Exemplum in nostro tam detestabile sexu,
Taedia non lambit Cluviam, nec Flora Catullam.
(No such detestable example is to be found in our sex,—Taedia does not lick Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla).
[107] It is a surprising circumstance that the words basium, basiare, basiator (kiss, to kiss, kisser) appear only to have come into use by the Romans from the time of Catullus onwards, and are found almost exclusively in Martial, Juvenal and the still later Petronius, so coinciding with a period in which dissoluteness of morals had reached the highest pitch among the Romans. Some would derive the word basium from βάζω, loqui, (to speak); so perhaps it may have been used in a similar way to narrare (to tell) in Martial (III. 84.) in the sense of cunnilingere. Βάζω, βαίνω, βεινῶ and βινῶ (to speak, to go, to have sexual intercourse) seem all to have one and the same stem. The second of the two Epigrams of Martial quoted in the text reminds us almost involuntarily of the first Tarsica of Chrysostom. Apparently basium and basiare always imply a vicious kiss, to kiss viciously, in a general way. Hence Martial, XI. 62., Mediumque mavult basiare quam summum, (And she had rather kiss his middle than his head). Petronius, Sat., Ultime cinaedus supervenit,—extortis nos clunibus cecidit, modo basiis olidissimis inquinavit. (Finally a cinaedus appeared,—he made at us with writhing buttocks, and anon befouled us with most evil-smelling kisses).
[108] Galen, loco citato, mentions in particular the physicians. Crito and Pamphilus, who lived in the reign of Domitian, and who accordingly were contemporaries of Martial’s, as pre-eminently successful in the treatment of mentagra.
[109] Also Hippocrates, De aere aq. et loc. p. 549. Vol. I. ed. Kühn, says: ἀλλὰ τὴν ἡδονὴν κρατέειν, διότι πολύμορφα γίνεται τὰ ἐν τοῖς θηρίοις· περὶ μὲν οὖν Αἰγυπτίων καὶ Λιβύων οὕτως ἔχειν μοι δοκεῖ. (But that love of pleasure gained the mastery, inasmuch as the passions in beasts are of many forms; now with regard to the Egyptians and Libyans this seems to me to be the case).
[110] Julian, Caesares, in “Opera Omnia” Paris 1630. 4to., Pt. II. p. 9., Ἐπιστραφέντες δὲ πρὸς τὴν καθέδραν ὤφθησαν ὠτειλαὶ κατὰ τὸν νῶτον μυρίαι, καυτῆρες τινὲς καὶ ξέσματα, καὶ πληγαὶ χαλεπαὶ καὶ μώλωπες, ὑπὸ τῆς ἀκολασίας καὶ ὠμότητος, ψωραί τινες καὶ λειχῆνες, οἷον ἐγκεκαυμέναι. (for translation see text).
[111] Suetonius, Vita Tiberii ch. 68.
[112] Tacitus, Annals bk. IV. ch. 57.
[113] Galen, De composit. medicament. secundum genera bk. V. ch. 12. edit. Kühn Vol. XIII. p. 836.