FOOTNOTES - OF IRRUMATION
[60]. You see we follow the same general order as in the Priapeia, VII.
“I warn you, boy, I mean to pedicate you; with you, my girl, I will copulate. The third penalty is kept for the bearded ruffian.”
[61]. Eustathius, p. 741, is very ambiguous: “Lesbianize,—to commit a shameful action.”
[62]. I do not quite know whether the following passage from the Thesmophoriazusae (915-917) refers to this or no:
“Now, unhappy girl, you long for pleasure after the Ionian mode. Besides I think you are a Labda, as is the way of the Lesbians.”
A fellatrix seems to have borne the name of Labda, by reason of the first letter of the word Lesbianize: but the passage stands quite isolated, for in that of Varro, preserved by Nonius, and referring to the annotation of Scaliger on the Priapeia LXXVIII., where we find:
“Depsistis, decite. Labdae.”
The reading is doubtful, and the sense not clear. The verse of Ausonius, Epigr. 128:
“When he puts his tongue in, then he is a Labda,” has nothing to do with this question, as we shall show later on.
[63]. I do not know whether the nickname of Rododaphné (rose-laurel), given to Timarchus in Syria (ibid., ch. 27), does not mean cunnilingue, as by rose is understood the female parts, while the laurel leafs means the licking tongue. This surname had no doubt for Lucian an obscene sense which he would not disclose: “In Syria they call you Rododaphné, why? I should blush to say it.”
[64]. Here is the preceding sentence, “which will better elucidate Galen’s meaning: To drink sweat, urine or menses is an abominable and detestable practice; human excrements still more so, in spite of what Xenocrates has written about their beneficial action when applied in lieu of ointment about the mouth or throat, or when swallowed. He has also spoken of the absorption through the mouth of ear-wax. I myself could not make up my mind to eat of them, though it were to cure my sickness right off. Of all abominable things the most abominable, I think, are human excrements.”
[65]. Tacitus, Annals, XI., 26.
[66]. We will here reproduce the curious passage of Jean Burchard, to whom we owe this story. It is taken from his Diarium, edited by Leibnitz, in 1696, p. 77:
“On the last Sunday in October the Duke of Valentinois had invited to supper in his chamber” (the chamber of Alexander VI), “in the Apostolical palace, fifty beautiful prostitutes, called courtesans, who, after supper danced with the valets and other persons present, first in their clothes, and then naked. After this the table, chandeliers were placed on the floor here and there, with lighted candles, and chestnuts were thrown about, which the courtesans collected moving on their hands and knees quite naked among the chandeliers, the Pope, the Duke and his sister Lucrezia being present and looking on. Finally presents were brought in: silk mantles, pairs of shoes, head-dresses, and other objects, to be given to those who had copulated with the greatest number of these courtesans: they were publicly enjoyed in the room there, the lookers-on acting as umpires, and awarding the prizes to the victors.”
[67]. Nola was a city in the territory of the Campanians. It is for this reason that the Campanian malady, mentioned by Horace (Sat. I., V., 62), has been connected with debauchery, but without sufficient reason.
[68]. Varro, is his Marcipor, according to Nonius: “He introduced afterwards into his gullet the virile verge: he offends the mouth of Volumnus.”
[69]. Martial, III., 75:
“You make it your work to corrupt pure lips for gold.”
And Again II., 28:
“Not even Vetustilla’s warm mouth give you more pleasure.”
[70]. “How accustomed he was to assault the heads of the most illustrious women, is plainly evidenced by the adventure of Mallonia, who, debauched by him, refused to submit to him again. He caused her to be accused by his informers, and kept asking her during her trial, whether she had anything to reproach herself with. Without waiting for the verdict, she ran home and transfixed herself with a poniard, upbraiding loudly the foul, hairy dotard for having wanted to abuse her mouth.” (Suetonius, Tiberius, ch. 45).
[71]. He was so glad to have won Transalpine Gaul that he could not help announcing some days after in the Senate, that he had reached the fulfillment of his wishes, in spite of the hatred and malice of his enemies, and that he defied them to their face. Somebody having said to him offensively that this could not so easily be done with a woman, he replied jokingly, that Semiramis had gained a kingdom, and the Amazons had occupied a great part of Asia (Suetonius, Caesar, ch. 22). Caesar employed the expression: “defying to the face” in the honest sense, while his adversary invested it with an obscene signification, in allusion to his infamous acts in Bithynia.
