were often set up in free cities, symbolical, as +it were, of freedom. In such a setting as the present, they would be the +very acme of propriety. + +"The figures," says Gonzala de Salas, "formerly placed at fountains, and +from which water took exit either from the mouth or from some other part, +took their forms from the several species of Satyrs. The learned +Wouweren has commented long and learnedly upon this passage, and his +emendation 'veretriculis' caused me to laugh heartily. And as a matter +of fact, I affirm that such a meaning is easily possible." Professor E. +P. Crowell, the first American scholar to edit Petronius, gravely states +in his preface that "the object of this edition is to provide for +class-room use an expurgated text," and I note that he has tactfully +omitted the "wineskins" from his edition. + +In this connection the last sentence in the remarks of Wouweren, alluded +to above, is strangely to the point. After stating his emendation of +"veretriculis or veretellis" for "utriculis," he says: "Unless someone +proves that images of Marsyas were fashioned in the likeness of +bag-pipers," a fine instance of clarity of vision for so dark an age. + + + + +CHAPTER 40. "Drawing his hunting-knife, he plunged it fiercely into the +boar's side, and some thrushes flew out of the gash." + +In the winter of 1895 a dinner was given in a New York studio. This +dinner, locally known as the "Girl in the Pie Dinner," was based upon +Petronius, Martial, and the thirteenth book of Athenaeus. In the summer +of 1919, I had the questionable pleasure of interviewing the chef-caterer +who got it up, and he was, at the time, engaged in trying to work out +another masterpiece to be given in California. The studio, one of the +most luxurious in the world, was transformed for the occasion into a +veritable rose grotto, the statuary was Pompeian, and here and there +artistic posters were seen which were nothing if not reminiscent of +Boulevard Clichy and Montmartre in the palmiest days. Four negro banjo +players and as many jubilee singers titillated the jaded senses of the +guests in a manner achieved by the infamous saxophone syncopating jazz of +the Barbary Coast of our times. The dinner was over. The four and one +half bottles of champagne allotted to each Silenus had been consumed, and +a well-defined atmosphere of bored satiety had begun to settle down when +suddenly the old-fashioned lullaby "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" broke +forth from the banjoists and singers. Four waiters came in bearing a +surprisingly monstrous object, something that resembled an impossibly +large pie. They, placed it carefully in the center of the table. The +negro chorus swelled louder and louder--"Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked +in a Pie." + +The diners, startled into curiosity and then into interest, began to poke +their noses against this gigantic creation of the baker. In it they +detected a movement not unlike a chick's feeble pecking against the shell +of an egg. A quicker movement and the crust ruptured at the top. + +A flash of black gauze and delicate flesh showed within. A cloud of +frightened yellow canaries flew out and perched on the picture frames and +even on the heads and shoulders of the guests. + +But the lodestone which drew and held the eyes of all the revellers was +an exquisitely slender, girlish figure amid the broken crust of the pie. +The figure was draped with spangled black gauze, through which the girl's +marble white limbs gleamed like ivory seen through gauze of gossamer +transparency. She rose from her crouching posture like a wood nymph +startled by a satyr, glanced from one side to the other, and stepped +timidly forth to the table. + + + + +CHAPTER 56. Contumelia--Contus and Melon (malum). + +All translators have rendered "contus" by "pole," notwithstanding the +fact that the word is used in a very different sense in Priapeia, x, 3: +"traiectus conto sic extendere pedali," and contrary to the tradition +which lay behind the gift of an apple or the acceptance of one. The +truth of this may be established by many passages in the ancient writers. + +In the "Clouds" of Aristophanes, Just Discourse, in prescribing the rules +and proprieties which should in govern the education and conduct of the +healthy young man says: + +"You shall rise up from your seat upon your elders' approach; you shall +never be pert to your parents or do any other unseemly act under the +pretence of remodelling the image of Modesty. You will not rush off to +the dancing-girl's house, lest while you gaze upon her charms, some whore +should pelt you with an apple and ruin your reputation." + +"This were gracious to me as in the story old to the maiden fleet of foot +was the apple golden fashioned which unloosed her girdle long-time girt." +Catullus ii. + +"I send thee these verses recast from Battiades, lest thou shouldst +credit thy words by chance have slipped from my mind, given o'er to the +wandering winds, as it was with that apple, sent as furtive love token by +the wooer, which out-leaped from the virgin's chaste bosom: for, placed +by the hapless girl 'neath her soft vestment, and forgotten--when she +starts at her mother's approach, out 'tis shaken: and down it rolls +headlong to the ground, whilst a tell-tale flush mantles the cheek of the +distressed girl." Catullus 1xv. + +"But I know what is going on, and I intend presently to tell my master; +for I do not want to show myself less grateful than the dogs which bark +in defence of those who feed and take care of them. An adulterer is +laying siege to the household--a young man from Elis, one of the Olympian +fascinators; he sends neatly folded notes every day to our master's wife, +together with faded bouquets and half-eaten apples." Alciphron, iii, 62. +The words are put into the mouth of a rapacious parasite who feels that +the security of his position in the house is about to be shaken. + +"I didn't mind your kissing Cymbalium half-a-dozen times, you only +disgraced yourself; but--to be always winking at Pyrallis, never to drink +without lifting the cup to her, and then to whisper to the boy, when you +handed it to him, not to fill it for anyone but her--that was too much! +And then--to bite a piece off an apple, and when you saw that Duphilus +was busy talking to Thraso, to lean forward and throw it right into her +lap, without caring whether I saw it or not; and she kissed it and put it +into her bosom under her girdle! It was scandalous! Why do you treat me +like this?" Lucian, Dial. Hetairae, 12. These words are spoken by +another apostle of direct speech; a jealous prostitute who is furiously +angry with her lover, and in no mood to mince matters in the slightest. + +Aristxnetus, xxv, furnishes yet another excellent illustration. +The prostitute Philanis, in writing to a friend of the same ancient +profession, accuses her sister of alienating her lover's affections. +I avail myself of Sheridan's masterly version. + + PHILANIS TO PETALA. + + As yesterday I went to dine + With Pamphilus, a swain of mine, + I took my sister, little heeding + The net I for myself was spreading + Though many circumstances led + To prove she'd mischief in her head. + For first her dress in every part + Was studied with the nicest art + Deck'd out with necklaces and rings, + And twenty other foolish things; + + And she had curl'd and bound her hair + With more than ordinary care + And then, to show her youth the more, + A light, transparent robe she wore-- + From head to heel she seemed t'admire + In raptures all her fine attire: + And often turn'd aside to view + If others gazed with rapture too. + At dinner, grown more bold and free, + She parted Pamphilus and me; + For veering round unheard, unseen, + She slily drew her chair between. + Then with alluring, am'rous smiles + And nods and other wanton wiles, + The unsuspecting youth insnared, + And rivall'd me in his regard.