The inhabitants of Italy were according to _Suidas_ (under the name Θάμυρις—Thamyris) inventors of paederastia; and Etruscans, Samnites and Messapians, as well as the Greeks dwelling in Magna Graecia, lay under the reproach of practising the most vicious forms of love with men and violation of boys[261]. In all probability the vice spread from here to Rome, where it is found as early as the year 433 A.U.C.[262]. To such an extent did it increase that in 585 A.U.C. (B.C. 169), as _Meier_ has demonstrated, the _Lex Scantinia_ had to be passed against it. Yet all this amounted as yet to nothing in comparison with the scenes of horror that were enacted under the Emperors _Tiberius_, _Caligula_, etc., of whom _Martial_[263] says: Tanquam parva foret sexus iniuria nostri Foedandos populo prostituisse mares[264], Iam cunae leonis erant, ut ab ubere raptus Sordida vagitu posceret aera puer, Immatura dabant infandas corpora poenas. Non tulit Ausonius talia monstra pater: Idem qui teneris nuper succurrit ephebis, Ne faceret steriles saeva libido viros. Dilexere prius pueri, iuvenesque senesque: At nunc infantes te quoque, Caesar, amant. (As though it were a small wrong done our sex to make males prostitutes[264] to be debauched by the crowd, cradles now became a part of the brothel-keeper’s stock in trade, that the baby-boy torn from the breast might solicit a sordid wage by his wailing, and immature bodies paid horrible penalties. Horrors such as these the great Father of Italy (Domitian) would not suffer: that same good Emperor who of late came to the rescue of tender youths, that raging lust might not make men unfruitful. Heretofore boys loved him,—and young men and old; now the very infants too love thee, Caesar). Yet this was of little avail; the vice descended from generation to generation, and passed on to the Christian nations, just as the Roman punishments did in their legal codes. Diseases consequent on Paederastia. § 13. If we consider, first that the contractile power of the _Sphincter ani_ muscle offered great resistance to the paederast, a resistance only to be overcome by the exertion of considerable force, secondly that the glands of the _rectum_ exude a malodorous secretion, which under the influence of climate,—a subject to be dealt with more precisely later on,—assumes a more or less acrid quality, it will not surprise us to find that manifold forms of disease showed themselves in Ancient times both among paederasts and cinaedi (pathics). These were no doubt all the more serious in cases where the one set of organs or the other was already morbidly affected. As to the paederast indeed the direct evidence is scanty, yet it is not entirely wanting, as may be seen from the following Epigram of _Martial_[265]: IN NAEVOLUM.