Serpent-Worship, and Other Essays, with a Chapter on Totemism

by C. Staniland Wake

The examples on which Sir John Lubbock relies have been taken from Dulaure’s work on ancient religions, but they are more fully detailed in the “Histoire de la Prostitution” by M. Pierre Dufour, and they certainly form one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of morals.

According to Herodotus,[231] every woman born in Babylonia was obliged by law, once in her life, to submit to the embrace of a stranger. Those who were gifted with beauty of face or figure soon completed this offering to Venus, but of the others some had to remain in the sacred enclosure for several years before they were able to obey the law. This statement of Herodotus is confirmed by the evidence of Strabo, who says the custom dated from the foundation of the city of Babylon.

The compulsory prostitution of Babylonia was connected with the worship of Mylitta, and wherever this worship spread it was accompanied by the sexual sacrifice. Strabo relates[232] that in Armenia the sons and daughters of the leading families were consecrated to the service of Anaïtis for a longer or shorter period. Their duty was to entertain strangers, and those females who had received the greatest number were on their return home the most sought after in marriage. The Phœnician worship of Astarté was no less distinguished by sacred prostitution, to which was added a promiscuous intercourse between the sexes during certain religious fêtes, at which the men and women exchanged their garments. The Phœnicians carried the custom to the Isle of Cyprus, where the worship of their great goddess, under the name of Venus, became supreme.

According to a popular legend the women of Amathonte, afterwards noted for its temple, were originally known for their chastity. When, therefore, Venus was cast by the waves naked on their shores, they treated her with disdain, and as a punishment they were commanded to prostitute themselves to all comers, a command which they obeyed with so much reluctance that the goddess changed them into stone. With their worship of Astarté or Venus, the Phœnicians introduced sacred prostitution into all their Colonies. St. Augustine says that, at Carthage, there were three Venuses rather than one: one of the virgins, another of the married women, and a third of the courtesans, to the last of whom it was that the Phœnicians sacrificed the chastity of their daughters before they were married. It was the same in Syria. At Byblos during the fêtes of Adonis, after the ceremony which announced the resurrection of the God, every female worshipper had to sacrifice to Venus either her hair or her person. Those who preferred to preserve the former adjourned to the sacred enclosures, where they remained for a whole day for the purpose of prostituting themselves.

The same curious custom appears to have been practised in Media and Persia, and among the Parthians. The Lydians were particularly noted for the zeal with which they practised the rites of Venus. They did not limit their observance to occasional attendance at the sacred fêtes, but, says Herodotus, they devoted themselves to the goddess, and practised, for their own benefit, the most shameless prostitution. It is related that a magnificent monument to Alyattes, the father of Crœsus, was built by the contributions of the merchants, the artisans, and the courtesans, and that the portion of the monument erected with the sum furnished by the courtesans much exceeded both the other parts built at the expense of the artisans and merchants.

Some writers deny that sacred prostitution was practised in Egypt, but the great similarity between the worship of Osiris and Isis and that of Venus and Adonis renders the contrary opinion highly probable. On their way to the fêtes of Isis at Bubastis the female pilgrims executed indecent dances when the vessels passed the villages on the banks of the river. “These obscenities,” says Dufour, “were only such as were about to happen at the temple, which was visited each year by seven hundred thousand pilgrims, who gave themselves up to incredible excesses.” Strabo asserts that a class of persons called pellices (harlots) were dedicated to the service of the patron deity of Thebes, and that they “were permitted to cohabit with anyone they chose.” It is true that Sir Gardner Wilkinson[233] treats this account as absurd, on the ground that the women, many of whom were the wives and daughters of the noblest families, assisted in the most important ceremonies of the temple. This fact is, however, quite consistent with Strabo’s statement, which may have referred to an inferior class of female servitors, and considering the customs of allied peoples, it is more likely to be true than the reverse. The testimony of Herodotus is certainly opposed to that of Strabo. But the former acknowledges that he did not reveal all that he knew of the secrets of Egyptian worship, and we must, therefore, receive with some hesitation his assertion that “the Egyptians are the first who, from a religious motive, have forbidden commerce with women in the sacred places, or even entrance there after having known them, without being first cleansed.” The Greek historian adds—“Almost all other peoples, except the Egyptians and the Greeks, have commerce with women in the sacred places; or, when they rise from them, they enter there without being washed.” Whatever may be the truth as to the inhabitants of ancient Egypt, at the present day the dancing girls of that country, who are also prostitutes, attend the religious festivals just as the ancient devotees of Astarté are said to have done.