-- + Next she affectedly would sip + The liquor that had touched his lip. + He, whose whole thoughts to love incline, + And heated with th' enliv'ning wine, + With interest repaid her glances, + And answer'd all her kind advances. + Thus sip they from the goblet's brink + Each other's kisses while they drink; + Which with the sparkling wine combin'd, + Quick passage to the heart did find. + Then Pamphilus an apple broke, + And at her bosom aim'd the stroke, + While she the fragment kiss'd and press'd, + And hid it wanton in her breast. + But I, be sure, was in amaze, + To see my sister's artful ways: + "These are returns," I said, "quite fit + To me, who nursed you when a chit. + For shame, lay by this envious art; + Is this to act a sister's part?" + But vain were words, entreaties vain, + The crafty witch secured my swain. + By heavens, my sister does me wrong; + But oh! she shall not triumph long. + Well Venus knows I'm not in fault + 'Twas she who gave the first assault + And since our peace her treach'ry broke, + Let me return her stroke for stroke. + She'll quickly feel, and to her cost, + Not all their fire my eyes have lost + And soon with grief shall she resign + Six of her swains for one of mine." + +The myth of Cydippe and Acontius is still another example, as is the +legend of Atalanta and Hippomenes or Meilanion, to which Suetonius +(Tiberius, chap. 44) has furnished such an unexpected climax. The +emperor Theodosius ordered the assassination of a gallant who had given +the queen an apple. As beliefs of this type are an integral part of the +character of the lower orders, I am certain that the passage in Petronius +is not devoid of sarcasm; and if such is the case, "contus" cannot be +rendered "pole." The etymology of the word contumely is doubtful but I +am of the opinion that the derivation suggested here is not unsound. A +recondite rendering of "contus" would surely give a sharper point to the +joke and furnish the riddle with the sting of an epigram. + + + + +CHAPTER 116. "You will see a town that resembles the fields in time of +pestilence." + +In tracing this savage caricature, Petronius had in mind not Crotona +alone; he refers to conditions in the capital of the empire. The +descriptions which other authors have set down are equally remarkable for +their powerful coloring, and they leave us with an idea of Rome which is +positively astounding in its unbridled luxury. 'We will rest content +with offering to our readers the following portrayal, quoted from +Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xiv, chap. 6, and lib. xxviii, chap. 4. will +not presume to attempt any translation after having read Gibbon's version +of the combination of these two chapters. + +"The greatness of Rome was founded on the rare and almost incredible +alliance of virtue and of fortune. The long period of her infancy was +employed in a laborious struggle against the tribes of Italy, the +neighbors and enemies of the rising city. In the strength and ardor of +youth she sustained the storms of war, carried her victorious arms beyond +the seas and the mountains, and brought home triumphal laurels from every +country of the globe. At length, verging towards old age, and sometimes +conquering by the terror only of her name, she sought the blessings of +ease and tranquillity. The venerable city, which had trampled on the +necks of the fiercest nations, and established a system of laws, the +perpetual guardians of justice and freedom, was content, like a wise and +wealthy parent, to devolve on the Caesars, her favorite sons, the care of +governing her ample patrimony. A secure and profound peace, such as had +been once enjoyed in the reign of Numa, succeeded to the tumults of a +republic; while Rome was still adored as the queen of the earth, and the +subject nations still reverenced the name of the people and the majesty +of the senate. But this native splendor is degraded and sullied by the +conduct of some nobles, who, unmindful of their own dignity, and of that +of their country, assume an unbounded license of vice and folly. They +contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and surnames, and +curiously select or invent the most lofty and sonorous appellations-- +Reburrus or Fabunius, Pagonius or Tarrasius--which may impress the ears +of the vulgar with astonishment and respect. From a vain ambition of +perpetuating their memory, they affect to multiply their likeness in +statues of bronze and marble; nor are they satisfied unless those statues +are covered with plates of gold, an honorable distinction, first granted +to Achilius the consul, after he had subdued by his arms and counsels the +power of King Antiochus. The ostentation of displaying, of magnifying +perhaps, the rent-roll of the estates which they possess in all the +provinces, from the rising to the setting sun, provokes the just +resentment of every man who recollects that their poor and invincible +ancestors were not distinguished from the meanest of the soldiers by the +delicacy of their food or the splendor of their apparel. But the modern +nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the loftiness of +their chariots and the weighty magnificence of their dress. Their long +robes of silk and purple float in the wind; and as they are agitated, by +art or accident, they occasionally discover the under-garments, the rich +tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals. Followed by a +train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the +streets with the same impetuous speed as if they travelled with +post-horses, and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the +matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are continually driving +round the immense space of the city and suburbs. Whenever these persons +of high distinction condescend to visit the public baths, they assume, +on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate +to their own use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman +people. If, in these places of mixed and general resort, they meet any +of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they express their +affection by a tender embrace, while they proudly decline the +salutations of their fellow-citizens, who are not permitted to aspire +above the honor of kissing their hands or their knees. As soon as they +have indulged themselves in the refreshment of the bath, they resume +their rings and the other ensigns of their dignity, select from their +private wardrobe of the finest linen, such as might suffice for a dozen +persons, the garments the most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain +till their departure the same haughty demeanor which perhaps might have +been excused in the great Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. +Sometimes, indeed, these heroes undertake more arduous achievements. +They visit their estates in Italy, and procure themselves, by the toil +of servile hands, the