§ 18.
We have now, we think, adequately discussed the νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease) in the preceding Sections, and proved that the oldest view of all, viz. that the vice of the Pathic must be understood by that term, may be justified from every point of view. It only remains to subject to examination passages from such other authors as have employed the expression. These Stark, §§ 11-18., has most carefully collected. In this way we shall see how far they may be brought into harmony with the view adopted.
Philo[370] relates among a number of other evidences of the outspokenness of Diogenes the Philosopher, when he was a captive and exposed for sale as a slave, how his fellow-prisoners all stood sad and cast down, but he again and again gave free course to his witty humour. “For instance when he cast his eye on one of the buyers, who suffered from the feminine disease, he would seem to have gone up to the man, whose outward appearance announced him to be an unmanly man, and said: ‘Do you buy me, for you seem to be in want of a man!’ The buyer, conscious and ashamed, slunk away among the crowd, whilst the bystanders marvelled at Diogenes’ wit and boldness.”
In another place[371] Philo says, after having spoken of the Laws of Moses against harlotry: “Yet another evil much more serious than the one mentioned, has crept into states, paederastia to wit, the bare naming of which was formerly an outrage. But now it is a matter of boast, not only with those who practise it, but also with the pathics, the men of whom it is customary to say,—They suffer from feminine disease. In fact they are effeminated in body and soul, and not one spark of manliness do they suffer to appear in them. They braid and deck their hair to look like women, they smear and paint their faces with ceruse and cosmetics and such like things, anoint their persons with fragrant ointments,—for a fragrant smell is an attraction much sought after by such. Expending every possible care on their outward adornment, they are not ashamed even to employ every device to change artificially their nature as men into that of women. Against such it is right to be bloodthirsty, obeying the Law, which commands: to slay,—and fear no penalty,—the man-woman who transgresses the law of nature, to let him live not a day, not an hour,—shaming as he does himself, his family, his country, nay! the whole race of mankind. The paederast must endure the same penalty, for he pursues after a pleasure that is contrary to Nature, and, so far as in him lies, makes States desert and empty of inhabitants, annihilating the begetting of children. More than this he endeavours to entice others and lead them away into two most abominable vices, unmanliness and effeminacy, bedizening youths (like women), and womanizing men in the vigour of their age, just at the time when they ought rather to be roused to aim at strength and hardihood. In a word, like a bad farmer, he lets the rich and fertile ploughland lie untilled, and makes it unfruitful, but labours day and night where he can expect no harvest whatever. Now this comes, I think, from the fact that in most States prizes are really offered for incontinence and effeminacy,—the vices of the paederast and the pathic. At any rate these men-women may be seen constantly strutting in the agora at the hour of high market, walking in procession at the sacred festivals, sharing, unholy as they are, in holy offices, participating in mysteries and sacrifices, even engaging in the rites of Demeter. Some of them have brought the charm of their youth to such a pass that craving a complete transformation into women, they have amputated their generative members; and now clad in purple robes, as if they had wrought some great benefit to their country, and surrounded by a body guard, they enter in state, all eyes fixed on them. Now if only such indignation as our Lawgiver has expressed, were generally entertained against those guilty of such effrontery, and if they were banished, as expiating the common guilt of their country, without appeal, this would do much to improve many of their companions. The punishment of such as had been condemned, if in no possible way to be shirked, would contribute no little to checking any imitation of these lusts on the part of others.”
In the third passage, Philo[372] is speaking of the difference between the symposia (banquets) of his time and those of the Greeks, and says:—“The Platonic banquet has to do almost entirely with Love, but not the love of men for women, or of women for men,—for these are passions that are satisfied conformably with the law of Nature,—but the love of men whose affections are directed to youths. For all the noble things that are said besides about Eros (Love) and the heavenly Aphrodité are to be taken as mere fine talk. By far the most part in fact concerns Ἔρως κοινὸς and Ἔρως πάνδημος (Common Love, Public Love), which destroys all manliness, the virtue that is most needful in war and peace, infecting the mind with the “feminine disease”, and turning men into men-women, whereas they should be equipped with everything conducive to manly vigour. Instead of this it ruins young men’s manliness, and gives them the nature and character of a wanton; also inflicting injury on the Lover in the most important factors of life,—body, soul and property. For the thoughts of the paederast must needs be all centred on the boy he loves, and his gaze quick to see that object only: while for all other concerns, private or public, his eyes are blinded and useless, and this especially if he is unhappy in his love. His worldly condition takes hurt in two ways, partly through neglect, partly through expenditure on the loved one. Associated with this is yet another, and a greater because general, mischief. Such men bring about the depopulation of Cities, and cause a lack of a good, sound strain of men, producing barrenness and unfruitfulness. They resemble those that are unskilful in husbandry, etc.”
In a fourth passage again, one overlooked however by Stark, Philo[373] says, speaking of the inhabitants of Sodom and their unbridled dissoluteness and vice:—
“For not only being mad after women did they form disgraceful unions with strange women, but actually, men as they were, they had intercourse with males: they that practised the vice had no shame for the sex they shared in common with those that suffered it, but were guilty of wasting their seed and disdaining the generation of offspring. But conviction of guilt was of no avail to restrain men mastered by an overpowering lust. Later, learning by degrees the custom for such as were born men yet to endure the treatment proper to women, they brought upon themselves feminine disease, a curse they could in no wise contend against. For not merely womanizing their bodies by effeminacy and wanton luxury, but utterly unsexing their very souls, they destroyed, so far as in them lay, all the manliness of their sex. In fact, if Greeks and Barbarians had been unanimous and had all been eager at once after such intercourse, the consequence would have been to make every city desolate, as though wasted by some pestilential sickness.”