If we test the value of Herodotus’ evidence on the matter in question by what is known of Grecian customs, it will have little weight. Sacred prostitution at Athens was under the patronage of Venus Pandemos, who is said to have been the first divinity that Theseus caused the people to adore, or, at least, to whom a statue was erected on the public place. The fêtes of that goddess were celebrated on the fourth day of each month, a chief part in them being assigned to the prostitutes, who then exercised their calling only for the profit of the goddess, and they expended in offerings the money which they had gained under her auspices. At the height of its prosperity the temple of Venus at Corinth had, according to Strabo, one thousand courtesans. It was a common custom in Greece to consecrate to Venus a certain number of young girls, when it was desired to render the goddess favourable, or when she had granted the prayers addressed to her.

The ordinary Athenian prostitutes appear to have been dedicated to the public service, and they were forbidden to leave the country without the consent of the Archons, who often accorded it only on having a guarantee that they would return. There would seem even to have been a College of Prostitutes, which was declared useful and necessary to the state. The story of the social influence of the heteræ during the palmiest days of Greece is too well known to need repetition, and it will be found fully detailed in the pages of Dufour. The majority of the heteræ, however, were far from being in the position of Aspasia, Laïs, and others, who were the friends, and even instructors, of statesmen and philosophers. Although they were allowed some of the rights of citizenship, they were often treated with implacable rigour by the Areopagus, and their children were condemned to the same ignominy as themselves. Curiously enough, the chief accusation against the prostitutes was their irreligion, and although they were priestesses in some temples, from others they were rigidly excluded.

Among the Romans the prostitute class held a much lower position in public opinion than with the Greeks, and for a long time its members were treated as below the attention of legislators, and were left to the arbitrary regulation of the police. They were classed with the slave population as civilly dead, and, having once become “infamous,” the moral stain was indelible. Dufour says, as to the religious character of Latin prostitution—“The courtesans at Rome were not, as in Greece, kept at a distance from the altars. On the contrary, they frequented all the temples, in order, no doubt, to find their favourable chances of gain; they showed their gratitude to the divinity who had been propitious to them, and they brought to his sanctuary a portion of the gain which they believed they owed to him. Religion closed its eyes to this impure source of revenue and offerings; civil legislation did not intermeddle with these details of false devotion, which concerned only religion; and, thanks to that tolerance, or rather the systematic abstention from judicial and religious control, sacred prostitution preserved at Rome nearly its primitive features, with this difference, nevertheless, that it was always confined to the class of courtesans, and that, instead of being an integral part of worship, it was a foreign accessory to it.” According to some Roman writers, however, Acca Laurentia (the foster-mother of Romulus and Remus), in whose honour the Lupercales were instituted, was a prostitute, and the fêtes of Flora had a similar origin. The goddess of flowers was originally a courtesan, who made an enormous fortune, which she left to the state. Her legacy was accepted, and the Senate, in gratitude, decreed that the name of Flora should be inscribed in the fastes of the state, and that solemn fêtes should perpetuate the memory of her generosity. These fêtes always preserved a remembrance of their origin, and were accompanied by the most scandalous scenes, which were publicly enacted in the circus.

The religious prostitutes of antiquity find their counterparts in the dancing girls attached to the Hindoo temples. These “female slaves of the idol” are girls who have been dedicated to the temple service, often by their own parents, and they act both as dancing girls and courtesans. Notwithstanding their calling, they are treated with great respect, and such would seem always to have been the case, if we may judge by the ancient legend which relates that Gautama was entertained at Vesali by a lady of high rank who had the title of “Chief of the Courtesans.”[234] No doubt the attention paid to the appearance and education of the temple prostitutes has much to do with the respect with which they are treated, the position accorded by the ancient Greeks to the superior class of heteræ being due to an analogous cause.