[72]. I speak of those whose abominable lasciviousness and execrable lust do not even spare the head. (Lactantius, Instit. Div. VI., 23.) Similarly Juvenal, VI., v. 299, 300:
“For what cares the drunken Venus? She knows not the difference between groin and head.”
[73]. Martial, II., 72:
“They say Posthumus, that they did to you last night, at supper, what I would not have let them do;—who could approve such doings? They split your mouth! ...”
Then playing upon the words rumour and irrumate he adds:
“... As the author of this crime, the town’s rumour designates Caecilius.”
And again III., 73, ibid.:
“Rumour denies you are a Cinede.”
III., 80:
“Rumour says, you have an evil tongue.”
And III., 87:
“Rumour says, Chioné, that your vulva is intact, that nothing could be purer than it. Yet you bathe without covering the thing that should be covered; if you have any shame, then put your drawers upon your face.”
Percidere employed alone means to pedicate. Martial IV., 48; VII., 61; IX., 48; XI., 29; XII., 35; and Priapeia, XII., XIV. Some copies have praecidere for percidere, but this seems to be an untenable reading.
[74]. Martial, XI., 47:
“Why do you plague in vain unhappy vulvas and posteriors; gain but the heights, for there any old member revives.”
Priapeia LXXV.:
“Through the middle of boys and girls travels the member; when it meets bearded chins then it aspires to the heights.”
[75]. Priapeia XXVII.:
“A footlong amulet will pedicate you; if that will not cure you, I go higher.”
[76]. Plautus, in the Amphytrion, I sc. 1, 192:
“I shall compress to-day the wicked tongue.”
The Latins employed the verb “compress” for irrumate, as if it were a form of fornication; and similarly “split open”, as if it were a form of pedication.
[77]. Plutarch: “It is reported that in the night before the passing of the Rubicon, Caesar had a frightful dream; he dreamt that he was indulging in abominable intercourse with his mother.” (Lives, Julius Cæsar, XXXII.) Hesychius’ interpretation refers to this:—to perform abominable acts.”
[78]. Suetonius: “A picture of Parrhasius, representing Atalanta in the act of complacently lending her mouth to Meleager was bequeathed to him with the alternative that he might have a million sesterces instead, if the subject offended him. He not only preferred the picture, but had it solemnly hung in his bedroom.” (Tiberius, ch. 44.)
[79]. Horace, Epode VIII., 17-20:
“The member of the uneducated is it less rigid? does it not long, like those of lettered men? To make it stand superbly from the groin, you need but to work it with your mouth.”
[80]. Martial, II., 62:
“A doubtful down did scarcely deck your cheek, when your tongue already licked men’s middle parts.” The same III., 81:
“Baeticus, you, a Gaul, what have you to do with the female pit? that tongue of yours should lick men’s middles.”
Ausonius, Epigr. CXX:
“When Castor longed in vain to lick men’s middles, but could take no one home with him, he found means not to lose all pleasure of the sort, fellator as he was; he started to lick his own wife’s organs.” In other words from being a fellator Castor became a cunnilingue.
[81]. Martial, III., 88:
“They are twin brothers, but they suck different teats: tell me are they more unlike or like?”
The one was a fellator, the other a cunnilingue.
Again, VII., 54:
“You shall suck not mine, which is honest and small, but a member escaped from the fire of Solyma’s city and condemned to tribute.”