In the fifth and last passage of all Philo[374] is speaking of those whose entry into the sanctuary was interdicted by the Lawgiver: “He forbad all that were unworthy to frequent, the Temple, beginning with the men-women, those that are sick of the true (the feminine) disease, who transgressing the established law of Nature, annex the lust and looks of incontinent women. He expelled all eunuchs, those with strangled testicles and those with amputated, who carefully safeguard the bloom of youthfulness against decay, and transform the manly type into a womanish shape. He expelled not only harlots, but harlots’ children as well, etc.”
If we review systematically and in detail these passages of Philo, given by Stark only in fragments, any unprejudiced reader must see that there is not one of them that does not refer to the vice of the Pathic. As to the second and third passages Stark himself (pp. 13 and 22.) admits this, while as to the fourth we do not know what he thought, it having been unknown to him: thus it is only in relation to the first and fifth passages that we have to examine his reasons for supposing this not to be the case. After quoting the text and Mangey’s Latin translation, Stark remarks à propos of the first passage,—that dealing with Diogenes:—“Quin hic verum corporis, nec animi vitium seu morbum indicetur, quo laborantes virilitate orbarentur et hanc suam impotentiam corporis habitu atque oris specie proderent, nullus dubito. Nam hoc et verborum series aperte declarat et ex eo colligi potest, quod ille, qui hoc crimine tactum se sentiret, pudore movetur.... Si vero Pathicorum labes, quam ab interpretibus quibusdam hic suspicari video, ita intelligenda esset, haec neque ex vultu coniici poterat neque a Graecis tam turpi macula notabatur, ut huic vitio deditis causa esset, quam ab rem eius opprobrium effugerent. Tantum enim abfuit, ut Pathici dedecus suum occultarent, ut potius multo fastu atque pompa prae se ferrent.... Verum autem Eunuchum genitalium exsectione redditum his verbis significari, non crediderim, quia hi neque inter licitatores, sed potius inter vendendos reperiri, neque ob harum partium defectum pudore tangi solerent.” (I have no doubt whatever that a real fault of body, and not of mind, in other words a disease, is intended here,—a disease that robbed the sufferers of virility, who then betrayed this impotence by the condition and appearance of body and countenance. This indeed is fully shown by the context, from which it may also be gathered that the sufferer who felt himself touched by this vice, has a feeling of shame.... But if it is the taint of the pathics that is to be understood here, as I see is conjectured to be the case by some commentators, this taint could not be guessed at from the face; nor yet was it marked by the Greeks with so strong a stigma of disgrace, as to cause those who were given to it to strive to escape the opprobrium. For so far were pathics from wishing to conceal their shame, that they actually made a point of displaying it ostentatiously.... On the other hand I should not be inclined to suppose that a Eunuch, an actual Eunuch by amputation of the genitals, is meant by these words. These were hardly likely to be found among the bidders, but rather with the slaves for sale: nor were eunuchs accustomed to feel shame on account of the loss of these organs.)
In § 16 above it has been abundantly proved that the recognition of a pathic ἐκ τῆς ὄψεως, ex voltu, (by the look), was a simple and familiar thing with the Ancients, and especially so if we understand, as is only reasonable, by ἐκ τῆς ὄψεως not merely by the face, but by the whole appearance of the person as well. We can only wonder at Stark’s repeated denials of the existence of such external marks of recognition, and all the more so, as every Text-book of Medical Jurisprudence making any pretensions to complete detail (e.g. Masius, Mende) gives information on the point. Again, it is proved that paederastia was always regarded by the Greeks, till the time when they lost their independence, as a disgraceful vice,—the reason why the buyer spoken of slunk away with a blush. As for the ostentatious show of pathics, and particularly their importance and the power they acquired, to which Stark refers (p. 12. in his Note—28), this is only true for times as late as Philo’s own, (he lived 40 A.D.), whereas Diogenes appears in History in the middle of the 4th. Century B.C. Stark, again, cites as evidence the words from the second passage: Puerorum amor, de quo vel loqui olim probrum fuit maximum, nunc laudi ducitur, (The love of boys, merely to speak of which was formerly a deep disgrace, but which now is made a boast),—without observing that his contention as to paederastia not being held disgraceful in Antiquity is most obviously contradicted by it. Undoubtedly actual castrated eunuchs were not meant, but the reasons Stark brings forward to show this are without force, for he will hardly be able to prove that in Asia the Castrated never acquired importance and wealth, so as to be in a position to buy themselves slaves. Further it may be gathered that the man Diogenes addressed was rich or held an important station from the fact that the bystanders marvelled at Diogenes’ boldness and outspokenness, a point that Stark indeed has forgotten to mention. For Philo’s own times the second passage is evidence enough. Equally do we fail to see why a castrated eunuch would be unlikely to blush, when the fact is thrown in his face. Stark (p. 22) explains the νοῦσος θήλεια as vitium corporis or effeminatio interno morboso corporis statu procreata, (a fault of body, condition of effeminacy produced by an internal morbid state of body). Now if it were really this, how could he possibly speak of the sufferers as crimine tactos, (touched by his vice)? They had nothing to be ashamed of, unless indeed they had acquired the disease in a shameful way, but this was not the case according to his original assumption. This is confirmed by Clement of Alexandria.[375]