If capra (she-goat) here has the meaning of scortum (common strumpet),—and it cannot very well signify anything else,—the passage is an undoubted proof that such swellings were a consequence of coition with common prostitutes, and that the latter were ordinarily affected with them.—In Petronius, Sat. ch. 46., it is said of some one: Ingeniosus est et bono filo etiamsi in nave morbosus est. (He is of good abilities and good fibre, but he is diseased with swellings on the fundament.) Burmann notes on this: In nave—id est mariscas habet. Navis est podex ficosus. Hinc dictum illud Casellii apud Quintilianum, (De Instit. Orat. VI. 3. 87.) Consultori dicenti, navem dividere volo, respondentis, perdes. (In nave—that is, he has swellings. Navis (literally a ship) means a fundament afflicted with swellings. Hence the bon mot of Casellius, quoted in Quintilian. In reply to a client who said “I wish to cut (divide into shares) my ship” (navis,—means also diseased fundament), he retorted, “It’ll be fatal!”)
[277] Bk. VII. Epigr. 34. Persius, Satir. I. 33., Hic aliquis—Rancidulum quiddam balba de nare locutus. (Hereupon some one spoke something offensive through stuttering nose—in a stuttering nasal voice). Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. bk. IX., Orationem salebrosas passam iuncturas per cameram volutatam balbutire. (To stammer out through the palate’s vault all a-tremble a speech where the periods are joltingly united).
[278] Joannes Jac. Reiske, and Joannes Ern. Faber, “Opuscula medica ex monumentis Arabum et Ebraeorum,” (Medical Tracts—from Arabic and Hebrew Writings), edit. Ch. G. Gruner. Halle 1776. 8vo., p. 61 Note: Ita tamen miror, ab antiquitatis patronis argumentum inde allatum non fuisse, quod veterum cinaedi passi fuerint in naribus et in palato vitium, a quo clare non potuerint eloqui, sed ῥέγχειν, stertere et rhonchissare debuerint. Cf. diserta sed acris oratio Dionis Chrysostomi Tarsica prior etc. (Yet I wonder at this, that the advocates of its antiquity have not drawn an argument from the fact that among the Ancients the cinaedi suffered from an affection of the nose and palate, that prevented their speaking distinctly, and made them ῥέγχειν, snore and snort, Comp. the eloquent, but censorious, Speech of the Rhetor Dio Chrysostom, First Tarsica, etc.) Gruner in his Antiq. Morborum (Antiquity of Diseases), p. 77., likewise cited this reference, but it appears without having personally compared the passages with precision.
[279] Speeches, edit. by Joannes Jac. Reiske. 2 Vols. Leipzig 1784 large 8vo., Vol. II. Speech XXXIII (not XXXII, as given in Reiske and Gruner), pp. 14 sqq.
[280] Ἀκολάστοις (intemperate). This word often occurs in the sense of paederast, especially when the latter is spoken of as pursuing the vice passionately. Thus Aeschines, in Timarch., pp. 63, 183. Plato, Sympos., 186 c.
[281] Τὸν δέ γε ἄγριον τοῦτον καὶ χαλεπὸν ἦχον. (This rough and harsh tone of voice). The word ἄγριος (rough, savage) is specially used of the paederast, Aristophanes, Clouds 347., and the Scholiast on the passage; the same is true of χαλεπὸς (hard, harsh). The Scholiast on Aeschines, In Timarch., p. 731 R., ἀγρίους τοὺς σφόδρα ἐπτοημένους περὶ τὰ παιδικὰ καὶ χαλεποὺς παιδεραστάς. (rough men that are above measure agog for boy-loves,—hard paederasts.) All through the Speech are found a host of allusions to the expressions in common use to signify paederastia, which may well make the right understanding of it difficult.
[282] Τὸ πρᾶγμα (the thing) has the same meaning here as πρᾶξις (doing, intercourse) in Aeschines, In Timarch., pp. 159, 160. Plato, Sympos., 181 b.
[283] Κινεῖται (is raised, is stirred), from which the word Κίναιδος, cinaedus, is derived.
[284] On the digitus medius (middle finger) or infamis compare Upton on Arrian’s Diss. Epictet, II. 2. p. 176.—“Abhandlung von den Fingern, deren Verrichtungen und symbolischen Bedeutung.” (Treatise on the Fingers, their Gestures and Symbolic Meaning). Leipzig 1756. pp. 172-221. But in particular Forberg, loco citato p. 338. note h.: Cum digitus medius porrectus, reliquis incurvatis, tentam repraesentet mentulam cum coleis suis, factum est, ut medium digitum hoc modo ostenderent (Graeci uno verbo dixerunt σκιμαλίζειν) cinaedis, sive pelliciendis, sive irridendis. (In as much as the middle finger stretched out, the other fingers being bent under, represents the extended penis with its bags (testicles), it came about that the Greeks used to show the middle finger in this way (the Greeks expressed it by one word σκιμαλίζειν) to cinaedi, whether to beckon them or by way of derision.). Martial, I. 93., Saepe mihi queritur Celsus.... Tangi se digito, Mamuriane, tuo. (Often Celsus complains to me that he is touched by your finger, Mamurianus.) VI. 70., Ostendit digitum, sed impudicum. (He shows a finger, but an indecent one). Οἱ δὲ Ἀττικοὶ καὶ τὸν μέσον τῆς χειρὸς δάκτυλον καταπύγωνα ὠνόμαζον. (Now the Attics used to call the middle finger of the hand the lewd finger.) Pollux, Onomast., II. 4. 184. Suetonius, Caligula, ch. 56., Osculandam manum offerre, formatam commotamque in obscoenum modum. (To offer his hand to be kissed, put into an obscene shape and moved in an obscene way.) Th. Echtermeyer, “Progr. über Namen und symbol. Bedeut. der Finger bei den Griechen und Römern.” (Names and Symbolic Meaning of the Fingers amongst the Greeks and Romans.) Halle 1835. 4to., pp. 41-49., treats very exhaustively of this subject.
[285] On account of the resemblance of its harsh, screeching note? Reiske remarks on this passage: Est autem κερχνίς avis quaedam a stertendo sic dicta, vel stridore, quem edit similem iis qui stertunt. (But the κερχνίς,—hawk, is a bird so called from the snoring, or harsh note it utters, like men who snore). Comp. Schneider, Lexicon, under words κέρχνος and κέρχω (hoarseness, to make hoarse).