I do not know whence Scioppius (Priap. X), has it, that Martial was well furnished; the latter avows in that passage, that his mentula was quite small. To affront Chrestus, he orders him to lick, not his, but the mentula of a Jewish slave. He has mentioned this Jewish slave already in Epigr. 34 of the same book:
“My slave carries a heavy Jewish parcel without skin to cover it.” That means his member is circumcized, the gland being uncovered, without prepuce, in one word, “recutitus.” So, I think, is to be understood the recutitorum inguine virorum of Martial, VII., 29: he means, “the virile parts of circumcized men,” the skin of whose glands is drawn back. Recutitus stands for recinctus, regelatus, reseratus. Many other words, e.g. revincire, similarly admit of two meanings, and thus, no doubt should arise about Martial’s expression: recutita colla mulae (IX., 58), which refers to the mules having a new skin covering their necks. I differ from those who think that those were called recutiti whose prepuce began to grow again; a recutitus was to the Romans an object of contempt. Petronius: “He has two faults, else he would be like any other man recutitus est et sertit. He is circumcized and snores” (Satyr., ch. 28). It is impossible to suppose the glans could have been thought more disgusting covered by a new prepuce than with none at all.
[82]. A man that is being irrumated cannot speak, his mouth being obstructed by the mentula, thus: he is silent. Martial, III., 96 says to Gargilius, a cunnilingue, menacing him with the third punishment, if he should catch him in the fact:
“If I should catch thee at it, Gargilius, I’ll make thee silent.”
Married men were in the habit of pedicating beardless adults, and of irrumating the bearded ones. For which reason Martial warns Gallus (II., 47) to shun the seductions of a famous rakish lady, as he was running the risk, if taken by the husband in flagrante delicto, of being irrumated by him:
“Your buttocks you rely on? But the husband is no pederast; he likes but two ways, either mouth or vulva.”
And for the same reason he consents to marry Thelesina (II., 49):
“No Thelesina for me as my wife! Why?—She is a prostitute. Nay! but she pays young lads. Then I consent.”
Then there is a complaint for having been deceived with respect to the lover of Polla, his mistress (X., 40):
“Constantly was I told that my Polla was on intimate terms with an unknown cinede. Well, I surprise them, Lupus; no cinede was he.”
Instead of a lad, whom he would have pedicated, he finds a cool, experienced gallant, not at all likely to expiate his crime by means of his buttocks. Martial might, however, have punished him more cruelly by forcing into his fundament, either a mullet (Juvenal, X., 317):
“There are adulterers whom the mullet pierces”; or a radish. “In Armenia, taken in the act of adultery, he ran away plugged with a radish in his posteriors.” (Lucian, De Morte Peregrini,—Works, vol. VII., p. 425.) Catullus XV., 18, 19:
“Drawing your feet asunder, your postern wide open, they will insert into you radish and mullet.”
Martial also has used the expression of being silent, in the above stated sense but, somewhat more obscurely, IX., 5:
“If in two apertures you can work, Galla, and can do more than double work in both, why, Aeschylus, does she get tenfold pay? She fellates, but that is not a matter of such price surely. Nay! it is because she must be silent!”
It is not her infamy that Galla sells so dear; it is the inconvenience of having to be silent during the process, which, for a prattler, “is a very serious matter,” as Martial says, IV., 81. Book XII., Epigr. 35, quoted later on, also refers to this.
[83]. It is the same with the word stuprum. Festus: The ancients employed the word stuprum for turpitude, as appears in the Song of Neleus.
“Foede stupreque castigor cotidie.” (I am foully and disgracefully beaten every day.)
Naevius: “They would rather die than return to their co-citizens cum stupro.”
[84]. First the rogue lends her vulva, then her buttocks, and lastly her mouth. Some suppose the full-bosomed Spatalé of Martial, II., 52 was just as prodigal:
“Dasius was astute at counting the bathers; he asked full-bosomed Spatalé the fee of three women, and she paid.”
But I believe they wrong the good Spatalé. Dasius, the bathing man, wanted only that Spatalé, whose charms were ample and buxom, she taking up as much room as three other women, should pay for three.
The Phyllis of Martial, XII., 65, showed herself liberal in every way:
“The beautiful Phyllis, who throughout the whole night had proved herself right liberal in every way....”
From this you will understand what Martial means by “refusing nothing” (XI., 50):
“I will not deny you anything, Phyllis; for you deny me nothing.”
And similarly, IV. 12:
“You refuse no one, Thaïs. If you know no shame for this, blush at least that you refuse nothing, Thaïs!”
And again, XII., 72:
“There is nothing, Lygdus, that you do not now deny me; there was a time when there was nothing you did deny!”