amusements of the chase. If at any time, but more +especially on a hot day, they have courage to sail in their galleys from +the Lucrine lake to their elegant villas on the seacoast of Puteoli and +the Caieta, they compare their own expeditions to the marches of Caesar +and Alexander. Yet should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of +their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some +unguarded and imperceptible chink, they deplore their intolerable +hardships, and lament in affected language that they were not born in +the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness. In these +journeys into the country the whole body of the household marches with +their master. In the same order as the cavalry and infantry, the heavy +and the light armed troops, the advanced guard and the rear, are +marshalled by the skill of their military leaders, so the domestic +officers, who bear a rod as an ensign of authority, distribute and +arrange the numerous train of slaves and attendants. The baggage and +wardrobe move in the front, and are immediately followed by a multitude +of cooks and inferior ministers employed in the service of the kitchens +and of the table. The main body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of +slaves, increased by the accidental concourse of idle or dependent +plebeians. The rear is closed by the favorite band of eunuchs, +distributed from age to youth, according to the order of seniority. +Their numbers and their deformity excite the horror of the indignant +spectators, who are ready to execrate the memory of Semiramis for the +cruel art which she invented of frustrating the purposes of nature, and +of blasting in the bud the hopes of future generations. In the exercise +of domestic jurisdiction the nobles of Rome express an exquisite +sensibility for any personal injury, and a contemptuous indifference for +the rest of the human species. When they have called for warm water, if +a slave has been tardy in his obedience, he is instantly chastised with +three hundred lashes; but should the same slave commit a wilful murder, +the master will mildly observe that he is a worthless fellow, but that, +if he repeats the offense, he shall not escape punishment. Hospitality +was formerly the virtue of the Romans; and every stranger who could +plead either merit or misfortune was relieved or rewarded by their +generosity. At present, if a foreigner, perhaps of no contemptible +rank, is introduced to one of the proud and wealthy senators, he is +welcomed indeed in the first audience with such warm professions and +such kind inquiries that he retires enchanted with the affability of his +illustrious friend, and full of regret that he had so long delayed his +journey to Rome, the native seat of manners as well as of empire. +Secure of a favorable reception, he repeats his visit the ensuing day, +and is mortified by the discovery that his person, his name, and his +country are already forgotten. If he still has resolution to persevere, +he is gradually numbered in the train of dependents, and obtains the +permission to pay his assiduous and unprofitable court to a haughty +patron, incapable of gratitude or friendship, who scarcely deigns to +remark his presence, his departure, or his return. Whenever the rich +prepare a solemn and popular entertainment, whenever they celebrate with +profuse and pernicious luxury their private banquets, the choice of the +guests is the subject of anxious deliberation. The modest, the sober, +and the learned are seldom preferred; and the nomenclators, who are +commonly swayed by interested motives, have the address to insert in the +list of invitations the obscure names of the most worthless of mankind. +But the frequent and familiar companions of the great are those +parasites who practice the most useful of all arts, the art of flattery; +who eagerly applaud each word and every action of their immortal patron, +gaze with rapture on his marble columns and variegated pavements, and +strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he is taught to consider +as a part of his personal merit. At the Roman tables the birds, the +dormice, or the fish, which appear of an uncommon size, are contemplated +with curious attention; a pair of scales is accurately applied to +ascertain their real weight; and, while the more rational guests are +disgusted by the vain and tedious repetition, notaries are summoned to +attest by an authentic record the truth of such a marvellous event. +Another method of introduction into the houses and society of the great +is derived from the profession of gaming, or, as it is more politely +styled, of play. The confederates are united by a strict and +indissoluble bond of friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior +degree of skill in the Tesserarian art is a sure road to wealth and +reputation. A master of that sublime science who in a supper or an +assembly is placed below a magistrate displays in his countenance the +surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when he +was refused the praetorship by the votes of a capricious people. The +acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the curiosity of the nobles, who +abhor the fatigue and disdain the advantages of study; and the only +books which they peruse are the Satires of Juvenal and the verbose and +fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries which they have +inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from +the light of day. But the costly instruments of the theatre-flutes, and +enormous lyres, and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use; and +the harmony of vocal and instrumental music is incessantly repeated in +the palaces of Rome. In those palaces sound is preferred to sense, and +the care of the body to that of the mind. It is allowed as a salutary +maxim that the light and frivolous suspicion of a contagious malady is +of sufficient weight to excuse the visits of the most intimate friends +and even the servants who are dispatched to make the decent inquiries +are not suffered to return home till they have undergone the ceremony of +a previous ablution. Yet this selfish and unmanly delicacy occasionally +yields to the more imperious passion of avarice. The prospect of gain +will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of +arrogance and dignity is subdued by the hopes of an inheritance, or even +of a legacy; and a wealthy childless citizen is the most powerful of the +Romans. The art of obtaining the signature of a favorable testament, +and sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly +understood; and it has happened that in the same house, though in +different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable design of +overreaching each other, have summoned their respective lawyers to +declare at the same time their mutual but contradictory intentions. The +distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury often reduces +the great to the use of the most humiliating expedients. When they +desire to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the +slave in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume +the royal and tragic declamation of the grandsons of Hercules. If the +demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant, +instructed to maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent +creditor, who is seldom released from prison till he has