Part 2

Finally, as to ῥινοκολοῦρος (nose-docked), for which the MSS. also have ῥινοκλοῦρος, it is certainly the case that in Antiquity the man who practised vice with strange women (_Moechus_,—adulterer) had his nose cut off[29], and as _Moechus_ equally signifies the _fellator_[30], the latter also may very well have been obliged to forfeit his nose. Following this hint, it would be quite legitimate to suppose the punishment to have been put for the vice, and a _fellator_ called ῥινοκολοῦρος (nose-docked) on this ground; in the same way as the loss of the nose might be looked upon as a consequence of vice, and anyone seeing a man in this case would at once think of his dissolute past life, as indeed frequently happens at the present day amongst ourselves.

The town of Rhinocolurus,—and its history is more than problematical,—would seem to have nothing whatever to do with the question. The passages from _Pliny_ and _Livy_ which Naumann quotes give absolutely nothing beyond the name; and the mere existence of the name _Diodorus_[31] certifies, in his story of how Actisanes proceeded against the Robbers in a way of his own: “He did not wish to put the guilty to death, nor yet to leave them unpunished. So he had the accused brought up out of the whole country and inquired into each case most scrupulously; such as were found to be guilty all had their noses cut off by his orders, and were banished to the most remote spot in the Desert. The town he founded for them there received in remembrance of the punishment inflicted on its inhabitants the name of Rhinocolura. It lies on the borders of Egypt and Syria, not far from the sea-shore that borders the desert in that region, and displays an almost complete absence of all requisites for comfortable habitation. For the surrounding district possesses a soil thoroughly saturated with salt, while inside the town very little water is to be found and that positively tainted and of quite a bitter taste.” Diodorus relates further that these Colonists lived by catching quails; but of _Leprosy_ there is no mention either here or in Strabo or Seneca, so that Naumann’s statement to the effect that it served as a dwelling-place for Lepers lacks entirely, up to the present and at any rate so far as we know, any historical foundation, though the character of the place is not against such a hypothesis. Nor is any question raised in any author as to the vicious life of the inhabitants of Rhinocolura,—in fact in later times it was actually famous for the number of its _men of piety_[32].

Though the explanation of ῥινοκολοῦρος given just now might very well at a pinch be regarded as satisfactory, still we think it hardly answers sufficiently well to the κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον (after the same fashion), while the variant ῥινοκλοῦρος seems to point to ῥιναύλουρος or ῥιναύλουρις as the true reading. In _Tatian_ (Orat. ad Graecos p. 83.) in fact we read: _ῥιναυλοῦσι_ τὰ αἰσχρά, κινοῦνται δὲ κινήσεις ἃς οὐκ ἐχρῆν, καὶ τοὺς ὄπως δεῖ μοιχεύειν ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς σοφιστεύοντας αἱ θυγατέρες ὑμῶν καὶ οἱ παῖδες θεωροῦσι. (They flute their obscenities through the nose, and make movements that in decency they should not make, while actors who teach on the stage the whole art of how to debauch a woman are the spectacle your daughters and your boys gaze at.) The Scholiast observes on this ῥινοκτυποῦσιν, οἱονεὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῖς ῥώδωσι, συνέλκοντες ποιὸν ἦχον ἐπὶ καταγέλωτι ἀποτελοῦσι, (they make a noise with the nose, a sort of breathing with the nostrils; by drawing in these they produce a certain sound by way of mockery), and in _Lucian_, Lexiphanes ch. 19., we find ἔοικα δὲ καὶ ῥιναυστῆσειν, (and I am like to go nose-playing), of which the Scholiast gives the following explanation: ἀντὶ τοῦ ταῖς ῥισὶ καταυλῆσαι, ἐποίουν γὰρ τοῦτο _ῥιναυλοῦντες_, ἤτοι διὰ τῶν ῥινῶν ψοφοῦντες ἐπὶ διασυρμῷ τινῶν καὶ χλεύῃ. (put instead of _fluting with the nostrils_; for they used to do this when they nose-fluted, or in other words, made a noise with the nostrils by way of mocking people and joking). Now if we take ῥιναυλεῖν (to nose-flute) in these passages,—and all this confirms what has been previously said (above p. 144.) on the word ῥέγχειν (to snort) in the Speech of Dio Chrysostom,—for _fistulam canere per nares_, _to play the flute with the nose_, and at the same time remember that _Eustathius_ (as was noted above, p. 236. Note 2.) derived ἀπομύζουρις and μύζουρις from μυζᾶν-οὐράν (οὐρά,—the tail, the penis), the Greeks would seem to have said ῥιναυλεῖν-οὐράν, _penem pro fistula canere_, (to play on the penis instead of a flute), and we should have the adjective or substantive ῥιναύλουρις, _qui penem pro fistula canit per nares_, (one who plays on the penis instead of a flute with the nostrils), which admirably expresses not only the action of the _fellator_, but also the music he makes to accompany it, as he is compelled to snort, drawing his breath heavily through the nose.

