Lenocinium (Procuration) in fact as well as the licentia stupri (fornication permit) had to be notified before the Aediles[224], whose especial duty it was to see that no Matron became a prostitute[225]. With this object they were bound to frequently search all such places as have been specified above (loca aedilem metuentia—places that fear the aedile)[226]; but dared not themselves indulge in any immorality there[227]. When that pure-minded prince Caligula became Emperor, he introduced the Whore-duty (vectigal ex capturis—tax on prostitution-fees) as a State impost[228]. This, Alexander Severus retained, it is true, but assigned the revenue from it to the maintenance of the public buildings, that it might not contaminate the State Treasure.[229]
The information here collected, imperfect as it may be in many respects, is yet sufficient to throw some light on the external relations of brothels and courtesans. It shows convincingly that in the entire absence of police supervision on the sanitary side, such diseases as arose generally in Antiquity consequent upon coition must have had their especial home and chief focus in the brothels and their denizens. But of what nature these diseases were, and what parts of the body they attacked, we shall only then be able to determine, when we come to consider more precisely the actual excesses that led to them, whether within or without the walls of the brothels.
Paederastia.
§ 12.
In the preceding investigations we have shown how the natural aim and object of coition, viz. procreation of children, fell more and more into the background, in order to make way for sensual gratification; and we have made acquaintance with the establishments that grew up in course of time for its indulgence. The facility with which the bestial instinct could be satisfied and the titillation of carnal pleasure procured, was bound to rob the customary manner of sexual indulgence of the charm of novelty, and to set the depraved imagination of the voluptuary at work to solve the problem of how to import manifold variations into the simple act of copulation. This stage reached, it inevitably followed that the natural ways of union of the sexes began to appear insufficient, and the methods of so-called unnatural Love (Venus illegitima) grew up, wherein at last almost every trace of the specific purpose of the genital organs was lost sight of.
The “figurae Veneris legitimae” (modes of natural Love) are not altogether without interest for the physician[230], but their study is less necessary for our particular purpose. The modes of “Venus illegitima” (unnatural Love) are what concern us here. The major part of these have unfortunately never been included by writers on the history of Venereal disease within the range of their enquiries. Hence it has come about that while on the one hand they have given quite false interpretations of various morbid affections, they have on the other mistaken for the names of diseases expressions signifying nothing more than forms of the unnatural sensual indulgence alluded to. The historical enquirer into these subjects must indeed tread very slippery ground. Supposing him to rise superior to the possible reproaches of morality, fortified by the words of St. Paul[231], still he can find absolutely nowhere in his investigations any secure stopping-place, he must make up his mind to dispense with all external help and to be thrown utterly on his own resources. Not only do the best and fullest Dictionaries of the Greek and Latin languages leave him almost completely in the lurch, but above and beyond this he has very often to struggle with positive errors both in the Dictionaries and on the part of the professional Philologists in their annotations to the writings of the Ancients. These mistakes he must first of all discover, and afterwards correct. What such an undertaking involves, what powers it demands, will be obvious to anyone who is in any degree conversant with the systematic study of Antiquity. Nevertheless the task should not remain unattempted, if that is, we wish ever to come to a clear understanding of the relations of words and things in this connection; and on this ground the following researches no less than others find a legitimate place here. These we offer as the best that the limitation of our powers allowed,—at the same time gladly acknowledging the no small assistance we have received from the Treatises of Forberg and Meier[232].
Paederastia appears, as is the case with all sexual perversions, to owe its origin to the stimulation of the Asiatic climate, the mother of exuberance and voluptuousness. The primary condition of its genesis may be easily traced, if side by side with the dictum of Forberg (loco citato, p. 235): “Et voluptas quidem paediconis facile intelligitur, cum omnis voluptas mentulae pendeat ex frictione” (And the pleasure indeed of the sodomite is readily intelligible, since all voluptuous pleasure depends on friction of the penis), we take into consideration the fact that the genital organs of Asiatic women,—a fact true also of Italian and Spanish women[233]—like their whole bodies, exhibit great looseness, and further note that the “Sphincter ani”[234] muscle far and away surpasses the “Constrictor cunni” in strength. So it is by no means improbable that the Apostle Paul is accurate when he says[235]: “Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonoured among themselves; for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness.”