And he says (XII., 81) right out:
“Whoso refuses nothing, Atticilla, sucks.”
It is in this sense that Mallonia refused to be entirely at the mercy of Tiberius; she had already admitted him to her vulva and anus, but when it came to the mouth the poor girl could not overcome her disgust. We have before quoted the passage of Suetonius. Of a woman who refuses nothing, Arnobius (II., 42) says: “That she is ready to undergo anything,” and of a woman that is drunk, “so much so as not to able to refuse anything.” Ovid says (Art of Love, III., v. 766):
“She is meet to undergo all kinds of assaults.”
[85]. Martial, II., 15:
“You do not offer your cup to any man; it is discretion, Hermus, forbids, not pride.”
And VI., 44:
“No one, Calliodorus may drink from your cup.”
Seneca: When Caius Caesar accepted sums of money for the expense of the games from friends who brought them to him, he refused to take a large amount from Fabius Persicus. His friends not looking at the character of the sender, but at the value of the sum sent, reproached him for having refused. “What!” said he, “am I to accept the service of a man from whose cup I should decline to drink?” (De Beneficiis, II., 21.) Fabius Persicus was a fellator not a cunnilingue; this is apparent from the controversy in which Seneca engaged about him, viz: what a prisoner should do whom a man promised to buy off, at the price of having his body prostituted, and his mouth sullied.
[86]. Martial, XII., 75:
“It is no little matter, Flaccus if you drink with them; and then have to break the cup they touched.”
And Macedonius in the Analecta of Brunck, III., 116:
“There drank a woman with me yesterday, whose fame is anything but good;—go break the cups, my lads!”
[87]. Martial, XI., 96:
“Every time you happen to meet a fellator’s kisses, I can fancy, O Flaccus, how you plunge your head in water.”
And I., 95:
“You sung but badly, Agelé, when you were loved per vulvam. Now no one kisses you, and you sing well.”
And I., 84:
“Your lap-dog, Manneia, licks your mouth and lips I am not a bit surprised; dogs like dirt.”
Seneca: “And mark! he made that Fabius Persicus, whose kisses are shunned even by people who know no shame, a priest only the other day.” (De Beneficiis, IV., 30.)
[88]. It appears from Martial’s Epigram (XI., 99), that the kiss on the mouth was the regular thing with the Romans; fellators, therefore, could not be surprised at their kisses being avoided. The poet of Bilbilis makes yet another mock at their expense (II., 42):
“Zoilus, why spoil the bath by bathing your bottom in it? If you would make it still dirtier, plunge your head in.”
And VI., 81:
“You bathe, Charidemus, as though you had a grudge against mankind, entirely submerging in the bath your privates. I should not like you to wash your head that way, Charidemus; and now look! you are washing your head. I had rather it were your privates!”
[89]. In the last verse there are two furtive stings; the first is about not telling (tacet,—is silent), an expression, which was used as denoting a fellator; the second is the word “tell,” (narrat), the honourable use of the mouth being put for the dishonourable, as in Epistle III., 84:
“What tells (narrat) your harlot.—No! I don’t mean your girl, Tongilion!—What then?—Your tongue!”
[90]. You will find in Macrobius (Saturnalia, II., 4), why he was called saluting. Augustus returned as victor from Actium; amongst those who came to congratulate him was a man holding a raven, which he had taught to cry: “I salute thee, Caesar Victor and Emperor!” Caesar, admiring this flattering bird, bought it for 20,000 sesterces.
MANUAL
OF CLASSICAL EROTOLOGY
SECOND VOLUME
CHAPTER IV
OF MASTURBATION
TO excite the member by friction with the hand until the sperm comes spirting out of it is what the Ancients call masturbation, from masturbare, that is manu stuprare,—to pollute with the hand. This may be done by one’s own hand, or by borrowing someone else’s. If by one’s own, it is generally the left hand that is employed, hence the expression, “left-hand whore” in Martial, IX., 42:
“You never, Ponticus, enter a woman, but use your left-hand whore, making your hand the mistress for your pleasure; think you this is nothing? Believe me, it’s a crime, yes! a crime, and worse than you can imagine. Old Horatius copulated once at any rate to beget his three sons; Mars once to get chaste Ilia with twins. Neither of them could have done it, if by masturbation they had procured by the use of their own hand pleasures so shameful. Believe me, that nature’s voice confirms it,—what escapes ’twixt your fingers, Ponticus, is a human being.”