signed a +discharge for the whole debt. These vices, which degrade the moral +character of the Romans, are mixed with a puerile superstition that +disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the +predictions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of +victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and there are many +who do not presume either to bathe or to dine, or to appear in public, +till they have diligently consulted, according to the rules of +astrology, the situation of Mercury and the aspect of the moon. It is +singular enough that this vain credulity may often be discovered among +the profane sceptics who impiously doubt or deny the existence of a +celestial power." + + + + +CHAPTER 116. "They either take in or else they are taken in." + +"Captare" may be defined as to get the upper hand of someone; and +"captari" means to be the dupe of someone, to be the object of interested +flattery; "captator" means a succession of successful undertakings of the +sort referred to above. Martial, lib. VI, 63, addresses the following +verses to a certain Marianus, whose inheritance had excited the avarice +of one of the intriguers: + + "You know you're being influenced, + You know the miser's mind; + You know the miser, and you sensed + His purpose; still, you're blind." + +Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, lib. XIV, chap. i, writes in +scathing terms against the infamous practice of paying assiduous court +to old people for the purpose of obtaining a legacy under their wills. +"Later, childlessness conferred advantages in the shape of the greatest +authority and Lower; undue influence became very insidious in its quest +of wealth, and in grasping the joyous things alone, debasing the true +rewards of life; and all the liberal arts operating for the greatest good +were turned to the opposite purpose, and commenced to profit by +sycophantic subservience alone." + +And Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. XVIII, chap. 4, remarks: "Some there are +that grovel before rich men, old men or young, childless or unmarried, or +even wives and children, for the purpose of so influencing their wishes +and them by deft and dextrous finesse." + +That this profession of legacy hunting is not one of the lost arts is +apparent even in our day, for the term "undue influence" is as common in +our courts as Ambrose Bierce's definition of "husband," or refined +cruelty, or "injunctions" restraining husbands from disposing of +property, or separate maintenance, or even "heart balm" and the +consequent breach of promise. + + + + +CHAPTER 119. The rite of the Persians: + +Castration has been practiced from remote antiquity, and is a feature of +the harem life of the Levant to the present day. Semiramis is accused of +having been the first to order the emasculation of a troupe of her boy +slaves. + +"Whether the first false likeness of men came to the Assyrians through +the ingenuity of Semiramis; for these wanton wretches with high timbered +voices could not have produced themselves, those smooth cheeks could not +reproduce themselves; she gathered their like about her: or, Parthian +luxury forbade with its knife, the shadow of down to appear, and fostered +long that boyish bloom, compelling art-retarded youth to sink to Venus' +calling," Claudianus, Eutrop. i, 339 seq. + +"And last of all, the multitude of eunuchs, ranging in age, from old men +to boys, pale and hideous from the twisted deformity of their features; +so that, go where one will, seeing groups of mutilated men, he will +detest the memory of Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first to +emasculate young men of tender age; thwarting the intent of Nature, and +forcing her from her course." Ammianus Marcellinus, book xiv, chap. vi. + +The Old Testament proves that the Hebrew authorities of the time were no +strangers to the abomination, but no mention of eunuchs in Judea itself +is to be found prior to the time of Josiah. Castration was forbidden the +Jews, Deuteronomy, xxiii, 1, but as this book was probably unknown before +the time of Josiah, we can only conjecture as to the attitude of the +patriarchs in regard to this subject; we are safe, however, in inferring +that it was hostile. "Periander, son of Cypselus, had sent three hundred +youths of the noblest young men of the Corcyraeans to Alyattes, at +Sardis; for the purpose of emasculation." Herodotus, iii, chapter 48. + +"Hermotimus, then, was sprung from these Pedasians; and, of all men we +know, revenged himself in the severest manner for an injury he had +received; for, having been captured by an enemy and sold, he was +purchased by one Panionius, a Chian, who gained a livelihood by the most +infamous practices; for whenever he purchased boys remarkable for their +beauty, having castrated them, he used to take them to Sardis and Ephesus +and sell them for large sums; for with the barbarians, eunuchs are more +valued than others, on account of their perfect fidelity. Panionius, +therefore, had castrated many others, as he made his livelihood by this +means, and among them, this man. + +"Hermotimus, however, was not in every respect unfortunate, for he went +to Sardis, along with other presents for the king, and in process of time +was the most esteemed by Xerxes of all his eunuchs. + +"When the king was preparing to march his Persian army against Athens, +Hermotimus was at Sardis, having gone down at that time, upon some +business or other, to the Mysian territory which the Chians possess, and +is called Atarneus, he there met with Panionius. Having recognized him, +he addressed many friendly words to him, first recounting the many +advantages he had acquired by this means, and secondly, promising him how +many favors he would confer upon him in requital, if he would bring his +family and settle there; so that Panionius joyfully accepted the proposal +and brought his wife and children. But when Hermotimus got him with his +whole family into his power, he addressed him as follows: + +"'O thou, who, of all mankind, hast gained thy living by the most +infamous acts, what harm had either I, or any of mine, done to thee, +or any of thine, that of a man thou hast made me nothing? + +"'Thou didst imagine, surely, that thy machinations would pass unnoticed +by the Gods, who, following righteous laws, have enticed thee, who hath +committed unholy deeds, into my hands, so that thou canst not complain of +the punishment I shall inflict upon thee.' + +"When he had thus upbraided him, his sons being brought into his +presence, Panionius was compelled to castrate his own sons, who were four +in number; and, being compelled, he did it; and after he had finished it, +his sons, being compelled, castrated him. Thus did vengeance and +Hermotimus overtake Panionius." Herodotus, viii, ch. 105-6. + +Mention of the Galli, the emasculated priests of Cybebe should be made. +Emasculation was a necessary first condition of service in her worship. +(Catullus, Attys.) The Latin literature of the silver and bronze ages +contains many references to castration. Juvenal and Martial have +lavished bitter scorn upon this form of degradation, and Suetonius and +Statius inform us that Domitian prohibited the practice, but it is in the +"Amoures" attributed to Lucian that we find a passage so closely akin to +the one forming a basis of this note, that it is inserted in extenso: + +"Some pushed their cruelty so far as to outrage