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
(Women there are to find delight in unwarlike eunuchs and kisses ever
soft and the lack of a beard that can never grow, and this especially
because then there is no need for any abortive. But the pleasure is
greatest when the organs are delivered full-grown to the surgeons,
just in the heat of youth, just when the down of puberty is darkening.
Then when the testicles, long looked for and at first encouraged to
grow, begin to be of double balanced weight, lo! Heliodorus whips them
off,—to the barber’s loss).
_Martial_, VI. 67.,
Cur tantum Eunuchos habeat tua Gellia, quaeris
Pannice? vult futui Gellia, non parere.
(Why your Gellia is fain to have eunuchs only, do you ask, Pannicus?
Because she wishes to be f-ck-d, not to be a mother). In longam
securamque libidinem exsectus spado, (A eunuch castrated with a view to
long-continued and _harmless_ lust), says St. Jerome. The information
given by _Galen_ (De usu Partium bk. XIV. 15. edit. Kühn, vol. IV.
p. 571) is notable, to the effect that the athletes at Olympia were
castrated, that their strength might not be wasted by coition. Have
the words “Olimpia agona” (Olimpic—Olympic—games) been in some way
misunderstood in the passage?
[240] Genesis XIX. 4., Levit., XVIII. 2., XXIX. 13.
[241] _Welcker_, Aeschylus—Trilogy, p. 356.
[242] _Athenaeus_, Deipnosoph., p. 602., τοῦ παιδεραστεῖν παρὰ πρώτων
Κρητῶν εἰς τοὺς Ἕλληνας παρελθόντος, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Τίμαιος. (The practice
of paederastia having been introduced among the Greeks first by the
Cretans, as Timaeus relates).—_Heraclitus Ponticus_, fragment, περὶ
πολιτείας III. p. 7.—_Servius_ on Virgil—Aeneid bk. X. 325., de
Cretensibus accepimus, quod in amore puerorum intemperantes fuerunt,
quod postea in Laconas et totam Graeciam translatum est. (Of the
Cretans we have been told that they were excessive in their love of
boys, a practice afterwards imported into Laconia and all parts of
Greece.) Comp. _K. O. Müller_, “Die Dorier”, (The Dorians), Vol. II.
pp. 240 sqq. K. Höck, “Kreta”, (Crete), Vol. III. p. 106. Though in
Crete as in all Dorian States Paedophilia was a universal and official
institution, yet paederastia too was common enough, as is shown by
the censure expressed by _Plato_ (De Legibus bk. I. 636., bk. VII.
836.) and _Plutarch_, (De puerorum educatione ch. 14.).—as also by the
expression Κρῆτα τρόπον (Cretan fashion) given in _Hesychius_; and
probably the word κρητίζειν (to play the Cretan) is to be understood
from this point of view also. _Pfeffinger_, “De Cretum vitiis,” (Of the
Vices of the Cretans). Strasbourg 1701. 4to. From this _Aristotle_
(Politics II. 7. 5.) may have got the idea that the lawgiver in Crete
introduced paederastia in order to check the increase of population.
_Hesychius_ says at any rate κρῆτα τρόπον, παιδικοῖς χρῆσθαι. (Cretan
fashion, i.e. to indulge in boy-loves). Of the Scythians later on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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