In Asia natural copulation formed a part of the Temple service of Venus, and in course of time Paederastia as well was joined with it, as is seen from the following passage of St. Athanasius[236]: “Sane olim Phoeniciae mulieres in idolorum templis prius prostabant, suique meretricii quaestus primordia diis, qui illic colebantur, consecrabant, suam deam stupris propitiam reddi, benevolamque hoc pacto effici ratae. Viri quoque propriam ementiti naturam, nec amplius mares se esse patientes, in feminas se converterunt, pergratum et honorificum matri deorum se ita facturas arbitrati. Omnes denique una cum perditissimis vivunt, et secum ipsi pugnant ut peiores quotidie evadant, atque ut dixit sanctus Christi minister Paulus:—(Here follows the passage just quoted from the Epistle to the Romans.)—Haec autem et similia agendo, fatentur certe et arguunt deos, quos ipsi colunt, huiusmodi vitam duxisse, scilicet ex Jove puerorum corruptiones atque adulteria, ex Venere meretriciam vitam ... ex aliis alia didicere, quae quidem cum leges puniunt, tum probi homines abhorrent.”
(Indeed the Phoenician women used in former times to prostitute themselves for hire in the temples of their idols and to offer up the gains of their fornication as first-fruits to the deities that were worshipped therein, deeming that in this way they won the favour and goodwill of their goddess. Moreover men, perverting their own proper nature, and no more enduring to be males, turned themselves into the likeness of women, supposing that by so doing they rendered a service most grateful and honourable to the Mother of the Gods. In one word they all consort with the most abandoned of mankind, and strive one with the other how they may grow worse and worse day by day; and as St. Paul the Apostle of Christ says:—(Here follows the passage just quoted from the Epistle to the Romans.)—By such and such-like acts they verily confess and show forth that those gods that themselves worship led lives of a like kind. Thus from Jupiter they learned to seduce boys and to commit adultery, from Venus harlotry, and so on from the other gods other vile practices,—practices which are at once punished by the laws and abominated by every honourable man). The same passage explains also how the Old Testament comes to designate Cinaedi (on pathic Sodomites) by the expression קָדֵשׁ (kadêsh, sanctus,—holy, consecrated). This originally implied nothing more than a person who devoted himself for the glory of a God as a servant in his Temple; and we have good reason for believing we can establish the conjecture that the whole cult of the Priests of Cybelé, etc., who had to practice emasculation and who were known by the name of Galli, rests originally on a simple misunderstanding of the expressions εὐνοῦχοι and ἀνδρόγυνοι (eunuchs, men-women),—expressions which will be discussed later on,—these words having meant at first nothing more than Cinaedi (sodomites). It was only in later times that Paederastia became a motive for Castration, as by this means the body of the male could be made to preserve for a longer period the youthful boyishness that approximated it to the female form. This is shown in the following passage of Lucian[237], a passage of special interest for the history of Paederastia:
“So at first when men still lived the old heroic life and reverenced virtue that brought them nearer the gods, they obeyed the laws that nature had laid down and marrying in due proportion of age became the fathers of noble children. But little by little the age degenerated from that high level to the pit of sensual indulgence, and struck out new and abnormal modes of gratification. Soon a reckless licentiousness broke the very laws of nature; and for the first time a lover looked on a man as on a woman to lust after him, and worked his wicked will either by superior force or by dint of artful persuasions. So in one bed came together one and the same sex. And each seeing himself in the other, took no shame in anything they did or in anything they suffered to be done. Wasting their seed on barren[238] rocks, as the saying goes, they bought a brief pleasure at the cost of deepest infamy. Indeed with some to such a height of overmastering force did their reckless passion rise that they actually violated nature with the knife; and only when they had emptied men of their manliness did they attain the summit and acmé of their gratification.