Nature with the +sacrilegious knife, and, after depriving men of their virility, found in +them the height of pleasure. These miserable and unhappy creatures, that +they may the longer serve the purposes of boys, are stunted in their +manhood, and remain a doubtful riddle of a double sex, neither preserving +that boyhood in which they were born, nor possessing that manhood which +should be theirs. The bloom of their youth withers away in a premature +old age: while yet boys, they suddenly become old, without any interval +of manhood. For impure sensuality, the mistress of every vice, devising +one shameless pleasure after another, insensibly plunges into +unmentionable debauchery, experienced in every form of brutal lust." The +jealous Roman husband's furious desire to prevent the consequences of his +wife's incontinence was by no means well served by the use of such +agents; on the contrary, the women themselves profited by the +arrangement. By means of these eunuchs, they edited the morals of their +maids and hampered the sodomitical hankerings, active or otherwise, of +their husbands: Martial, xii, 54: but when the passions and suspicions of +both heads of the family were mutually aroused, the eunuchs fanned them +into flame and gained the ascendancy in the home. They even went so far +as to marry: Martial, xi, 82, and Juvenal, i, 22. + +In the third century a certain Valesius formed a sect which, following +the example set by Origen, acted literally upon the text of Matthew, v, +28, 30, and Matthew, xix, 12. Of this sect, Augustine, De Heres. chap. +37, said: "the Valesians castrate themselves and those who partake of +their hospitality, thinking that after this manner, they ought to serve +God." That injustice was done upon the wrong member is very evident, yet +in an age so dark, so dominated by austere asceticism, this clean cut +perception of the best interests of suffering humanity, is only to be +rivalled by the French physician in the time of the black plague. He had +observed that sthenic patients, when bled, died: the superstition and +medical usage of the age prescribed bleeding, and when the fat abbots +came to be bled, he bled them freely and with satisfaction. Justinian +decreed that anyone guilty of performing the operation which deprived an +individual of virility should be subjected to a similar operation, and +this crime was later punished with death. In the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries we encounter another and even viler reason for this +practice: that "the voice of such a person" (one castrated in boyhood) +"after arriving at adult age, combines the high range and sweetness of +the female with the power of the male voice," had long been known, and +Italian singing masters were not slow in putting this hint to practical +use. The poor sometimes sold their children for this purpose, and the +castrati and soprani are terms well known to the musical historian. + +These artificial voices disgraced the Italian stage until literally +driven from it by public hostility, and the punishment of death was the +reward of the individual bold enough to perform such an operation. The +papal authority excommunicated those guilty of the crime and those upon +whom such an operation had been performed, but received artificial +voices, which were the result of accident, into the Sistine choir. +This pretext served the church well and, until the year 1878, when +the disgrace was wiped out by Pope Leo XIII, the Sistine choir was an +eloquent commentary upon the attitude of an institution placed, as it +were, "between love and duty." It should be recorded that this choir, in +its recent visit to the United States, had but one artificial voice, and +its owner was the oldest member of the choir. + +Young home-born slaves were bought up by the dealers, castrated, because +of the increased price they brought when in this condition, and sold for +huge sums: Seneca, Controv. x, chap. 4; and kidnapping was frequently +resorted to, just as it is in Africa today. + +In Russia there is a sect called the "skoptzi," whose tenets, in this +respect, are indicated by their name. This sect is first mentioned in +the person of a certain Adrian, a monk, who came to Russia about the +year 1001. In 1041, l090 to 1096, 1138 to 1147, 1326, they are noticed, +and in 1721 to 1724 they are prominent. They call themselves "white +doves" and are divided into smaller congregations which, in their +allegorical terminology, they call "ships"; the leader of each +congregation is called the "pilot" and the female leader, the "pilot's +mate." Their tenets provide for two degrees of emasculation: complete +and incomplete, and, in the case of the former, he who submitted to the +operation had the "royal seal" affixed to him, this being their name for +complete emasculation: in the case of the latter, the neophyte had +reached the "Second Degree of Purity." The operation was performed with +a red-hot knife or a hot iron, and this was known as the "baptism by +fire." + +In the case of female converts, the breasts were amputated, either with a +red-hot knife or a pair of red-hot shears (Kudrin trial, Moscow, 1871; +testimony of physicians and examination of the accused) which served the +double purpose of checking haemorrhage, as would a thermo-cautery, and +avoiding infection. Another method consisted in searing the orifice of +the vagina so that the scar tissue would contract it in such a manner as +to effectually prevent the entrance of the male. + +A peculiar attribute of this sect is the character of many of its +members: bankers, civil service officials, navy officers, army officers +and others of the finest professions. Leroy-Beaulieu, in discussing +their methods of obtaining converts says: "they prefer boys and youths, +whom they strive to convince of the necessity of 'killing the flesh.' +They sometimes succeed so well, that cases are known of boys of fifteen +or so resorting to self-mutilation, to save themselves from the +temptations of early manhood. These apostles of purity do not always +scruple to have recourse to violence or deceit. They ensnare their +victims by equivocal forms of speech, and having thus obtained their +consent virtually upon false pretences, they reveal to the confiding +dupes the real meaning of the engagement they have entered into only at +the last moment, when it is too late for them to escape the murderous +knife. One evening, two men, one of them young and blooming, the other +old, with sallow and unnaturally smooth face, were conversing, while +sipping their tea, in a house in Moscow. 'Virgins will alone stand +before the throne of the Most High,' said the elder man. 'He who looks +on a woman with desire commits adultery in his heart, and adulterers +shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.' 'What then should we sinners +doe' asked the young man. 'Knowest thou not,' replied the elder, 'the +word of the Lord? If thy right eye leadeth thee into temptation, pluck +it out and cast it from thee; if thy right hand leadeth thee into +temptation, cut it off and cast it from thee. What ye must do is to kill +the flesh. Ye must become like unto the disembodied angels, and that may +be attained only, through being made white as snow.' 'And how can we be +made thus white?' further inquired the young man. 'Come and see,' said +the old man. 