CHAPTER I
ANTIQUITY
In ancient Greece, the climatic conditions, the long unending summer days, the broad spaciousness of the sea, wine-dark and loud-sounding, as Homer describes it, the secluded pools and fountains and glades, the remote valleys, the snowy mountain summits were all alive, to the Hellenic perceptive and imaginative mind, with graceful nymphs and shaggy satyrs, with a multitude of anthropomorphic divinities, and with the alluring pipes of Pan.
Under such conditions it was not difficult to conceive human life as dominated by the cosmic creative force, and to do homage and obeisance to the great god Dionysus, divinity of the fruitful wine, protector of all procreative and generative functions.
The generative and sexual activities of the Greeks were, in general, so freed from contrived restrictions, so much in harmony with their instinctive and developed sensitivity to beauty of form, of movement, of rhythm, that artificial aids and inducements to amatory performance were far less necessary than they are in a highly complex and competitive and in a sense exhausted contemporary social frame.
Hence we do not constantly hear of the ad hoc use of philtres, potions, and analogous means of stimulation. Yet their existence is established, and in particular cases they were brought into effective use. Xenocrates, a Greek physician of the first century A.D., as Pliny the Elder records, advised drinking the sap of mallows as a love-potion. Such a philtre, together with three mallow roots tied into a bunch, would inflame the erotic passions of women.
Again, Dioscorides of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, an army physician who flourished in the first century A.D., produced a Materia Medica that treated drugs, remedies, ingredients in a rational, systematic manner. His text became a standard work, used for centuries, in both the East and the West. He recommends the roots of boy-cabbage, soaked in fresh goat’s milk. A good draught of this drink would be productive of intense excitation of the sexual impulse.
Many spices, plants, herbs that were described, either by the encyclopedists and historians or incidentally mentioned in dramatic literature, in occasional poems, anecdotes or in epitomes of legends and folklore, were of such obscurity and rarity that it is no longer possible to ascertain the corresponding modern equivalent. There was, as an instance, satyrion. It is frequently mentioned, both in Greek and Roman contexts. Actually unidentifiable botanically, it may have been analogous to the orchis. In Greek and also Roman antiquity it was reputed to constitute a potent aphrodisiac, and is mentioned in an accepted and traditional sense by writers such as Petronius, who casually alludes to it in the course of his Satyricon as a common erotic aid.
The name satyrion is evidently associated with the Greek satyr, a wood spirit, partly goat-like, and partly human. Attendants to the rustic god Pan, the satyrs were known as bestial and lustful creatures, symbolic of the basic sexual passion of man.
Botanically, satyrion is a plant with smooth leaves, red-tinted, and equipped with a two-fold root. The lower part of this root was credited anciently with promoting male conception, while the other part was conducive to female conception. In its modern counterpart, satyrion has been associated with the Iris florantina.
There is another variety of satyrion, called Serapias. This has pear-shaped leaves and a tall elongated stem. Its root consists of two tubers that have the appearance of testes. Unquestionably, the association of the plant as an aphrodisiac derives from the orchidaceous configuration of the root.