To the same subject also Epigr., XI., 74 refers:
“Oftentimes, Lygdé, you swear you will grant my prayer, even appointing the place, even appointing the hour. Longtime I lay consumed with longing, till often my left hand comes to help in your stead.”
And this passage of the VIth. book of Ramusius, p. 62 of the Paris edition:
“What are you to do? Is your left hand safe and sound? Well use it, then you will not want a whore. Why pay for what your left hand gives you gratis?”
There were of course also people who used their right hand; the same Ramusius of Rimini, book IV., p. 61, tells us:
“I suffer, dear Donatus, from so frightful an erection, I am fearful for my member, if you do not help me. My right hand, being wounded, can do nothing; I have no money; Hylas is not here; no vulva opens for me—no chance of fornication, appease my desire, that I may live, and you can do it cheaply.”
Pacificus Maximus, Elegy XII., p. 126, Paris edition:
“What shall I do? I am so stiff—I’m bursting, and I could easily fill three or four large bottles. It is long since my member has known a vulva, long since it has stirred the entrails of a man. It is stiff day and night, and will never relax,—night and day it lifts its head. No youth, no girl will listen to my prayer, no help—my right hand must then do the service!”
We have seen just above, with what severity Martial reproached Ponticus, a masturbator, for losing between his fingers the substance of a man. Nevertheless this fine moralist did not hesitate to put his own hand to similar use under the pressure of erection, Epigr. 43, book II.:
“Another Ganymede, my hand assisted me.”
and XI., 74:
“Often my left hand comes to my help in your stead.”
Nor was his severity given to whining when he exhorted (XI., 59), the cinede Telesphorus:
“Soon as ever you see I want it, and know that I am in erection, Telesphorus, then you demand a heavy price,—can I say nay?[[91]] If I will not swear to pay you, you will withdraw those posteriors of yours, which are so precious to me. If with his razor set to my throat my barber, whilst shaving me, demands my liberty and fortune, I promise all; ’tis not the barber asks, but a cut-throat, and fear compels me to say ‘Yes.’ But once I see the razor returned to its curved case and harmless, why! I will break every limb of the fellow. Not that I will harm you, but my left hand once washed, my member will say “Go hang!” to your grasping avarice.”[[92]]
The same when his wife surprised him engaged with a youth (XI., 44),—a witty epigram quoted above, as also when he intended to marry Thelesina (II., 49):
“Thelesina makes presents to young lads; all the better.”
The same when he recommends somebody, I do not know who (XI., 23), to make use of the posteriors of Galesius only, as the part that would suit him;
“Youths are divided by nature; one part is reserved for girls, and the other for men—use your own portion.”
Is what the pedicon loses in the anus of the cinede anything else but the substance of a man, which the masturbator wastes between his fingers?
As it is in the nature of the virile member to rise at the mere sight of a pretty woman’s naked body, the amorous desire in that state often craves imperiously for relief, for “man in erection is not overwise.”[[93]] This is why, when the fair one’s heavy coverlets have been thrown back:
“Meantime the adulterer she has sent for lurks in furtive concealment, and impatient of the delay, yet says never a word, but pulls his foreskin.”[[94]]—Juvenal, VI., 236, 7. and why:
“The Phrygian slaves would be masturbating behind the doors, each time his bride mounted the Hectorean horse.”—Martial, XI., 105.
This is why during the dances of the young Gaditanian girls, which were without doubt very like the dances that are still so much appreciated by the Spaniards[[95]], the limp appendages of even grey-haired spectators begin to move visibly, as many authors tell us. Martial, VI., 71:
“Cunning in the wanton gestures that go with the Baetician castanets, skilled in dancing to the Gaditanian measures, she might well stiffen trembling Pelias, and excite Hecuba’s husband to emulate vigorous Hector.”
