Besides the Gymnasia and Palaestrae, the barber’s shops (κουρεῖα)[247], perfumers’ shops (μυροπωλεῖα)[248], Surgeries (ἰατρεῖα)[249], Money-changers’ counters (τράπεζαι)[250], bath-houses[251], and to a greater or less extent all kinds of workshops (ἐργαστήρια)[252], particularly when in situations handy to the Market, served as trysting-places of the paederasts and pathics. Here the former sought victims for their vicious desires, and the latter opportunities to sell their persons; while many of the proprietors of such places may well have acted as Procurers (προαγωγοί, μαστροποί,—Procurers, Pandars) for this purpose. The vice itself was chiefly practised in lonely, obscure parts of the town, and particularly on the Pnyx hill[253].
The Eleans and Bœotians are not only reproached with paederastia, but the violation of boys is alleged to have been allowed among these peoples[254]. Megara it is true is charged with ὕβρις (shameful violence), a common designation for paederastia[255], but we may certainly doubt whether the temple of Ἀφροδίτη πρᾶξις there, which Pausanias[256], mentions, had anything to do with this vice. The author in question says: “After the sanctuary of Dionysus is shown a temple of Venus. The image of Venus is of ivory, and is called Aphrodité Praxis. It is the most ancient image in the temple.” No other author however mentions any such cult as existing in Megara, and even though the word πρᾶξις (intercourse), as Meier (loco citato p. 153, note 49) has shown by examples, is used specially of paederastia, yet at the same time the passage of Euripides, Ion 894.
θεὸς ὀμευνέτας ἆγες ἀναιδείᾳ
Κύπριδι χάριν πράσσων.
(Thou, god, partner of my bed, didst lead me, in shamelessness doing favour to Cypris—Love), clearly proves that πράσσειν (to do, to have intercourse) was used of coition generally[257].
Moreover in the passage of Plutarch quoted a little above paederastia is called χάρις ἄχαρις (a grace that is without grace) and further down Ἔρως, Ἀφροδίτης μὴ παρούσης,—Ἔρως χωρὶς Ἀφροδίτης, (Love—Eros—where Aphrodité is not, Love without Aphrodité); so how can it have been regarded by the Greeks as under the patronage of Venus? Undoubtedly πρᾶξις is here synonymous with πόρνη (harlot), and the Ἀφροδίτη πρᾶξις at Megara is nothing else than the Ἀφροδίτη πόρνη of other cities.
Chalcis had gained such notoriety for paederastia[258], that χαλκιδίζειν (to act the Chalcidian) was said proverbially for παιδεραστεῖν (to practise paederastia). It was the same with Chios and Siphnos, as the expressions χιάζειν and σιφνιάζειν (to play the Chian, the Siphnian) in Hesychius prove. Hesychius says indeed σιφνιάζειν: i.e. to finger behind; for the Siphnians are ill-spoken of as enjoying boy-lovers. To act the Siphnian then means, to poke with the finger. But the first explanation by καταδακτυλίζειν (to finger behind), as well as the gloss of Suidas[259], show clearly that the inhabitants of the island of Siphnos,—one of the Cyclades, practised a species, if we may use the expression, of Onania postica (back-door, posterior masturbation),—like the cobbler at Vienna, who to allay the Prurigo ani (itching of the anus) pushed his hammer up his posterior, and then alas! could not pull it out again. In the same way the Siphnians used the fingers[260].
The inhabitants of Italy were according to Suidas (under the name Θάμυρις—Thamyris) inventors of paederastia; and Etruscans, Samnites and Messapians, as well as the Greeks dwelling in Magna Graecia, lay under the reproach of practising the most vicious forms of love with men and violation of boys[261]. In all probability the vice spread from here to Rome, where it is found as early as the year 433 A.U.C.[262]. To such an extent did it increase that in 585 A.U.C. (B.C. 169), as Meier has demonstrated, the Lex Scantinia had to be passed against it. Yet all this amounted as yet to nothing in comparison with the scenes of horror that were enacted under the Emperors Tiberius, Caligula, etc., of whom Martial[263] says:
Tanquam parva foret sexus iniuria nostri
Foedandos populo prostituisse mares264,