'He took his companion down many stairs, into a cellar +resplendent with lights. Some fifteen white robed men and women were +gathered there. In a corner was a stove, in which blazed a fire. After +some prayers and dances, very like those in use among the Flagellants, +the old man announced to his companion: 'now shalt thou learn how sinners +are made white as snow.' And the young man, before he had time to ask a +single question, was seized and gagged, his eyes were bandaged, he was +stretched out on the ground, and the apostle, with a red-hot knife, +stamped him with the 'seal of purity.' This happened to a peasant, +Saltykov by name, and certainly not to him alone. He fainted away under +the operation, and when he came to himself, he heard the voices of his +chaste sponsors give him the choice between secrecy and death." + +Catherine II signed the first edict against this sect in 1772, but +agitation was more or less constant until the Imperial government began +vigorous prosecutions in 1871, and many were sentenced to hard labor in +Siberia. When prosecutions were instituted, large numbers emigrated to +Roumania and there took the name of "Lipovans." Women, especially one of +the name of Anna Romanovna, have had a great share in the invention and +diffusion of the doctrine. Not infrequently it is the women who, with +their own hands, transform the men to angels. + +In 1871 their number was estimated to be about 3000, in 1874 they +numbered 5444, including 1465 women, and in 1847, 515 men and 240 women +were transported to Siberia. The sect still holds its own in Russia. +They are millennarians and the messiah will not come for them until their +sect numbers 144,000. + +Antiquity knew three varieties of eunuch: +Castrati: Scrotum and testicles were amputated. +Spadones: Testicles were torn out. +Thlibiae: Testicles were destroyed by crushing. + + + + +CHAPTER 127. "Such sweetness permeated her voice as she said this, so +entrancing was the sound upon the listening air that you would have +believed the Sirens' harmonies were floating in the breeze." + +Many scholars have drawn attention to the ethereal beauty of this +passage. Probably the finest parallel is to be found in Horace's ode to +Calliope. After the invocation to the muse he thinks he hears her +playing: + + "Hark! Or is this but frenzy's pleasing dream? + Through groves I seem to stray + Of consecrated bay, + Where voices mingle with the babbling stream, + And whispering breezes play." + + Sir Theodore Martin's version. + +Another exquisite and illuminating passage occurs in Catullus, 51, given +in Marchena's fourth note. + + + + +CHAPTER 131. "Then she kneaded dust and spittle and, dipping her middle +finger into the mixture, she crossed my forehead with it." + +Since the Fairy Tale Era of the human race, sputum has been employed to +give potency to charms and to curses. It was anciently used as anathema +and that use is still in force to this day. Let the incredulous critic +spit in some one's face if he doubts my word. + +But sputum had also a place in the Greek and Roman rituals. Trimalchio +spits and throws wine under the table when he hears a cock crowing +unseasonably. This, in the first century. Any Jew in Jerusalem hearing +the name of Titus mentioned, spits: this in 1903. In the ceremony of +naming Roman children spittle had its part to play: it was customary for +the nurse to touch the lips and forehead of the child with spittle. The +Catholic priest's ritual, which prescribes that the ears and nostrils of +the infant or neophyte, as the case may be, shall be touched with +spittle, comes, in all probability from Mark, vii, 33, 34, viii, 23, and +John, ix, 6, which, in turn are probably derived from a classical +original. It should be added that fishermen spit upon their bait before +casting in their hooks. + + + + +CHAPTER 131. Medio sustulit digito: + +There is more than a suggestion in the choice of the middle finger, in +this instance. Among the Romans, the middle finger was known as the +"infamous finger." + + Infami digito et lustralibus ante salivis + Expiat, urentes oculos inhibere perita. + Persius, Sat. ii + +See also Dio Chrysostom, xxxiii. "Neither," says Lampridius, Life of +Heliogabalus, "was he given to demand infamies in words when he could +indicate shamelessness with his fingers," Chapter 10. "With tears in his +eyes, Cestos often complains to me, Mamurianus, of being touched by your +finger. You need not use your finger, merely: take Cestos all to +yourself, if nothing else is wanting in your establishment," +Martial, i, 93 + +To touch the posteriors lewdly with the finger, that is, the middle +finger put forth and the two adjoining fingers bent down, so that the +hand might form a sort of Priapus, was an obscene sign to attract +catamites. That this position of the fingers was an indecent symbol is +attested by numerous passages in the classical writers. "He would extend +his hand, bent into an obscene posture, for them to kiss," Suetonius, +Caligula, 56. It may be added that one of that emperor's officers +assassinated him for insulting him in that manner. When this finger was +thus applied it signified that the person was ready to sodomise him whom +he touched. The symbol is still used by the lower orders. + +"We are informed by our younger companions that gentlemen given to +sodomitical practices are in the habit of frequenting some public place, +such as the Pillars of the County Fire Office, Regent St., and placing +their hands behind them, raising their fingers in a suggestive manner +similar to that mentioned by our epigrammatist. Should any gentleman +place himself near enough to have his person touched by the playful +fingers of the pleasure-seeker, and evince no repugnance, the latter +turns around and, after a short conversation, the bargain is struck. In +this epigram, however, Martial threatens the eye and not the anus." The +Romans used to point out sodomites and catamites by thus holding out the +middle finger, and so it was used as well in ridicule (or chaff, as we +say) as to denote infamy in the persons who were given to these +practices. + +"If anyone calls you a catamite, Sextillus," says Martial, ii, 28, +"return the compliment and hold out your middle finger to him." +According to Ramiresius, this custom was still common in the Spain of his +day (1600), and it still persists in Spanish and Italian countries, as +well as in their colonies. This position of the fingers was supposed to +represent the buttocks with a priapus inserted up the fundament; it was +called "Iliga," by the Spaniards. From this comes the ancient custom of +suspending little priapi from boys' necks to avert the evil eye. + +Aristophanes, in the "Clouds," says: + +SOCRATES: First they will help you to be pleasant in company, and to +know what is meant by OEnoplian rhythm and what by the Dactylic. + +STREPSIADES: Of the Dactyl (finger)? I know that quite well. + +SOCRATES: What is it then? + +STREPSIADES: Why, 'tis this finger; formerly, when a child, I used this +one. + +(Daktulos means, of course, both Dactyl (name of a metrical foot) and +finger. Strepsiades presents his middle finger with the other fingers +and thumb bent under in an indecent gesture meant to suggest the penis +and testicles. It was for this reason that the Romans called this finger +the "unseemly finger.") + +SOCRATES: You are as low minded as you are stupid. + +[See also Suetonius: Tiberius, chapter 68.] + + + + +CHAPTER 138. "OEnothea brought out a leathern dildo." + +This instrument, made from glass, wax, leather, or