Juvenal, XI., 162-165:
“Perhaps you may wait while the Gaditanian dancer begins to feel the wanton stimulus of the loud strains of her accompanying band, and the girls, fired by the applause sink to the ground with quivering buttocks,—a sight to sting languid senses to love.”[[96]]
But it is not only by the sight of a beautiful naked female the member is excited; who does not know that it is also roused merely by images called up by the imagination, particularly in the night. And the power of such fancies is such as to provoke a pleasurable ejaculation of sperm. Priapus himself has experienced this. Priapeia XLVIII:
“You see this organ after which I am called by my name Priapus, is wet; this moisture is not dew, nor yet hoar-frost. It is the outcome given of its own sweet will, on recalling memories of a complaisant maid.”
It is said that Diogenes, the cynic, was a masturbator; once caught in the act of handling his mentula, he said: “I wish to heaven I could in the same way satisfy my stomach with friction when it barks for food.”[[97]]
When the masturbation is done by the loan of another person’s hand, it is possible that the pleasure is participated on the part of the agent.
It forms part of the business of a courtesan to be clever with her fingers; a languid member may by their use be invigorated. The inertness of the virile member may be caused by the inconveniences of age, and this either on the part of the woman, as in Martial, VI., 23:
“You require my penis, Lesbia, to be ever in erection for you; believe me a man’s member is not like a finger. True, you strive to excite me with hands and tender words, but your face is a stubborn fact and counteracts all your efforts.”
and again in the same author, XI., 30:
“When you set your old hand the task of rousing my member, your thumb, my Phyllis, will but strangle me.”
or of the man, Martial, XI., 47:
“Only in dreams you get stiff[[98]], Maevius, and your verge begins to make water right onto your own feet; in vain your wearied fingers ply your wrinkled member,—rouse it as you may, it will not raise its drooping head.”[[99]]
Aristophanes in the Wasps, 735-38:
“Yes, I will nurse him and get him all that is wanted for an old man: beef broth to lap, soft wool, and a rug to keep him warm, and a courtesan to rub his member and his loins...”
The same author, ibid., v. 1334, 35:
“... The cable is rotted away, yet is it still fond of being rubbed.”
Nor is it unwelcome to men in the vigor of life, and who are fit to caress young girls, to have mistresses whose hands are not lazy in bed, and whose fingers know how to act in the dark regions where the arrow of love is hidden. Martial, XI., 105, complains about the unseemly gravity of his wife, which forbade her to render him that service:
“You will not help me on by movement or by word, nor yet with your fingers, as though you were preparing the incense and the wine for sacrifice.”[[100]]
Penelopé, on the other hand, contented Ulysses well that way, as Martial has it in the same epigram:
“Chaste though she was, when the king of Ithaca lay snoring, Penelopé liked to have her hand always on it.”
Ovid’s mistress did him the same service, but all in vain one miserable night, when a hostile divinity seemed to have smitten to death that most pitiful part of him, to use his own expression, and the girl, in order that the servants might not think that she had remained untouched, pretended to make her ablutions all the same (Amores, III., viii., 73, 74):
“My darling did not disdain even to put her hand to it and gently try to rouse it.”
This virtue of the fingers in procuring erection is alluded to by Juvenal, VI., 195, 96:
“... How well a soft and libertine voice will erect your member; it is as good as fingers!”
The author of the Priapeia was also well aware of the fact; LXXX.:
“My member is not very long nor very thick,—handle it, and you’ll see it grow apace.”
And so was Janus Dousa, quoted by Scioppius á propos of this same Priapeia, cleverly scenting out the man’s character:
“Dousa, commenting upon Petronius, informs us that he knows by home experience how this object grows in thickness and length when shampooed by a woman.”
You can estimate the importance of this function by the value set by the Ancients, as in our days by the Turks, upon shampooers, men and women, who are employed for manipulating the joints with artistic expertness, their fingers softly pressing and turning them, and their hands kept soft by the constant use of gloves, kneading tenderly all the limbs. Seneca, Letter LXVI.:
“Would I rather offer my limbs for shampooing to my superannuated minions? or to some little woman, or some weakling man, more woman than man, to draw and crack my fingers? Should I not rather envy yonder Mucius, who put his hand in the fire with the same equanimity as though he tendered it to a shampooer.”
