We must then take into consideration several causal factors to help us to an explanation of the custom in question. The original motive may very well have been in every case the consecration of the maiden’s virginity to the goddess,[41]—Hieroduli (Temple hand-maids) in the earlier meaning. Further again the maiden was bound to pay her tribute to the goddess of sexual Pleasure[42], so as to co-operate with the husband with a view to the procreation of children. Little by little the custom lost its purer character. After a time it ceased to be any longer one of universal obligation, and became binding only for the poorer classes, who found in it an opportunity of earning a dowry[43] for their daughters. Meantime the rich adopted the habit of presenting female slaves to the temple of the goddess, thereby giving occasion for the establishment of the regular Hieroduli,—who subsequently grew into filles de joie in the proper sense, and laying the foundation of the brothel system (see later). Out of the idea of consecration was subsequently developed on the one hand that of initiation for the married state,—an idea found again in the “proof-nights” custom of the Middle Ages, and on the other the idea of bondage that grew into the “Jus primae noctis” (Right of first night).
As second factor then must be reckoned the belief in the harmfulness of the blood resulting from rupture of the hymen at defloration; and connected with this the actual injury that the man’s genital organs are occasionally exposed to in deflowering a maid with narrow vaginal orifice, or at any rate the effort necessarily called for to perforate the hymen, a motive not without actual weight amongst indolent Asiatics[44]. To this day the bridegroom at Goa gives thanks to the Priapus (Lingam), that has loosed his bride’s virgin-zone, with marks of the deepest adoration and gratitude for having performed this honourable service and so relieved him of a heavy task[45].
For the maid defloration is yet more painful, and as she had to go through it once and once only with a stranger, she might readily get the idea that it was the stranger alone that was to blame; consequently that every surrender to a stranger must involve the same sufferings. This would deter her from a second experience of the kind, and all the more so because the subsequent embraces of the husband stirred in her only pleasurable sensations. So the wife had no inducement to break the marriage vow.
§ 5.
When and under what circumstances the cult of Venus first came into Greece can hardly be discovered, though indeed Pausanias states in the passage quoted above that it was Aegeus (Erechtheus) who brought it to Athens. For a long period it played only a subordinate part, being kept under by the primeval god Eros (Love)[46]. No doubt the physical element may have come in early times from abroad[47], but before long the stamp of the spiritual was strongly impressed upon it (the Graces were added as handmaidens to Aphrodité!),—so strongly that the idea of the procreating power fell henceforth into the background, to give place to that of Love, an idea that was entirely foreign to Asia. The amalgamation of Eros and Aphrodité, who was now first hallowed by him, or as the poet puts it, now first brought forward into the assemblage (Order) of the Gods, came about so gradually and imperceptibly that it would hardly be possible to obtain a clear conception of the views of the Greeks on the point. In consequence of the growing intercourse with the peoples of Asia, and particularly the Phoenicians[48], foreign customs and usages came to be introduced and adopted with ever increasing frequency; and during the flourishing period of Greece we see the Asiatic character of the Venus ritual come into ever greater prominence, and the goddess herself in a sense re-introduced. Especially was this the case in the Islands and the seaport-towns, where as a rule the worship of Aphrodité first arose. Hence she was entitled the goddess “born of the (Sea) Foam”, and temples were built to her as “Protectress of Havens.”[49]
But the Greek genius found this physical Cult too strongly opposed to its own spirit. The Greek could not bring it into unison with his Eros-worship; and accordingly distinguished his goddess, under the name of Aphrodité Urania (Heavenly Aphrodité)[50], from that worshipped by other Peoples as Aphrodité Pandemos[51] (Aphrodité Common to all Men). The latter was relegated to the Islands[52], and particularly Cyprus; and never properly speaking became a national Deity.
It is very interesting as a general fact that the Venus Urania always belongs, so it appears, to the inland regions, the Venus Pandemos on the contrary to the sea-ports and islands[53]; for it was as a rule from East to West along the coast-lines that the Asiatic form of the Cult spread, a thing that could not have happened except through the instrumentality of a people early practising navigation, such as the Phoenicians.
It cannot fail to have an important bearing on our subject to make a more precise acquaintance with the geographical distribution of the Venus-cult. We propose to give here a brief enumeration of the localities where she had her temples. The passages in evidence for this will be found given with tolerable completeness in Manso,—p. 46, also pp. 158 sqq.
In Cyprus: at Paphos, whither came yearly a great concourse of people at the festival time[54]; in Pamphilia; in Asia Minor; along the Coast-line of the Aegean; in Caria (Cnidos); Halicarnassus; Miletus; Ephesus; Sardis; Pergamus; Pyrrha; Abydos (Aphrodité πόρνη—harlot); in Thessaly; at Tricca; in Boeotia, (Tanagra—on the Sea); in Attica, (Athens, Colias, Pera[55], on the Cephissus); in the Islands of the Aegean Sea, (Ceos, Cos, Samos, where the temple was built from the earnings of the Hetaerae); in the Peloponnese: at Argolis, Epidaurus, Troezen, Hermioné, (was visited by maids and widows before their marriage); in Laconia, (Amyclae, Cythera); Arcadia, (Megalopolis, Tegea, Orcomenus); Elis, (Olympia, Elis); Achaia, (Patrae, Corinth); on the Coast of the Corinthian Gulf. From Greece we come to Sicily, where the temple of Venus on Mount Eryx was hardly inferior to that of Paphos, also at Syracuse[56].
Not without importance for our purpose is the statement of Strabo[57], that in the island of Cos in the temple of Aesculapius was an effigy of Venus Anadyomené (coming from the bath), while according to Pausanias[58] in a wood near the temple of the same god at Epidaurus was built a chapel of Aphrodité, since very possibly this may throw some light on the question of the knowledge of complaints of the genital organs possessed by the physicians of Cos. Böttiger[59] is of opinion that it was from the infirmaries and lazarettos of the Phoenicians that the earliest medical science of the Greeks was introduced—to the island of Cos; to Aegina, on the Peloponnesian coasts, especially at Epidaurus. Probably these establishments were originally under the protection of the national deity, until the latter was superseded by the god Aesculapius.