The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity — John Shaqi
The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical AntiquityRosenbaum, Julius
History
The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity
Rosenbaum, Julius
Sexually transmitted diseases -- History
Finally, as to ῥινοκολοῦρος (nose-docked), for which the MSS. also have
ῥινοκλοῦρος, it is certainly the case that in Antiquity the man who
practised vice with strange women (_Moechus_,—adulterer) had his nose
cut off[29], and as _Moechus_ equally signifies the _fellator_[30],
the latter also may very well have been obliged to forfeit his nose.
Following this hint, it would be quite legitimate to suppose the
punishment to have been put for the vice, and a _fellator_ called
ῥινοκολοῦρος (nose-docked) on this ground; in the same way as the loss
of the nose might be looked upon as a consequence of vice, and anyone
seeing a man in this case would at once think of his dissolute past
life, as indeed frequently happens at the present day amongst ourselves.
The town of Rhinocolurus,—and its history is more than
problematical,—would seem to have nothing whatever to do with the
question. The passages from _Pliny_ and _Livy_ which Naumann quotes
give absolutely nothing beyond the name; and the mere existence of
the name _Diodorus_[31] certifies, in his story of how Actisanes
proceeded against the Robbers in a way of his own: “He did not wish
to put the guilty to death, nor yet to leave them unpunished. So he
had the accused brought up out of the whole country and inquired into
each case most scrupulously; such as were found to be guilty all had
their noses cut off by his orders, and were banished to the most remote
spot in the Desert. The town he founded for them there received in
remembrance of the punishment inflicted on its inhabitants the name of
Rhinocolura. It lies on the borders of Egypt and Syria, not far from
the sea-shore that borders the desert in that region, and displays an
almost complete absence of all requisites for comfortable habitation.
For the surrounding district possesses a soil thoroughly saturated
with salt, while inside the town very little water is to be found and
that positively tainted and of quite a bitter taste.” Diodorus relates
further that these Colonists lived by catching quails; but of _Leprosy_
there is no mention either here or in Strabo or Seneca, so that
Naumann’s statement to the effect that it served as a dwelling-place
for Lepers lacks entirely, up to the present and at any rate so far as
we know, any historical foundation, though the character of the place
is not against such a hypothesis. Nor is any question raised in any
author as to the vicious life of the inhabitants of Rhinocolura,—in
fact in later times it was actually famous for the number of its _men
of piety_[32].
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