The Morbus Phoeniceus (Phoenician disease) was not, as we have seen, elephantiasis at all, and neither was the Morbus Campanus (Campanian disease) mentagra. But just as elephantiasis might supervene as a consequence of Morbus Phoeniceus, so the foeda cicatrix (hideous scar), a mark left behind it by a previous malady, was a consequence of the Morbus Campanus. Now what was the nature of this malady that the mark it left behind showed as a foeda cicatrix, is precisely what we would wish to determine. The Commentators all take the cornu exsectum (a horn amputated) as giving the explanation, though this is by no means absolutely necessary according to the general drift of the passage as explained; and Sarmentus might perfectly well under these circumstances, arguing from the presence of a scar, assume or at any rate profess to assume as the cause from which this had originated, the previous existence of a horny excrescence, without the latter as an actual matter of fact having ever had any previous existence. To us at any rate the cornu exsectum appears to stand in only a remote connection with the foeda cicatrix, which was no doubt later on made the subject of manifold further witticisms; only Horace has given us no more details about the matter, either because they had entirely escaped his memory, or possibly because he had not perfectly grasped the point of these jokes. Certainly the conspicuously placed at (but) seems to point to a distinction of what follows from what precedes—unless indeed it is so placed merely to mark the transition from the oratio directa to the oratio indirecta.
However, granted there actually was an excrescence previously existing, which had been removed by the knife, of what nature was the said excrescence? It is scarcely possible, with Heindorf, to suppose the Satyriasis of Aristotle[132] to be intended here; with much greater probability Schneider in his Greek Dictionary, under the word διονυσιακὸς (Dionysiac, connected with Dionysus) drew attention to the definition of Galen (edit. Kühn XIX. p. 443.): διονυσίσκοι εἰσὶν ὀστώδεις ὑπεροχαὶ ἐγγὺς κροτάφων γιγνόμεναι. λέγονται δὲ κέρατα ἀπὸ τῶν κερασφορούντων ζάων κεκλημένα. (διονυσίσκοι are bony excrescences growing near the temples, and they are called horns, so named from the animals that carry horns). A passage of Heliodorus (Cocchi Ant., Graecorum chirurgici libri, e collect. Nicetae Florent. 1754. fol., p. 125.) which Oribasius, De fracturis, has preserved, gives a slightly different account; it reads: Ὀστώδης ἐπίφυσις ἐν παντὶ μὲν γίγνεται μέρει τοῦ σώματος, πλεοναζόντως δὲ ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ, μάλιστα δὲ πλησίον τῶν κροτάφων· Ὅταν δὲ δύο ἐπιφύσεις γένωνται πλησιάζουσαι τοῖς κροτάφοις, κέρατα ταῦτα τινες εἴωθασιν ὀνομάζειν, ἔνιοι δὲ διονυσιακοὺς τοὺς οὕτω πεπονθότας ἀνθρώπους προσηγόρευσαν. (Bony outgrowth may occur in every part of the body, but pre-eminently on the head, and particularly near the temples. But when there are two such growths in the neighbourhood of the temples, some are wont to call them horns, but others name the patients so afflicted διονυσιακοὶ). Then follows the description of the outgrowth, and the method of its removal by excision. On this passage Cocchi found an old marginal gloss from the hand of Nicotas (?), κέρατα μὲν λέγεται ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν κεράτων ἐκφύσεως, τῶν γιγνομένων τοῖς ἀλόγοις ζώοις. Διονυσιακοὺς δὲ αὐτοὺς προσαγορεύουσιν, ἀπὸ τῆς πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἐμφερείας ὡς αὐτός φησιν ἐν τοῖς χειρουργουμένοις,—(they are called horns from the growth of the horns that appear on the lower animals. And they name them διονυσιακοὶ from the likeness to the god Dionysus, as he says himself, in the carved figures),—which on the whole confirms the statement of Heliodorus, though he (Cocchi) prefers, following this indication, to emend the passage of Galen also so as to read, διονυσιακοί, οἷς ὀστώδεις ὑπεροχαὶ ἐγγὺς κροτάφων γίγνονται, (Dionysiaci, so they are called, i.e. those in whom bony excrescences grow near the temples). This much, that we should read διονυσιακοὶ for διονυσίσκοι, is evident, but whether the rest of the emendations are to be accepted may well be open to doubt, as the second clause of the sentence, “and they are called κέρατα (horns), so named from the animals that carry horns”, obviously implies that the term διονυσιακοὶ is used in reference not to the individual, but to the outgrowth. Schneider indeed agrees with the emendation of Cocchi, but has in error put Sarmentus in the place of Messius.
Now supposing the latter has actually had an earlier bony outgrowth, it is not exactly evident why after its skilful removal a foeda cicatrix (hideous scar) should have remained,—if indeed we do not prefer to regard the foedus (hideous, foul) as perhaps pointing to the cause that had occasioned the outgrowth in question. In that case it would certainly be interesting to see thus referred to the vice of the fellator affections of the bones carrying the same meaning as our own tophi (concretions on the bone in gouty affections). But in all probability it was merely cutaneous tubercles that had been removed by surgical means, the actual cautery or the knife, and these, as is invariably their nature to do, had left behind an ugly scar. Thus Messius would seem to have resembled Calvus tuberossimae frontis (with brow most thickly covered with tubercles) in Petronius (ch. 15.) and the face represented on a gem, of which a delineation is said to be found in Corius’ Museum Etruriae Plate II. fig. 3.,—a work we have been unable to procure. But enough of the Morbus Campanus[133]!
Sodomy, or Bestiality.
§ 27.
