Continual exercise on horseback was considered by Hippocrates[200] as anti-aphrodisiacal and Van Sweiten commenting upon that opinion, justly observes that the continual joltings caused by so violent an exercise, added to the compression produced upon the parts of generation by the weight of the body, was by no means unlikely to produce a focal relaxation of those organs to such an extent as to prevent erection altogether.
If whatever opposes an obstacle to the gratification of the sexual appetite may be considered as having a place among the anti-aphrodisiacs, certain mechanical processes may be ranked as such. Of these, fibulation, from the Latin word fibula (a buckle or ring) was the very reverse of circumcision, since the operation consisted in drawing the prepuce over the glans, and preventing its return, by the insertion of the ring.[201]
The Fibula (buckle) is so called, because it serves to fix together and to re-unite parts which are separated. It was, formerly a surgical instrument which, besides the use now particularly in question, served also to keep closed the lips of any extensive wounds. It is mentioned as being so applied by Oribuse,[202] and by Scribonius Largus.[203] Employed, therefore, as it was for various uses, the fibula appears to have different shapes, now but little known to us. Rhodius[204] has treated of all those mentioned in the writings of antiquity.
Meinsius thinks that the custom of infibulating may be traced back to the time of the siege of Troy, for the singer Demodocus, who was left with Clytemnestra by Agamemnon,[205] appears to that critic, to have been a eunuch, or, at least, to here been infibulated.[206]
Among the ancients, as well as among many modern nations, the laws of chastity and the restraints of honour appeared scarcely sufficient to hinder the sexes from uniting, in spite of all the obstacles opposed by a vigilant watch and strict seclusion.[207] Indeed, what Roman virgin could entertain very strict ideas of modesty while she saw the goddess of love honoured in the temple, or the amours of Venus and Mars celebrated, while the poor cuckolded Vulcan, after seizing the amorous couple in his net, way only thereby exposed to the ridicule of the Olympic Divinities. There can be little doubt but that excess of this description bastardized and corrupted the ancient Greeks and Romans, and that recourse was necessarily had to the fibula when the deities themselves set the example. Of what use, indeed, could be the moral lessons of a Plato or a Socrates, even when enforced by infibulation, if vice was thus sanctioned by divine example? The only aim of such a state of things was to vanquish obstacles. The art of eluding nature was studied, marriage was despised, notwithstanding the edicts of Augustus against bachelors; the depopulated republic wallowed in the most abandoned lust, and, as a natural consequence, the individual members of it became corrupted and enervated from their very infancy.
The infibulation of boys, sometimes on account of their voice, and not unfrequently, to prevent masturbation, was performed by having the prepuce drawn over the glans; it was then pierced, and a thick thread was passed through it, remaining there until the cicatrizing of the hole; when that took place, a rather large ring was then substituted, which was not removed but with the permission of the party ordering the operation.[208] The Romans infibulated their singers in order to preserve their voice:
"Si gaudet cantu; nullius fibula durat Vocem vendentis prætoribus."[209] "But should the dame in music take delight, The public singer is disabled quite; In vain the prætor guards him all he can, She slips the buckle (fibula) and enjoys her man."
They even subjected to the same operation most of their actors:
"Solvitur his magno comœdi fibula. Sunt, quæ Chrysogonum cantare vetent."[210] "Take from Chrysogonus the power to sing, Loose, at vast prices, the comedian's ring." "Dic mihi, simpliciter, comœdis et citharœdis, Fibula, quod præstat?... carius ut futuunt."[211]