Martial, III., 82:
“A woman shampoos your body all over with nimble skill; her trained hand manipulates all your members.”[[101]]
John of Salisbury states in his Policraticus, book III., ch. 13, after some ancient author, perhaps Clearchus, as Lipsius thinks:
“When a rich libertine turns in his luxurious ways to effeminacy, a youth with frizzled hair takes before all the world his feet while he is lying on his couch, and shampoos them and his legs, not to go further, with his delicate hands. That youth is always wearing gloves, so as to preserve them white and soft for the benefit of rich people. Then, using his hands more licentiously, he runs them over all the body with impudent touchings and ticklings, raising the desires and stirring the amatory flames of his employer.”
I may very well describe here, for I could not find a better place, a performance for which the friendly hand of a woman is in request, but of a woman that is an expert, which will gently press your testicles and stroke your thighs; it is said that nothing can be pleasanter or more voluptuous. Aloysia Sigaea describes, with her inexhaustible ingenuity, such a scene, executed by Ottavia and Roberto, with the assistance of Manilia; the fullness, variety and richness of the description, placed in the mouth of Ottavia, are admirable:
“Manilia then conducted us to the trysting place; she undressed me, and placed me naked on the couch. Roberto jumped on to the couch. “Now,” he said, “I shall enjoy the most supreme unalloyed bliss. Carried on your chariot, Olympia, I shall take my way through this dark thoroughfare (he was pinching my pubis the while), I shall take my way to glory.” His hands were straying over my belly, my thighs, examining everything. His member was swelling. “Permit me, my Venus!” he said, giving me a kiss. “Willingly,” I answered, “you shall have me in any way you like.” Manilia interposed, “Why so much talk! Do not talk but act! I will assist both of you, and add new delights to your voluptuous sensations. You are in excellent trim, Roberto! Come, down with you upon Ottavia’s snowy bosom, and have your fill!” Roberto precipitates himself upon me, and his engine strikes against my belly. Manilia’s soft hand intercepts the erring tool. “Come,” she says, “you vagrant, enter the lovely prison, and do the task set to you by your mistress.” With her other hand she pushes the young man’s back, and I take him in, entirely in. Manilia tells me not to move. “Raise your left thigh, Ottavia,” she says, “and stretch out the other one.” I obey. “You, Roberto, you now push gently and quickly; As to you, Ottavia, kiss him but without moving!” We do so. She added, “When you both feel the boiling foam running over, you, Ottavia, give a sigh, and you, Roberto, gently bite Ottavia’s lips!” He then begins to poke vigorously, but without haste or violence, in and out; I press him on to me, kissing him but not moving. I feel it coming. I sigh, “Now! now, Roberto!” cries Manilia, “help Ottavia! Work away!” He shakes me and pounds me. Soon I feel a slight bite on my neck. I heave a sigh. “And now, Ottavia,” cries Manilia, “you assist Roberto; move your buttocks briskly, raise up your loins, quick! quick! Well done, my child! Laïs herself, I think, could not have shown more flexibility nor agility!” The sweet youth begins to ejaculate, and I feel my inside inundated by the fiery spring of love. I moved with body and soul. I never arrived more quickly at the acmé of voluptuousness. Manilia caressed with one hand my buttocks, and with the other hand Roberto’s; at the same time she pressed with the points of her fingers the lips of my vulva and his testicles, which were close up. The youth swooned, and our nurse withdrew, and clapped her hands applauding!” (Dialogue VII.)
Plates IV. and XII., in the Monuments de la vie privée des douze Césars, show you Cleopatra titillating with a delicate hand the virile parts of Julius Cæsar and Mark Anthony, while in the Monuments du culte secret des dames romaines; plate XVI., represents Livia bestowing the same caresses on Augustus; plate V., a Bacchante doing it to a Faun; plate IV., a masturbator—expressly so called. In plate XLIV. of the Monuments de la vie privée des douze Césars, again, is a picture of a girl helping Tiberius with her benevolent hand in pedicating Otho.
