The Plague of Lust, Vol. 1 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical AntiquityRosenbaum, Julius
History
The Plague of Lust, Vol. 1 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity
Rosenbaum, Julius
Sexually transmitted diseases -- History
The last passage in which the expression θήλεια νοῦσος (feminine
disease) occurs, is a _scholion_ on the word γαλλιαμβικὸν (viz.
μέτρον—galliambic metre) in _Hephaestion_[388]. The Scholiast says:
Γαλλιαμβικὸν δὲ ἐκλήθη, ἐπεὶ λελυμένον ἐστὶ τὸ μέτρον· οἱ δὲ Γάλλοι,
διαβάλλονται ὡς _θήλειαν νόσον_ ἔχοντες, διὸ καὶ σώματα φόρον ἐτέλουν
Ῥωμαίοις εἰς τοῦτο· οἱ τοιοῦτοι δέ ἱερεῖς εἰσὶ Δήμητρος. (Now it was
called galliambic, because the metre is loose; and the Galli are evil
spoken of as having _feminine disease_. Wherefore also they used to
pay their bodies as tribute to the Romans—_or_, their bodies used
to pay tribute to the Romans—to this day; and such men are priests
of Demeter.) _Stark_ gives (p. 21.) the following translation of
this. “Galliambicum vocabatur, quod solutum est metrum; Galli enim
utpote _morbo muliebri_ laborantes inculpantur, quod Romanis corpora
ad hoc (tanquam) tributum persolverent,” (It was called galliambic,
because the metre is loose; for the Galli are accused as suffering
from _feminine disease_, inasmuch as they used to pay their bodies to
the Romans to this day as it were a tribute),—but without committing
himself to any more precise explanation of the words. The meaning
of the first two sentences is plain enough: The metre is called the
galliambic, because it is loose, resolved, i. e. instead of long
syllables short are used, and so the metres changed from masculine
to feminine. Now the Galli are charged with practising θήλεια νόσος
(feminine disease) (as _Homer_, Odyssey I. 368., says: ὑπέρβιον ὕβριν
ἔχοντες—having, practising very audacious insolence). But what do
the words that follow mean: διὸ καὶ σώματα φόρον ἐτέλουν Ῥωμαίοις
εἰς τοῦτο? The _tanquam_ (as it were) added in the Latin translation
shows that the translator took the sentence in a figurative sense. But
what is the subject of the sentence? is it σώματα or Γάλλοι—ἔχοντες?
The translator must necessarily have taken the latter as the subject:
“wherefore they paid or offered up their bodies to the Romans as it
were for tribute”; and this could imply nothing less than that the
Galli gave themselves up to the Romans as Pathics. Now does the
arrangement of the words admit of this? We think not; for in that case
the Scholiast must needs have put ἑαυτῶν with σώματα or at any rate the
article τὰ.
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