other suitable +material such as ivory or the precious metals (Ezekiel xvi, 17), has been +known from primitive times; and the spread of the cult of Priapus was a +potent factor in making the instrument more common in the western world. +Numerous Greek authors make mention of it: Aristophanes, Lucian, +Herondas, Suidas and others. That it was only too familiar to the Romans +is shown by their many references to it: Catullus, Martial, the apostle +Paul, Tertullian, and others. + +Aristophanes, Lysistrata: (Lysistrata speaking) "And not so much as +the shadow of a lover! Since the day the Milesians betrayed us, I have +never once caught sight of an eight-inch-long dildo even, to be a +leathern consolation to us poor widows." Her complaint is based upon the +fact that all the men were constantly absent upon military duty and the +force of the play lies in her strategic control of a commodity in great +demand among the male members of society. Quoting again from the same +play: Calonice: "And why do you summon us, Lysistrata dear? What is it +all about?" Lysistrata: "About a big affair." Calonice: "And is it +thick, too'?" Lysistrata: "Indeed it is, great and big too." Calonice: +"And we are not all on the spot!" Lysistrata: "Oh! If it were what you +have in mind, there would never be an absentee. No, no, it concerns a +thing I have turned about and about, this way and that, for many +sleepless nights." When the plot has been explained, viz.: that the +women refuse intercourse to their husbands until after peace has been +declared--Calonice: "But suppose our poor devils of husbands go away and +leave us"' Lysistrata: "Then, as Pherecrates says, 'we must flay a +skinned dog,' that's all." + +Lucian, Arnoures, says: "but, if it is becoming for men to have +intercourse with men, for the future let women have intercourse with +women. Come, O new generation, inventor of strange pleasures! as you +have devised new methods to satisfy male lust, grant the same privilege +to women; let them have intercourse with one another like men, girding +themselves with the infamous instruments of lust, an unholy imitation of +a fruitless union." + +Herondas, Mime vi: + +KORITTO | Two women friends +METRO | +A Female Domestic. + +Time, about 300 B. C. + +Scene, Koritto's sitting room. + +KORITTO: (Metro has just come to call) Take a seat, Metro; (to the slave +girl) Get up and get the lady a chair; I have to tell you to do +everything; you're such a fool you never do a thing of your own accord. +You're only a stone in the house, you're not a bit like a slave except +when you count up your daily allowance of bread: you count the crumbs +when you do that, though, and whenever the tiniest bit happens to fall +upon the floor, the very walls get tired of listening to your grumbling +and boiling over with temper, as you do all day long--now, when we want +to use that chair you've found time to dust it off and rub up the polish +--you may thank the lady that I don't give you a taste of my hand. + +METRO: You have as hard a time as I do, Koritto, dear--day and night +these low servants make me gnash my teeth and bark like a dog, just like +they do you.--But I came to see you about--(to the slave girl) get out of +here, get out of my sight, you trouble maker, you're all ears and tongue +and nothing else, all you do is to sit around Koritto--dear, now please +don't tell me a fib, who stitched that red dildo of yours? + +KORITTO: Metro, where did you see that? + +METRO: Why Nossis, the daughter of Erinna, had it three days ago. Oh but +it was a beauty! + +KORITTO: So Nossis had it, did she? Where did she get it, I wonder? + +METRO: I'm afraid you'll say something if I tell you. + +KORITTO: My dear Metro, if anybody hears anything you tell me, from +Koritto's mouth, I hope I go blind. + +METRO: It was given to her by Eubole of Bitas, and she cautioned her not +to let a soul hear of it. + +KORITTO: That woman will be my undoing, one of these days; I yielded to +her importunity and gave it to her before I had used it myself, Metro +dear, but to her it was a godsend--, now she takes it and gives it to +some one who ought not to have it. I bid a long farewell to such a +friend as she; let her look out for another friend instead of me. As for +Nossis, Adrasteia forgive me. I don't want to talk bigger than a lady +should--I wouldn't give her even a rotten dildo; no, not even if I had a +thousand! + +METRO: Please don't flare up so quickly when you hear something +unpleasant. A good woman must put up with everything. It's all my fault +for gossiping. My tongue ought to be cut out; honestly it should: but to +get back to the question I asked you a moment ago: who stitched the +dildo? Tell me if you love me! What makes you laugh when you look at +me? What does your coyness mean? Have you never set eyes on me before? +Don't fib to me now, Koritto, I beg of you. + +KORITTO: Why do you press me so? Kerdon stitched it. + +METRO: Which Kerdon? Tell me, because there are two Kerdons, one is that +blue-eyed fellow, the neighbor of Myrtaline the daughter of Kylaithis; +but he couldn't even stitch a plectron to a lyre--the other one, who +lives near the house of Hermodorus, after you have left the street, was +pretty good once, but he's too old, now; the late lamented Kylaithis--may +her kinsfolk never forget her--used to patronize him. + +KORITTO: He's neither of those you've mentioned, Metro; this fellow is +bald headed and short, he comes from Chios or Erythrai, I think--you +would mistake him for another Prexinos, one fig could not look more like +another, but just hear him talk, and you'll know that he is Kerdon and +not Prexinos. He does business at home, selling his wares on the sly +because everyone is afraid of the tax gatherers. My dear! He does do +such beautiful work! You would think that what you see is the handiwork +of Athena and not that of Kerdon! Do you know that he had two of them +when he came here! And when I got a look at them my eyes nearly burst +from their sockets through desire. Men never get--I hope we are alone +--their tools so stiff; and not only that, but their smoothness was as +sweet as sleep and their little straps were as soft as wool. If you went +looking for one you would never find another ladies' cobbler cleverer +than he! + +METRO: Why didn't you buy the other one, too? + +KORITTO: What didn't I do, Metro dear'? And what didn't I do to persuade +him'? I kissed him, I patted his bald head, I poured out some sweet wine +for him to drink, I fondled him, the only thing I didn't do was to give +him my body. + +METRO: But you should have given him that too, if he asked it. + +KORITTO: Yes, and I would have, but Bitas slave girl commenced grinding +in the court, just at the wrong moment; she has reduced our hand mill +nearly to powder by grinding day and night for fear she might have four +obols to pay for having her own sharpened. + +METRO: But how did he happen to come to your house, Koritto dear? You'll +tell me the truth won't you, now? + +KORITTO: Artemis the daughter of Kandas directed him to me by pointing +out the roof of the tanner's house as a landmark. + +METRO: That Artemis is always discovering something new to help her make +capital out of her skill as a go-between. But anyhow, when you couldn't +buy them both you should have asked who ordered the other one. + +KORITTO: I begged him to tell me but he swore he wouldn't, that's how +much he thought of me, Metro dear. + +METRO: