Suetonius, De Illustribus Grammaticis, ch. 23:
“He (Remmius Palaemon) was passionately fond of women, so much so as to prostitute his mouth to please them, and it is said that he was one day rebuked in the following way by a man who in the throng could not contrive to avoid one of his kisses: “Master,” he said, “if you see a man in a hurry to get away, will you lick him off?”
In the second place for fear of scaring away your guests. Aristophanes says of Ariphrades, in the Knights, 1285, 86:
“Whoever does not execrate that man, may he never drink from the same cup with us”—lastly, for fear of letting it be plainly known how shrunken one was, and how miserable one’s member. Martial, III., 96:
“You lick my mistress, but you do not enter her; yet you boast yourself adulterer and copulator!”
Hence the cunnilingues took no less care than the fellators to hide the fetidness of their breath by means of essences and perfumes, Martial, VI., 55:
“Always scented with cassia and cinnamon, and your skin darkened with perfumes from the Phœnix’ nest, you reek of the leaden jars of Nicerotus’ shop. You mock at us, Coracinus, because we are unscented. Rather than smell sweet like you, I’d not smell at all.”
To remove every doubt as to Coracinus being a fellator or a cunnilingue, we will quote Epigr. IV., 43, where he is expressly called a cunnilingue:
“I did not say you were a cinede, Coracinus; I am not so rash and reckless. What I did say in a light, insignificant matter, one perfectly well known, that you will not deny yourself,—I said, Coracinus, you were a cunnilingue.”
It was believed that Venus revenged injuries done to herself or to hers, not only by condemning the guilty to submit to be the passive party, but by turning them into cunnilingues. Hence the pathic tastes of Philoctetes: