Paederastia.
§ 12.
In the preceding investigations we have shown how the natural aim and object of coition, viz. procreation of children, fell more and more into the background, in order to make way for sensual gratification; and we have made acquaintance with the establishments that grew up in course of time for its indulgence. The facility with which the bestial instinct could be satisfied and the titillation of carnal pleasure procured, was bound to rob the customary manner of sexual indulgence of the charm of novelty, and to set the depraved imagination of the voluptuary at work to solve the problem of how to import manifold variations into the simple act of copulation. This stage reached, it inevitably followed that the natural ways of union of the sexes began to appear insufficient, and the methods of so-called unnatural Love (Venus illegitima) grew up, wherein at last almost every trace of the specific purpose of the genital organs was lost sight of.
The “figurae Veneris legitimae” (modes of natural Love) are not altogether without interest for the physician[230], but their study is less necessary for our particular purpose. The modes of “Venus illegitima” (unnatural Love) are what concern us here. The major part of these have unfortunately never been included by writers on the history of Venereal disease within the range of their enquiries. Hence it has come about that while on the one hand they have given quite false interpretations of various morbid affections, they have on the other mistaken for the names of diseases expressions signifying nothing more than forms of the unnatural sensual indulgence alluded to. The historical enquirer into these subjects must indeed tread very slippery ground. Supposing him to rise superior to the possible reproaches of morality, fortified by the words of St. Paul[231], still he can find absolutely nowhere in his investigations any secure stopping-place, he must make up his mind to dispense with all external help and to be thrown utterly on his own resources. Not only do the best and fullest Dictionaries of the Greek and Latin languages leave him almost completely in the lurch, but above and beyond this he has very often to struggle with positive errors both in the Dictionaries and on the part of the professional Philologists in their annotations to the writings of the Ancients. These mistakes he must first of all discover, and afterwards correct. What such an undertaking involves, what powers it demands, will be obvious to anyone who is in any degree conversant with the systematic study of Antiquity. Nevertheless the task should not remain unattempted, if that is, we wish ever to come to a clear understanding of the relations of words and things in this connection; and on this ground the following researches no less than others find a legitimate place here. These we offer as the best that the limitation of our powers allowed,—at the same time gladly acknowledging the no small assistance we have received from the Treatises of Forberg and Meier[232].
Paederastia appears, as is the case with all sexual perversions, to owe its origin to the stimulation of the Asiatic climate, the mother of exuberance and voluptuousness. The primary condition of its genesis may be easily traced, if side by side with the dictum of Forberg (loco citato, p. 235): “Et voluptas quidem paediconis facile intelligitur, cum omnis voluptas mentulae pendeat ex frictione” (And the pleasure indeed of the sodomite is readily intelligible, since all voluptuous pleasure depends on friction of the penis), we take into consideration the fact that the genital organs of Asiatic women,—a fact true also of Italian and Spanish women[233]—like their whole bodies, exhibit great looseness, and further note that the “Sphincter ani”[234] muscle far and away surpasses the “Constrictor cunni” in strength. So it is by no means improbable that the Apostle Paul is accurate when he says[235]: “Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonoured among themselves; for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness.”
In Asia natural copulation formed a part of the Temple service of Venus, and in course of time Paederastia as well was joined with it, as is seen from the following passage of St. Athanasius[236]: “Sane olim Phoeniciae mulieres in idolorum templis prius prostabant, suique meretricii quaestus primordia diis, qui illic colebantur, consecrabant, suam deam stupris propitiam reddi, benevolamque hoc pacto effici ratae. Viri quoque propriam ementiti naturam, nec amplius mares se esse patientes, in feminas se converterunt, pergratum et honorificum matri deorum se ita facturas arbitrati. Omnes denique una cum perditissimis vivunt, et secum ipsi pugnant ut peiores quotidie evadant, atque ut dixit sanctus Christi minister Paulus:—(Here follows the passage just quoted from the Epistle to the Romans.)—Haec autem et similia agendo, fatentur certe et arguunt deos, quos ipsi colunt, huiusmodi vitam duxisse, scilicet ex Jove puerorum corruptiones atque adulteria, ex Venere meretriciam vitam ... ex aliis alia didicere, quae quidem cum leges puniunt, tum probi homines abhorrent.”
(Indeed the Phoenician women used in former times to prostitute themselves for hire in the temples of their idols and to offer up the gains of their fornication as first-fruits to the deities that were worshipped therein, deeming that in this way they won the favour and goodwill of their goddess. Moreover men, perverting their own proper nature, and no more enduring to be males, turned themselves into the likeness of women, supposing that by so doing they rendered a service most grateful and honourable to the Mother of the Gods. In one word they all consort with the most abandoned of mankind, and strive one with the other how they may grow worse and worse day by day; and as St. Paul the Apostle of Christ says:—(Here follows the passage just quoted from the Epistle to the Romans.)—By such and such-like acts they verily confess and show forth that those gods that themselves worship led lives of a like kind. Thus from Jupiter they learned to seduce boys and to commit adultery, from Venus harlotry, and so on from the other gods other vile practices,—practices which are at once punished by the laws and abominated by every honourable man). The same passage explains also how the Old Testament comes to designate Cinaedi (on pathic Sodomites) by the expression קָדֵשׁ (kadêsh, sanctus,—holy, consecrated). This originally implied nothing more than a person who devoted himself for the glory of a God as a servant in his Temple; and we have good reason for believing we can establish the conjecture that the whole cult of the Priests of Cybelé, etc., who had to practice emasculation and who were known by the name of Galli, rests originally on a simple misunderstanding of the expressions εὐνοῦχοι and ἀνδρόγυνοι (eunuchs, men-women),—expressions which will be discussed later on,—these words having meant at first nothing more than Cinaedi (sodomites). It was only in later times that Paederastia became a motive for Castration, as by this means the body of the male could be made to preserve for a longer period the youthful boyishness that approximated it to the female form. This is shown in the following passage of Lucian[237], a passage of special interest for the history of Paederastia:
“So at first when men still lived the old heroic life and reverenced virtue that brought them nearer the gods, they obeyed the laws that nature had laid down and marrying in due proportion of age became the fathers of noble children. But little by little the age degenerated from that high level to the pit of sensual indulgence, and struck out new and abnormal modes of gratification. Soon a reckless licentiousness broke the very laws of nature; and for the first time a lover looked on a man as on a woman to lust after him, and worked his wicked will either by superior force or by dint of artful persuasions. So in one bed came together one and the same sex. And each seeing himself in the other, took no shame in anything they did or in anything they suffered to be done. Wasting their seed on barren[238] rocks, as the saying goes, they bought a brief pleasure at the cost of deepest infamy. Indeed with some to such a height of overmastering force did their reckless passion rise that they actually violated nature with the knife; and only when they had emptied men of their manliness did they attain the summit and acmé of their gratification.
“But the wretched and unhappy creatures, that they may remain longer boys, suffer themselves to be no more men,—an ambiguous riddle midway between the sexes, neither preserving the sex they were born to, nor yet having any other to belong to. The bloom that was kept a while in youth withers in old age and makes them wither with it in premature decay. At one moment they are counted as boys, then lo! they are old men; there is no middle time of manhood between the two. Thus wanton luxury, the foul mother of every evil thing, contriving shameful pleasures one to cap the other, fell into the slough of that disease that cannot even be named with decency, (μέχρι τῆς οὐ ῥηθῆναι δυναμένης εὐπρεπῶς νόσου) that no province of impurity might remain unexplored.”
In later times indeed castration was resorted to after the attainment of man’s estate, in order that the Eunuchs might be able to appease the titillation of sensual desire in the women without fear of impregnating them[239].
In Syria, where this vicious practice of paederastia was especially in vogue, the Jews also appear to have been acquainted with it[240]. From Asia, whether through the instrumentality of the Phoenicians, or as Welcker[241] maintains, through that of the Lydians, Paederastia came in the first instance to Crete, and spread from thence over the whole of Greece[242].
Just as was the case with the cult of Venus in that country, so the “love of boys” assumed quite a different form in Greece. As Paedophilia (Affection for boys) it took rank as one of the means of education, being consecrate to the heavenly Eros, while Paederastia (Carnal love of boys) fell to the province of the common Eros. Down to quite modern times Paedophilia has been confounded with Paederastia, and in this way a shameful stigma attached to the Greek nation,—a stigma that Meier, following the initiative of Jacobs and K. O. Müller (loco citato), was the first to free the Greeks from. Granted, the two things approached very near each other; still Paederastia was never approved by the Greeks[243]. At Sparta the violation of boys was punished by loss of civil rights, exile or death[244], and it was the same at Athens, as Meier (loco citato) pp. 167 sqq. has sufficiently proved. The fact that the laws relating to this offence were promulgated at Athens only after the time of Solon shows that paederastia, as well as brothels, did not come into use there till about that time. True Athens in later times was quite as notorious for the prevalence there of paederastia as Corinth was for its Gay Women[245]; and Aristophanes’ Comedies show only too abundantly how much occasion he could find for scourging the “Pathics”, and how the Gymnasia and Palaestrae (Wrestling-grounds) also were responsible for a great deal of the harm done.