You mean that I must go and find Artemis now to learn who the +Kerdon is--good-bye KORITTO. He (my husband) is hungry by now, so it's +time I was going. + +KORITTO: (To the slave girl) Close the doors, there, chicken keeper, and +count the chickens to see if they're all there; throw them some grain, +too, for the chicken thieves will steal them out of one's very lap. + + + + +THE CORDAX. + +A lascivious dance of the old Greek comedy. Any person who performed +this dance except upon the stage was considered drunk or dissolute. +That the dance underwent changes for the worse is manifest from the +representation of it found on a marble tazza in the Vatican (Visconti, +Mus. Pio-Clem. iv, 29), where it is performed by ten figures, five +Finns and five Bacchanals, but their movements, though extremely lively +and energetic, are not marked by any particular indelicacy. Many ancient +authors and scholiasts have commented upon the looseness and sex appeal +of this dance. Meursius, Orchest., article Kordax, has collected the +majority of passages in the classical writers, bearing upon this subject, +but from this disorderly collection it is impossible to arrive at any +definite description of the cordax. The article in Coelius Rhodiginus. +Var. Lect. lib. iv, is conventional. The cordax was probably not +unlike the French "chalhut," danced in the wayside inns, and it has been +preserved in the Spanish "bolero" and the Neapolitan "tarantella." When +the Romans adopted the Greek customs, they did not neglect the dances +and it is very likely that the Roman Nuptial Dance, which portrayed the +most secret actions of marriage had its origin in the Greek cordax. The +craze for dancing became so menacing under Tiberius that the Senate was +compelled to run the dancers and dancing masters out of Rome but the evil +had become so deep rooted that the very precautions by which society was +to be safeguarded served to inflame the passion for the dance and +indulgence became so general and so public that great scandal resulted. +Domitian, who was by no means straight laced, found it necessary to expel +from the Senate those members who danced in public. The people imitated +the nobles, and, as fast as the dancers were expelled, others from the +highest and lowest ranks of society took their places, and there soon +came to be no distinction, in this matter, between the noblest names of +the patricians and the vilest rabble from the Suburra. There is no +comparison between the age of Cicero and that of Domitian. "One could do +a man no graver injury than to call him a dancer," says Cicero, Pro +Murena, and adds: "a man cannot dance unless he is drunk or insane." + +Probably the most realistic description of the cordax, conventional, of +course, is to be found in Merejkovski's "Death of the Gods." The passage +occurs in chapter vi. I have permitted myself the liberty of supplying +the omissions and euphemisms in Trench's otherwise excellent and spirited +version of the novel. "At this moment hoarse sounds like the roarings of +some subterranean monster came from the market square. They were the +notes, now plaintive, now lively, of a hydraulic organ. At the entrance +to a showman's travelling booth, a blind Christian slave, for four obols +a day, was pumping up the water which produced this extraordinary +harmony. Agamemnon dragged his companions into the booth, a great tent +with blue awnings sprinkled with silver stars. A lantern lighted a +black-board on which the order of the program was chalked up in Syriac +and Greek. It was stifling within, redolent of garlic and lamp oil soot. +In addition to the organ, there struck up the wailing of two harsh +flutes, and an Ethopian, rolling the whites of his eyes, thrummed upon an +Arab drum. A dancer was skipping and throwing somersaults on a +tightrope, clapping his hands to the time of the music, and singing a +popular song: + + Hue, huc, convenite nunc + Spatalocinaedi! + Pedem tendite + Cursum addite + +"This starveling snub-nosed dancer was old, repulsive, and nastily gay. +Drops of sweat mixed with paint were trickling from his shaven forehead; +his wrinkles, plastered with white lead, looked like the cracks in some +wall when rain has washed away the lime. The flutes and organ ceased +when he withdrew, and a fifteen-year-old girl ran out upon the stage. +She was to perform the celebrated cordax, so passionately adored by the +mob. The Fathers of the Church called down anathema upon it, the Roman +laws prohibited it, but all in vain. The cordax was danced everywhere, +by rich and poor, by senators' wives and by street dancers, just as it +had been before. + +"'What a beautiful girl,' whispered Agamemnon enthusiastically. Thanks +to the fists of his companions, he had reached a place in the front rank +of spectators. The slender bronze body of the Nubian was draped only +about the hips with an almost airy colorless scarf. Her hair was wound +on the top of her head, in close fine curls like those of Nubian woven. +Her face was of the severest Egyptian type, recalling that of the Sphinx. + +"She began to dance languidly, carelessly, as if already weary. Above +her head she swung copper bells, castanets or 'crotals,'--swung them +lazily, so that they tinkled very faintly. Gradually her movements +became more emphatic, and suddenly under their long lashes, yellow eyes +shone out, clear and bright as the eyes of a leopardess. She drew her +body up to her full height and the copper castanets began to tinkle with +such challenge in their piercing sound that the whole crowd trembled with +emotion. Vivid, slender, supple as a serpent, the damsel whirled +rapidly, her nostrils dilated, and a strange cry came crooning from her +throat. With each impetuous movement, two dark little breasts held tight +by a green silk net, trembled like two ripe fruits in the wind, and their +sharp, thickly painted nipples were like rubies, as they protruded from +the net. + +"The crowd was beside itself with passion. Agamemnon, nearly mad, was +held back by his companions. Suddenly the girl stopped as if exhausted. +A slight shudder ran through her, from her head down the dark limbs to +her feet. Deep silence prevailed. The head of the Nubian was thrown +back as if in a rigid swoon but above it the crotals still tinkled with +an extraordinary languor, a dying vibration, quick and soft as the wing +flutterings of a captured butterfly. Her eyes grew dim but in their +inner depths glittered two sparks; the face remained severe, impersonal, +but upon the sensuous red lips of that sphinx-like mouth a smile +trembled, faint as the dying sound of the crotals." + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Double capacity of masseurs and prostitutes +Empress Theodora belonged to this class +High fortune may rather master us, than we master it +Legislation has never proved a success in repressing vice +One could do a man no graver injury than to call him a dancer +Russia there is a sect called the skoptzi +She is chaste whom no man has solicited--Ovid +Tax on bachelors +While we live, let us live + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATYRICON OF PETRONIUS, V6 *** + +******* This file should be named pas6w10.txt or pas6w10.zip ******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, pas6w11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, pas6w10a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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