Non dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum; Non sum tam temerarius, nec audax, Nec mendacia qui loquar libenter. Si dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum, Iratam mihi Pontiae lagenam, Iratum calicem mihi Metili. _Iuro per Syrios tibi tumores, Iuro per Berecynthios furores._ Quod dixi tamen, hoc leve et pusillum est. Quod notum est, quod et ipse non negabis: _Dixi te_, Coracine, _cunnilingum_. (I never called you a _cinaedus_, Coracinus; I am not so rash or so reckless, not being one to speak lies willingly. If I called you a _cinaedus_, Coracinus, may Pontia’s jar be my enemy, and Metilius’ poisoned cup. _I take oath by your Syrian tumours, by your Berecynthian frenzies._ What I _did_ say is a trivial, an insignificant thing, a thing well known, that you will not yourself deny,—_I said_, Coracinus, _you were a cunnilingue_). What were these _Syrii tumores_ (Syrian tumours) that afflicted the _cunnilingue_ Coracinus? _Beroaldus_, Annotat. ch. 25., understands them as “tumores et vibices a cultris et flagris quibus sacerdotes Cybeles (quam deam Syriam esse volunt) se sauciabant.” (the swellings and weals from the knives and scourges with which the priests of Cybelé,—whom they claim to be the Syrian goddess—used to wound themselves). _Farnabius_ on the contrary thinks only _Berecynthios furores_ (Berecynthian frenzies) to be intended in this explanation, and makes the _tumores Syrii_ mean “_ulcera et morbos quibus credebatur irata Isis inflare peierantes_,” (ulcers and maladies with which the angry Isis was supposed to afflict false swearers), appealing to the passage of Persius[84], already brought forward a few pages back (p. 254.), which reads: Hinc grandes Galli et cum sistro lusca sacerdos, _Incussere Deos inflantes corpora_, si non Praedictum ter mane caput gustaveris alli. (Then the tall Galli, and the one-eyed priestess with her sacred rattle, instil terror of _the gods that make men’s bodies swell_, unless three times at dawn you have eaten the prescribed head of garlic). Whether this passage affords any direct proof would seem doubtful, inasmuch as the _inflare corpus_ (to make the body swell) properly speaking only refers to the abdomen. To this also the eating of the allium (garlic), which no doubt first won its magic significance on account of its carminative properties, appears to point. However another explanation is possible. Referring back to the passage of _Porphyrius_ quoted above on p. 254., the _tumores_ Coracinus had contracted in consequence of his general incontinence with women, which incontinence had at last brought him as a _senex_? (old man) to such a condition of weakness that nothing was left him but the vice of _cunnilingere_ to satisfy his still unexhausted lubricity. A side light in this case may be thrown on the matter by Horace’s description of the _Anus libidinosa_ (The lecherous old woman) in Epodes VIII. 9. 19.: