(I have discovered wherefore you said you wanted a eunuch, because only queens use them) and Donatus observes on the passage that reginae (queens) stands for feminae divites (rich ladies). Accordingly just as Eunuchus is used for cinaedus or pathicus, in the same way cinaedus might very well stand in Suidas for eunuch, and as a matter of fact the entourage of Cleopatra may have consisted of actual eunuchs. Still it is Horace’s main point that they were pathics. As to the reason why reginae (queens, rich ladies) kept castrati (eunuchs) at all, comp. p. 125 above.—The Latin grex (herd) is sufficiently explained by the παίδων ἀγέλας (herds of boys) in the passages already quoted (p. 131.) from Tatian and Justin Martyr, along side which we may put the μειρακίων ὡραίων ἀγέλαι (herds of lads in the bloom of youth) of Clement of Alexandria, Paedag. bk. III. ch. 4. The word is used in the same sense by Seneca, Epist 95., Transeo puerorum infelicium greges, quos post transacta convivia aliae cubiculi contumeliae expectant. Transeo agmina exoletorum per nationes coloresque descripta. (I pass over the herds of unhappy boys, whom after the feast is done, other affronts of the bed-chamber await. I pass over the serried ranks of debauchees (cinaedi) marshalled by nation and complexion.) Cicero, Ad Atticum I. 13., Concursabant barbatuli iuvenes, totus ille grex Catilinae, (Thither flocked the youths of the baby beards, all the herd of Catiline’s friends.) Petronius, Sat. ch. 40., Grex agit in scena mimum. (The common herd plays the mime on the stage.) Grex was used generally for any crowd of common men.—The use of the word contaminatus (polluted) brings to mind catamitus, which bears the sense of pathic, e. g. in Cicero, Philipp. II. 31., Appuleius, Metam. I. p. 107 and especially is used as a nickname for Ganymede. Plautus, Menaechm. I. 2. 34.—Festus: Catamitum pro Ganymede dixerunt, qui fuit Jovis concubinus, (Men said catamitus for Ganymedes, who was Jupiter’s bed-fellow),—which probably led to the ridiculous idea being entertained, e.g. by Scheller, that the word was derived from Ganymedes by corruption in the pronunciation! The fact that the word is metrically a “Paeon tertius”, that is to say the i in the third syllable is long, might have led us at once to the conclusion that originally the word was catamytus, and derived from the Greek καταμύσσω (to tear), and so has the same meaning as the Latin percisus (cut), or else that it stands for καταμίκτος (mixed), and is connected with καταμίγνυμι (to mix), and so in fact concubinus (sharing the bed), as Festus says! At any rate the passages quoted above from Cicero and Seneca, which might easily be multiplied, prove that Stark’s supposition expressed on p. 22., to the effect that morbus (disease) is used in this sense only in the poets, is unfounded.
[343] Menander, in Lucian, Amores ch. 43., says: νόσων χαλεπωτάτη φθόνος (of diseases the cruellest is envy.) It is used of envy by Aristophanes, Birds 31. νόσον νοσοῦμεν τὴν ἐναντίαν Σάκᾳ. (we are sick of the disease that was Saces’ enemy.) Euripides, Medea 525., γλωσσαλγία αἴσχιστος νόσος (garrulousness, a most shocking disease.) But in a special way νόσος (disease) was used of Love (Pollux) Onomast. Bk. VI. 42., εἰς Ἀφροδίτην νοσῶν. (being sick of Love). Eubulus, in Nannio, quoted by Athenaeus, Deipnos. Bk. XIII. ch. 24., says:
μικροῦ πρίασθαι κέρματος τὴν ἡδονήν
καὶ μὴ λαθραίαν Κύπριν (αἰσχίστην νόσων
πασῶν) διώκειν, ὕβρεος, οὐ πόθου χάριν.
(To buy pleasure for a small coin, and not pursue secret amours,—most base of all diseases,—for overmastering lust’s sake and not for love.) Νόσημα (disease) is used in the same sense in Lucian, Amores 3., and πάθος (suffering, passion) in many passages in the same Work. Plutarch, Amator. p. 763., καὶ λελάληκε (Μένανδρος) περὶ τοῦ πάθους φιλοσοφώτερον. (And he—Menander—has talked about the passion more like a philosopher). The following passage in Philo, De specialibus legibus,—Opera. edit. Mangey, Vol. II. p. 301., is of interest: Ἔχει μὲν οὖν καὶ ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ἡδονὴ πολλάκις μέμψιν, ὅταν ἀμέτρως καὶ ἀκορέστως χρῆταί τις αὐτῇ, καθάπερ οἱ ἄπληστοι περὶ ἐδωδὴν, κἂν εἰ μηδὲν τῶν ἀπηγορευμένων προσφέροιντο· καὶ οἱ φιλογυναίοις συνουσίαις ἐπιμιμηνότες, καὶ λαγνίστερον προσομιλοῦντες γυναιξὶν οὐκ ἀλλοτρίαις, ἀλλὰ ταῖς ἐαυτῶν. Ἡ δὲ μέμψις σώματός ἐστι μᾶλλον ἢ ψυχῆς κατὰ τοὺς πολλοὺς, πολλὴν μὲν ἔχοντος εἴσω φλόγα, ἣ τὴν παραβληθεῖσαν τροφὴν ἐξαναλίσκουσα ἑτέραν οὐκ εἰς μακρὰν ἐπιζητεῖ πολλὴν ἰκμάδα, ἧς τὸ ῥοῶδες διὰ τῶν γενητικῶν ἀποχετεύετο, κνησμοὺς καὶ ὀδαξισμοὺς ἐμποιοῦν καὶ γαργαλισμοὺς ἀπαύσους.
(So the gratification even of natural pleasure is often blameworthy, when it is indulged immoderately and insatiably, just as men who are insatiably greedy about eating are blameworthy, even though they should not partake of any forbidden meats. So too men who are madly devoted to intercourse with women, and go with women lewdly,—not strange women but their own wives. And the blame lies rather with the body than with the mind in most cases, for the body has within it a great flame, which using up the fuel cast to it, does not for long lack much moisture, the watery humour of which is drawn off by intercourse with women, producing ticklings and gnashings with the teeth and unappeasable itchings.) Immoderate copulation then with a man’s own wife is only a reproach that concerns the body more than the mind; on the other hand Philo in the succeeding sentences speaks of those who practise fornication with strange women as, ἀνίατον νόσον ψυχῆς νοσοῦντας (sick of an incurable sickness of the soul., Clement of Alexandria) Paedag. bk. II. ch. 10., μικρὰν ἐπιληψίαν τὴν συνουσίαν ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης ἔλεγε σοφιστής, νόσον ἀνίατον ἡγούμενος. (the sophist of Abdera used to speak of coition as a miniature epilepsy, deeming it an incurable disease). Gellius, bk. XIX. ch. 2., indeed attributes this expression to Hippocrates, Stobaeus, Florileg. I. 6. De intemperantia, to Eryximachus.
[344] Eroticus ch. 19. in Plutarch, Opera Moralia, edit. A. G. Winckelmann, Vol. I. Zürich 1836. large 8vo.
[345] Manetho, Astronom. bk. IV. 486.,
ἐν αἷς ὕβρις, οὐ Κύπρις ἄρχει.