Again it sometimes happened that lewd men found pleasure in handling the genital parts of other men. Martial knew nothing more infamous (XI., 23):
“That your coarse lips should receive the delicate kisses of fair-skinned Galesus, that you should sleep with your naked Ganymede—is not this enough yet? It ought to be! Cease at any rate to touch the privates with provocative hand. With boys of tender age this does more harm than the member does. The fingers hasten virility and make them prematurely men. Hence the goaty smell, the quick-coming hairs, and the beard that make the mother wonder, while they no more love to bathe in the open light of day. Nature has divided boys; one part is reserved for girls, the other for men. Keep to the part which is yours.”
Martial means to say that the member was given to boys for the purpose of using it with girls, while their buttocks were for the service of men, and that this pedicon should therefore make use of Galesus’ buttocks rather than play with his mentula. Of similar import is also Epigram XI., 71, directed against Tucca, who wanted to sell young lads:
“Oh, for shame! there is the groin with the tunic all open, and a member appears fashioned and trained by your hand.”
He says it is a crime to put up for sale those lads whom the infamous Tucca has trained for debauchery, and to let the buyers see their fully formed mentulas, accustomed to rise under the provocative hand of the master. Eumolpus subjects in the same way the verge of Encolpus to friction, Petronius, ch. 140:
“After these words” (Encolpus speaking) “I lifted up my tunic, and exhibited myself in full vigor to Eumolpus. He first recoiled as if horror-struck; but, like a man who expected worse, he got hold with his two hands of God’s gift, viz.: the verge in erection.”
I have still to treat, in order to complete my task, of other pleasures belonging to this category, meaning those which can be taken in any interstice of the body. A few words will suffice. Taking in the first place the breasts, I have recourse to Aloysia Sigaea:
“By the twin conch-shells of Venus!” (Dialogue VII., Ottavia speaking.) “I am ashamed. I blush to think, that the valley between my breasts has done duty as the avenue of Venus. You know there is in our house a gallery giving on the garden-parterres, which are full of all sorts of flowers. There Caviceo and I were promenading; he embraced me, kissed me, bit my lips.... He put his left hand in my bosom. ‘I am after trying a naughty trick,’ he said. ‘Undress, my darling!’ What was I to do? I undressed. His eyes rested on my bare bosom. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘Venus sleeping between your breasts. May I waken her!’ While he was talking he had thrown me on my back in the bed, and being in a noble state of erection, slides his hot, burning member between my breasts. How could I escape his blind passion. I had no choice but to bear it. His hands softly pressed my breasts together, so as to narrow the space, in which his mentula had to travel towards a new experience. Why make a long story? Stupefied as I was at this vain ridiculous imitation of Love, he inundated me with a burning libation: he had his will.”
As to other interstices of the body, e.g. the armpits, between the thighs, the calves, the buttocks (mind, I do not say the anus, but between the buttocks), be it enough to mention Heliogabalus; Lampridius, ch. 5:
“How put up with a Prince who sought for pleasure in every cavity of the body, when you would not suffer a brute beast to do as much?”
Also Commodus, according to the same Lampridius, ch. 5:
“He gave himself up to the infamous assaults of young men, polluting every part of his body, even his mouth, and that with either sex,”—i.e. he was both a fellator and a cunnilingue.
Is it necessary to speak here of the debauchery of those who assault the corpses of females, or statues? This is not real coitus, there being no two parties to the act. Nevertheless, according to Herodotus (II., 89), in Egypt a man was taken in the act of abusing the corpse of a woman just dead:
“It is said that a man was surprised in the act of working in the fresh corpse of a woman, and denounced by a fellow-workman.”
In consequence of this a law was promulgated forbidding the corpses of noble and beautiful women to be given into the hands of the embalmer until three or four days after their decease. And who does not know the story of the Venus of Cnidos, the work of Praxiteles, as related by Pliny, Historia Naturalis, XXXVI., ch. 5:
“It is related how a certain youth fell in love with her, and having hidden himself one night in the temple, cohabited with the statue, leaving a stain as the mark of the gratification of his passion upon the marble.”
There is a similarity in this with the mistake made by a bull which, according to Valerius Maximum, VIII., ch. II., fell in love with a bronze cow, and copulated with the same at Syracuse, being deceived by the perfection of the resemblance.