For, as Aristophanes[246] says:
ἐν παιδοτρίβου δὲ καθίζοντας, τὸν μηρὸν ἔδει προβαλέσθαι
τοὺς παῖδας, ὅπως τοῖς ἔξωθεν μηδὲν δείξειαν ἀπηνές.
εἶτ’ αὖ πάλιν αὖθις ἀνισταμένους ξυμψῆσαι, καὶ προνοῆσαι
εἴδωλον τοῖσιν ἐρασταῖσιν τῆς ἥβης μὴ καταλείπειν.
(Of old when boys sat at the trainer’s, they were bound to throw out the thigh, so as not to expose to the spectators’ gaze anything unbecoming; then again when they got up again, they had to scrape out the mark in the sand, and take care not to leave behind a model of their youthful shape,—an incitement to lovers).
Besides the Gymnasia and Palaestrae, the barber’s shops (κουρεῖα)[247], perfumers’ shops (μυροπωλεῖα)[248], Surgeries (ἰατρεῖα)[249], Money-changers’ counters (τράπεζαι)[250], bath-houses[251], and to a greater or less extent all kinds of workshops (ἐργαστήρια)[252], particularly when in situations handy to the Market, served as trysting-places of the paederasts and pathics. Here the former sought victims for their vicious desires, and the latter opportunities to sell their persons; while many of the proprietors of such places may well have acted as Procurers (προαγωγοί, μαστροποί,—Procurers, Pandars) for this purpose. The vice itself was chiefly practised in lonely, obscure parts of the town, and particularly on the Pnyx hill[253].
The Eleans and Bœotians are not only reproached with paederastia, but the violation of boys is alleged to have been allowed among these peoples[254]. Megara it is true is charged with ὕβρις (shameful violence), a common designation for paederastia[255], but we may certainly doubt whether the temple of Ἀφροδίτη πρᾶξις there, which Pausanias[256], mentions, had anything to do with this vice. The author in question says: “After the sanctuary of Dionysus is shown a temple of Venus. The image of Venus is of ivory, and is called Aphrodité Praxis. It is the most ancient image in the temple.” No other author however mentions any such cult as existing in Megara, and even though the word πρᾶξις (intercourse), as Meier (loco citato p. 153, note 49) has shown by examples, is used specially of paederastia, yet at the same time the passage of Euripides, Ion 894.
θεὸς ὀμευνέτας ἆγες ἀναιδείᾳ
Κύπριδι χάριν πράσσων.
(Thou, god, partner of my bed, didst lead me, in shamelessness doing favour to Cypris—Love), clearly proves that πράσσειν (to do, to have intercourse) was used of coition generally[257].
Moreover in the passage of Plutarch quoted a little above paederastia is called χάρις ἄχαρις (a grace that is without grace) and further down Ἔρως, Ἀφροδίτης μὴ παρούσης,—Ἔρως χωρὶς Ἀφροδίτης, (Love—Eros—where Aphrodité is not, Love without Aphrodité); so how can it have been regarded by the Greeks as under the patronage of Venus? Undoubtedly πρᾶξις is here synonymous with πόρνη (harlot), and the Ἀφροδίτη πρᾶξις at Megara is nothing else than the Ἀφροδίτη πόρνη of other cities.
Chalcis had gained such notoriety for paederastia[258], that χαλκιδίζειν (to act the Chalcidian) was said proverbially for παιδεραστεῖν (to practise paederastia). It was the same with Chios and Siphnos, as the expressions χιάζειν and σιφνιάζειν (to play the Chian, the Siphnian) in Hesychius prove. Hesychius says indeed σιφνιάζειν: i.e. to finger behind; for the Siphnians are ill-spoken of as enjoying boy-lovers. To act the Siphnian then means, to poke with the finger. But the first explanation by καταδακτυλίζειν (to finger behind), as well as the gloss of Suidas[259], show clearly that the inhabitants of the island of Siphnos,—one of the Cyclades, practised a species, if we may use the expression, of Onania postica (back-door, posterior masturbation),—like the cobbler at Vienna, who to allay the Prurigo ani (itching of the anus) pushed his hammer up his posterior, and then alas! could not pull it out again. In the same way the Siphnians used the fingers[260].
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 mares264,
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.