Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
General
Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
Erotic literature; Sex customs -- Greece; Sex customs -- Rome
Galen means by this that the man who uses human excrements as medicine
is considered worse than a fellator or a cinede; that amongst the
fellators the Phœnicianists are more abominable than the Lesbianists.
There can therefore be no doubt that he designates the action of the
_fellators_ by the word Phœnicianizing, and by Lesbianizing that of the
_irrumants_. In fact, as he judges those the worst who come nearest to
the eaters of excrements, he could not detest less those who defile
their mouths by fellation than those who defile the mouths of other
people by irrumation; similarly he could not help holding in abhorrence
the _cunnilingues_ and the drinkers of menses, of whom more later on.
But the Lesbians found imitators. The inhabitants of Nola were in bad
repute amongst the Ancients in that respect; in Ausonius, _Epigr._
LXXI., Crispa, a fellatrix, is said to practice the business “with which
an unprecedented effeminacy inspired the people of Nola.” However, here
is this spirited epigram in its entirety:
“Over and above the intimate joys of legitimate love, hateful lust
has found out other foul modes of pleasure, of the sort the
loneliness of Lesbos taught Hercules’ heir, of the sort smooth
tongued Afranius in his actor’s gown displayed upon the stage, of
the sort an unprecedented effeminacy inspired the men of Nola with.
Crispa, with but one body, yet practises them all: masturbates,
fellates, works by either orifice,—dreading to die in vain before
she has tried every mode.”
To explain,—of course Crispa did not neglect to have herself entered in
the usual way; these are “the intimate joys of legitimate love.” Then
she allowed herself to be pedicated; this is the vice of Philoctetes,
the inheritor of the arrows of Hercules, as also Afranius, of whom
Quintilian says: “He excelled in the Roman comedy; a pity that he
polluted his plays with infamous masculine amours! He thus bore witness
against his own morals” (_Inst. Orat._, X., I). Further Crispa did not
fail to allow herself to be _irrumated_, this is, “the vice their
unprecedented effeminacy instilled into the men of Nola.” Lastly the
whole is recapitulated quite plainly in the last line but one; to
masturbate is the genus, while to fellate, and to work by one and the
other orifices are so many species, three altogether.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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