[211] In accordance with the explanations given on a previous page it might be thought quite conceivable that so long as the hymen was intact, a part of the mucous discharge of the vagina and of the menstrual blood was retained, and acquired a certain degree of malignity. This acting on points of the penis where the surface had been accidentally broken in the act of defloration, or even on the mucous membrane of the urethra, might exert an injurious influence.
[212] Euripides, Iphigeneia in Tauris 380. Porphyrius, bk. II. περὶ Ἀποχῆς (On Abstinence), Dio Chrysostom, Homily XIII, on Epist. to Ephesians.—Theophrastus, Charact. ch. 16.—Th. Bartholinus, Antiq. veteris puerperii synopsis (Synopsis of Antiquities of Childbirth in Old Times). Copenhagen 1646. 8vo.
[213] Deipnosoph. bk. XII. p. 518., Πάντες δὲ οἱ πρὸς ἑσπέραν οἰκοῦντες βάρβαροι πιττοῦνται καὶ ξυροῦνται τὰ σώματα· καὶ παρά γε τοῖς Τυῤῥηνοῖς ἐργαστήρια κατεσκεύασται πολλὰ, καὶ τεχνῖται τούτου τοῦ πράγματός εἰσιν, ὥσπερ παρ’ἡμῖν οἱ κουρεῖς· παρ’οὓς ὅταν εἰσέλθωσι, παρέχουσιν ἑαυτοὺς πάντα τρόπον, οὐδὲν αἰσχυνόμενοι τοὺς ὁρῶντας, οὐ δὲ τοὺς παριόντας· χρῶντοι δὲ τούτῳ τῷ νόμῳ πολλοὶ καὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων καὶ τῶν τὴν Ἰταλίαν οἰκούντων, μαθόντες παρὰ Σαμνιτῶν καὶ Μεσαπίων. (Now all the Barbarians that dwell towards the West, use pitch as a depilatory, and shave their bodies. Indeed amongst the Tyrrhenians establishments are fitted up in numbers for this purpose, and there are artistes who practise this profession, like barbers among ourselves. And when men go into their shops, they expose themselves in every part, feeling no shame of spectators nor of passers-by. And this custom is followed also by many of the Greeks and of the inhabitants of Italy, who have learned it from Samnites and Messapians). The depilation of men and boys was attended to by women (Martial, XI. 79.) at the period of the highest degree of dissoluteness; in fact there was a special guild of such women, known as ustriculae. Tertullian, De pallio ch. 4. In the same way men performed this service for women, as e.g. Domitian, according to Suetonius, ch. 22., Erat fama, quasi concubinas ipse develleret (Rumour went, to the effect that the Emperor used to “pluck” his mistresses with his own hand,)—and Heliogabalus according to Lampridius, ch. 31., In balneis semper cum mulieribus fuit, ita ut eas ipse psilothro curaret, ipse quoque barbam psilothro accurans, quodque pudendum dictu est, eodem quo mulieres accurabantur, et eadem hora. Rasit et virilia subactoribus suis ad novaculam manu sua, qua postea barbam fecit. (At the baths he was always with the women, going so far as to apply the “psilothrum” (a depilatory) in their treatment himself, finishing off his own beard also with “psilothrum”, and using, disgusting to relate, the same as the women were being treated with, and at one and the same time. Moreover he shaved his debauchees’(pathics) privates to the navel with his own hand, and then shaved his own beard).
[214] They used to remove the hair on the face (Martial, III. 74.), from the nose (Ovid, Art. Amand. I. 520.), on the arches of the eyebrows (Cicero, Orat. pro Roscio), from the armpits (Juvenal, XIV. 194., Seneca, Epist. 115.), on the arms (Martial, III. 63.), the hands (Martial, V. 41.), on the legs (Juvenal, IX. 12.) As to the beard, that has already been spoken of.
[215] Martial, II. 62., Cui praestas culum, quem, Labiene, pilas. (To whom you give your fundament, Labienus, that you strip of hair).
[216] Martial, II. 62.,
Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod brachia vellis,
Quod cincta est brevibus mentula tonsa pilis,
Haec praestas, Labiene, tuae, quis nescit? amicae.
(You pluck your chest, your legs, your arms, your shaven member is surrounded by short hair,—all these pains you offer, everyone knows it, to your mistress.) Bk. IX. 27.,