Venter mollis et femur tumentibus
Exile suris additum.—Fascinum
Quod ut superbo provoces ab inguine
Ore allaborandum est tibi.
(Flabby belly and skinny thigh joined with swollen calves,—A tool, that requires you, in order to call it up from the supercilious groin, to work it with the mouth). Casaubon in his commentary on the passage of Persius is for connecting this, as well as the Tumores Syrii, with ἕλκεα Συριακὰ (Syrian sores), and—as quoted on p. 253 above—to regard them as a consequence of the wrath of the Dea Syria (Syrian goddess). No doubt as a matter of fact the tumores were a result of debauchery, one that was prevalent in Syria and was disseminated thence to Rome, for they attacked a cunnilingue no less than other debauchees; but this brings us no nearer to a knowledge of their nature. We should perhaps be inclined to regard them as swellings of the tonsils or of the lympathic glands of the throat, having the same significance as the inguinal buboes in affections of the genitals.
But what are the Berecynthii furores (Berecynthian frenzies)? Possibly nocturnal pains in the bones, that torment a patient to the pitch of frenzy? The metaphor, drawn from the nocturnal rites of Cybelé, must be admitted to be a happy one. Still, however acceptable conjectures of the sort may be to many, we cannot take them seriously. It appears to us most judicious to regard the Syrii tumores as being ulcerations that covered the body of Coracinus, and by their violent itching reduced him to a state of frenzy. Our view as stated is confirmed by Epigram 108. of Ausonius:
In scabiosum Polygitonem.
Thermarum in solio si quis Polygitona vidit
Ulcera membrorum scabie putrefacta foventem,
Praeposuit cunctis spectacula talia ludis.