In the various forms of vice hitherto considered we have seen mankind approximating more and more closely to the animal and putting himself to a greater or less degree on the same footing; now we behold him in Sodomy[134] sinking finally far below the level of the animal, renouncing not merely the human but even the animal nature, in virtue of which he has been able so far to call himself at lowest a member of the species. So it is with complete justice that Plutarch[135] says: “At gallus si gallum conscendat absente gallina, vivus comburitur, aruspice aliquo pronuntiante grave atroxque id esse ostentum. Ita ipsi homines hoc confessi sunt, castitate a brutis se superari, eaque naturae vim non facere voluptatum percipiendarum causa. Vestras libidines natura, quamquam legis auxilio fulta, tamen intra suos non potest coercere fines: quin eae instar fluvii exundantes atrocem foeditatem, tumultum confusionemque naturae gignant in re venerea. Nam et capras, porcas, equas iniverunt viri, et feminae insano mascularum bestiarum amore exarserunt. Ex huiusmodi enim coitibus vobis sunt Minotauri, Silvani seu Aegipanes atque (ut mea fert sententia) etiam Sphinges et Centauri nati[136]. Enimvero fame coactus canis aut avis aliquando cadavere humano vescitur; ad coitum nullus unquam est homo a bestia sollicitatus, bestias vero cum ad hanc, tum ad alias voluptates vos vi trahitis ac contra jus usurpatis.” (But if the cock tread the cock in the absence of the hen, he is burned alive, any augur pronouncing this to be a serious and sinister prodigy. Thus men have themselves admitted that they are surpassed by brutes in chastity, and that the latter do not do violence to nature with a view to the gratification of their desires. Whereas your lusts nature cannot, though seconded by the aid of law, restrain within their due bounds, or stay them from overflowing like a river in flood and producing horrid abominations, a wild cataclysm and confusion of nature in matters of love. For men have had intercourse with she-goats and sows and mares, while women have been inflamed with mad love of male beasts. Indeed it is from such unions that your Minotaurs have been engendered, and Silvani or Aegipans, and—as I suppose,—the Sphinxes too and Centaurs[136]. True under compulsion of hunger, dog and bird sometimes feed on a human corpse; but no man has ever been invited to coition by any beast, though you constrain beasts by force to this as well as to other shameful pleasures, and use them contrary to all right).
Like all other forms of vicious lust, Sodomy too was an outcome of Asiatic[137] and Egyptian luxury, and already in quite early times familiar in those regions,—in fact, as is the case with sexual excesses generally, this vice appears to have developed from the religious cult of the countries named. Among the Egyptians[138] at any rate we meet with Mendes, the sacred Goat or Pan, worshipped by means of Sodomy on the part of his female devotees, who were shut up along with him.
Boettiger[139] goes so far as to conjecture that the tame snakes in the temple of Aesculapius, which were also kept in private houses[140] as a plaything of the women, were trained and employed by them for purposes of Sodomy. In confirmation a passage is brought forward in this connection by Forberg, loco citato, p. 368, from Suetonius[141], in which the mother of Augustus, Atia, is spoken of: “In Asclepiadis Mendetis Θεολογουμένων libris lego, Atiam cum ad sollemne Apollinis sacrum media nocte venisset, posita in templo lectica, dum ceterae matronae dormirent, obdormisse; draconem repente irrepsisse ad eam paulloque post egressum: illamque expergefactam quasi a concubitu mariti purificasse se et statim in corpore eius exstitisse maculam, velut depicti draconis, nec potuisse unquam eximi, adeo ut mox publicis balneis perpetuo abstinuerit”[142]. (In the books of the Theologoumena (sacred writings) of the Asclepiad Mendes I read how Atia, who had come to the wonted festival of Apollo at midnight, when her litter had been set down in the Temple, and the other matrons were sleeping, herself fell asleep; how a snake suddenly crept in to her, and presently emerged again; and how on waking she purified herself as after intercourse with her husband, and immediately there appeared a mark on her body, representing the likeness of a snake, which could never be got rid of, so much so that soon she left off ever after frequenting the public baths).
However the Roman women seem to have especially made use of the ass[143] for the satisfaction of their nymphomania, an animal that was famed in Antiquity for its salaciousness.
That under such circumstances the women’s genitals, and the men’s no less, were exposed to many sorts of injury, may be readily supposed; though we have sought in vain so far for any direct evidence of the fact. So we may perhaps be allowed to quote here an observation originating with Abu Oseibah, De vitis medicorum illustrium, (On the Lives of Famous Physicians), according to Reiske[144]. This properly speaking belongs to a later period chronologically, but it is pertinent in the present connection. Reiske says: “Caput XIII. habet observationem—2. de ingenti penis inflammatione, quae nata fuerat ex impuro cum bestia concubitu, cum coruncula urethram obstruente, sanata modo prorsum empirico atque crudeli. Impositum glabro lapidi penem medicus subito praeter aegri expectationem, qua poterat vi percutiebat manu in pugnum coacta, ut obturaculum et ulcus dissiliret. Sapit hic casus luem veneream; et posset inservire illis pro argumento, qui morbum hunc etiam veteribus cognitum fuisse contendunt. Cadit autem is casus circa annum Christi 940.” (Chapter XIII contains the following observation,—2. Of a violent inflammation of the penis, which had originated in unclean intercourse with a beast, with a coruncle, or knot, constricting the urethra, cured in a manner to the last degree empirical and cruel. The penis being laid on a rough stone, the Physician suddenly when the patient was not expecting it, struck it as heavily as ever he could with his doubled fist, so that the stoppage and ulcer might burst. This case has a smack of the Venereal disease about it; and might serve as an argument for those who hold that this disease was known to the Ancients as well. But the case falls about the year of Our Lord 940.)