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
(Others of them belong to that most miserable tribe that dances away
their repute as man, breaking down their nature to the shrill tones of
songs,—men that are male women, womanish men. Not men and not women
are they in very truth. For the one sex they will not keep, the other
they have not gained; for what they really are they remain not, such is
their fashion, and what they foully long to be, that they are not, such
is their nature. An enigma of uncleanness, and a riddle of lust. Men
they are to women, and women to men).
Comp. _Barth_, Adversar. bk. XLIII. ch. 21. p. 1968., and the
expression θήλεια Φιλόξενος (a feminine Philoxenus) quoted p. 169
above. The Romans also used their word _femina_ (woman, wife) in the
same way; as may be gathered from _Ausonius_, Epigr. LXIX.—In eum qui
muliebria patiebatur (On one who suffered himself to be treated as a
woman), where we read at the end:
Nolo tamen veteris documenta arcessere famae.
Ecce ego sum factus _femina_ de puero.
(Yet I need not call up instances from ancient legend. Lo! I myself
have become _a woman_, who was erst a boy).
_Petronius_, Satir. 75, femina ipse mei domini fui.—I myself (masc.)
was my master’s _wife_. Justin, Hist. Philipp. I. 3. _Curtius_, III. 10.
[354] Comp. _Epictetus_, Dissertat. I. 16. 10., and Upton on the
passage.
[355] _Clement of Alexandria_, Paedag. bk. III. ch. 3., Εἰς τοσοῦτον δὲ
ἄρα ἐλήλακεν ἡ χλιδὴ ὡς μὴ τὸ θῆλυ μόνον _νοσεῖν_ περὶ τὴν κενοσπουδίαν
ταύτην, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ζηλοῦν τὴν _νόσον_· μὴ γὰρ καθαρεύοντες
καλλωπισμοῦ, _οὐχ ὑγιαίνουσιν_. πρὸς δὲ _τὸ μαλθακώτερον_ ἀποκλίνοντες,
γυναικίζονται, κουρὰς μὲν ἀγεννεῖς, καὶ πορνικὰς ἀποκειρόμενοι· χλανίσι
δὲ διαφανέσι περιπεπεμμένοι, καὶ μαστίχην τρώγοντες, ὄζοντες μύρου.
Τί ἄν τις φαίη, τούτους ἰδών; ἀτεχνῶς καθάπερ μετωποσκόπος, ἐκ τοῦ
σχήματος αὐτοὺς καταμαντεύεται, μοιχούς τε καὶ _ἀνδρογύνους, ἀμφοτέραν
Ἀφροδίτην θηρωμένους_· μισότριχας, ἄτριχας· τὸ ἄνθος τὸ ἀνδρικὸν
μυσαττομένους· τὰς κόμας δὲ ὥσπερ αἱ γυναῖκες κοσμουμένους.... Διὰ
τούτους γοῦν πληρεῖς αἱ πόλεις πιττούντων, ξηρούντων, παρατιλλόντων
τοὺς _θηλυδρίας_ τούτους· ἐργαστήρια δὲ κατεσκεύασται καὶ ἀνέῳκται
πάντῃ· καὶ τεχνῖται τῆς ἑταιρικῆς ταύτης πορνείας, συχνὸν ἐμπολῶσιν
ἀργύριον ἐμφανῶς, οἱ σφὰς καταπιττοῦσιν· καὶ τὰς τρίχας τοῖς ἀνασπῶσι
πάντα τρόπον περιέχουσιν· οὐδὲν αἰσχυνόμενοι τοὺς ὁρῶντας, οὐδὲ τοὺς
παριόντας, ἀλλ’ _οὐδὲ ἑαυτοὺς ἄνδρας ὄντας_. (To such a height then
has wanton luxury advanced, that not merely the female sex is _sick_
with this eagerness after frivolities, but even men are eager after
the _disease_; for indeed none being free from love of self-adornment,
they are not _free from disease_. But giving way to effeminacy, they
play at being women, cutting the hair in ignoble and meretricious
fashion; decked out too in transparent robes, chewing mastich-gum and
scented with myrrh. What should a man say, on seeing them? Why! exactly
like a phrenologist, he divines them from their look as adulterers
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