CHAPTER VII
OF INTERCOURSE WITH ANIMALS
IT will not be out of place to say something here of the incontinence of those who have carried out carnal intercourse with animals. It appears that in Egypt the Mendesians, who paid divine honors to a he-goat[[136]], prostituted to him publicly women, even against his inclination, in celebrating his rites. Herotodus II., 46:
“A monstrous affair was connected with this district (viz., the Mendesian) in my time; a he-goat covered a woman in public.”
Strabo, XVII., p. 802:
“Mendes, where they worship Pan, and a live he-goat; the latter in that place have intercourse with women[[137]].”
The Jews also knew something of the practice; as we know from the law of Moses, Leviticus xx., 15-16:
“And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast. And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death” ...
How should Juvenal have come to tell us, Satire VI., 332-33:
“... no more delay is there; she hastens to make a donkey ride her from behind,” if it had not been known that women sometimes submitted themselves to asses? Would Apuleius have thought of describing to us with no less minuteness than wit the scene in which Lucius, changed into an ass by a mistake of Fotis, effects intercourse with a matron? Metamorphoses, book X., p. 249: