If whatever opposes an obstacle to the gratification of the sexual appetite may be considered as having a place among the anti-aphrodisiacs, certain mechanical processes may be ranked as such. Of these, _fibulation_, from the Latin word _fibula_ (a buckle or ring) was the very reverse of circumcision, since the operation consisted in drawing the prepuce over the glans, and preventing its return, by the insertion of the ring.[201] The _Fibula_ (buckle) is so called, because it serves to fix together and to re-unite parts which are separated. It was, formerly a surgical instrument which, besides the use now particularly in question, served also to keep closed the lips of any extensive wounds. It is mentioned as being so applied by Oribuse,[202] and by Scribonius Largus.[203] Employed, therefore, as it was for various uses, the _fibula_ appears to have different shapes, now but little known to us. Rhodius[204] has treated of all those mentioned in the writings of antiquity. Meinsius thinks that the custom of infibulating may be traced back to the time of the siege of Troy, for the singer Demodocus, who was left with Clytemnestra by Agamemnon,[205] appears to that critic, to have been a eunuch, or, at least, to here been infibulated.[206] Among the ancients, as well as among many modern nations, the laws of chastity and the restraints of honour appeared scarcely sufficient to hinder the sexes from uniting, in spite of all the obstacles opposed by a vigilant watch and strict seclusion.[207] Indeed, what Roman virgin could entertain very strict ideas of modesty while she saw the goddess of love honoured in the temple, or the amours of Venus and Mars celebrated, while the poor cuckolded Vulcan, after seizing the amorous couple in his net, way only thereby exposed to the ridicule of the Olympic Divinities. There can be little doubt but that excess of this description bastardized and corrupted the ancient Greeks and Romans, and that recourse was necessarily had to the _fibula_ when the deities themselves set the example. Of what use, indeed, could be the moral lessons of a Plato or a Socrates, even when enforced by infibulation, if vice was thus sanctioned by divine example? The only aim of such a state of things was to vanquish obstacles. The art of eluding nature was studied, marriage was despised, notwithstanding the edicts of Augustus against bachelors; the depopulated republic wallowed in the most abandoned lust, and, as a natural consequence, the individual members of it became corrupted and enervated from their very infancy.