Which explanation the reader will choose, we must really leave to him, for interpretations of words of this sort can never be brought to the absolute test of evidence, inasmuch as nick-names as a rule take their origin only too often in external circumstances. Still this much we think we may pronounce with certainty, that the words of the Gloss have to do simply _de rebus venereis_, with matters of love, and not with Venereal complaints, and thus Naumann’s propositions[33] at least are devoid of foundation. Perhaps it may be possible by means of a comparison of the licentious representations on old Vases, of which the late _Hofrath_ Böttiger would seem to have possessed a choice collection, and some examples of which are preserved also at Berlin, in connection with one or other of the words given in the Gloss, as generally with the embodiments in Art of the _Venus ebria_ (drunken Venus), to afford a better explanation, one that may indeed be of no particular value to the student of Antiquity pure and simple, but nevertheless is indispensable to the Physician for the correct understanding of sundry diseases of the Ancients, or at any rate one sufficient to avoid incorrect assertions and false conclusions, and to refute such.

We are not in a position to give a systematic history of the spread of the vice of the _fellator_ and _irrumator_; but at any rate this much is certain that in Imperial times the Vice was most widely indulged in, as the Epigrams of _Martial_, and what _Suetonius_ relates in his Life of Tiberius (chs. 44, 45.) sufficiently bear witness.

Diseases of the Fellator.

§ 22.

Now to pass on to the medical point of view, no one presumably will deny that the mouth of the _fellator_ must necessarily be exposed to various complaints as a consequence of his Vice. Nevertheless there prevails universally, so far as our studies up to the present have enabled us to judge, complete silence among the Physicians of Antiquity as to the practice of λεσβιάζειν (to Lesbianize, to practise _fellation_) as a cause occasioning morbid affections of the mouth and the contiguous parts. This is the more surprising, as we find that non-professional Writers are not entirely unacquainted with such effects, as we shall show directly. For our purpose this silence is doubly unfortunate, depriving us as it does of all means of submitting such affections of the mouth as are described by Physicians to any proper appreciation in regard to their ætiological relationships,—an appreciation that in any case must naturally have been in view of our knowledge of the vice of the _fellator_ one of extreme difficulty. The difficulty is this: _fellator_ and _fellatrix_, equally with the _Cunnilingue_, the fornicater and fornicatrix, were liable to suffer from ulcers of the throat, for example, as a result of their peculiar vice, but in the former case these ulcers were primary, in the latter secondary,—now how is an inquirer to discover any diagnostic sign here, whereby to distinguish the one class from the other? Yet all the while, certainty on this point is of the very highest importance in view of the question as to the existence of Venereal disease in Antiquity, the chief argument always alleged against accepting the fact of such existence being the absence of secondary symptoms such as are nowadays commonly met with, especially about the throat[34].

It is remarkable that not one, so far as we know, of the authors who have studied the history of Venereal Disease makes any mention of this circumstance; neither do the Pathologists ever bring forward the vice of the _fellator_ as an ætiological factor. _Clossius_[35] it is true speaks of _Irrumatio_, relying on _Perenotti di Cigliano_ and _Fabre_; but these last are really speaking of the _Cunnilingue_, not of the _fellator_. Probably they are of Erasmus’ opinion: λείχαζειν _ni fallor tale quiddam est Graecis, quale fellare Latinis. Nam vox etiamnum manet, tametsi rem iam olim e medio sublatam arbritor._ (λειχάζειν—to practise licking,—if I am not mistaken, is a similar practice with the Greeks to that of _fellation_ with the Romans. The word indeed still remains, but the thing I believe to have long since entirely disappeared). On this however _Forberg_ (loco citato p. 304.) very justly adds: _Vereor ut vere: certe audio, ne ab nunc hominum quidem moribus plane abhorrere id schematis, quid viderint ii, quibus magnas urbes adire licet._ (I fear this is not true: at any rate I am told this sort of practice is not entirely repugnant to the habits of some men even of our own day, to judge by what those see who have the opportunity of visiting large cities). How many primary ulcers of the throat, especially in the case of common Prostitutes, may have been mistaken for secondary ones, and have been treated accordingly, in fact are treated so still, without the Physician having a suspicion of how they were actually incurred! But what the Physicians of our own times are ignorant of, though familiar enough to many of the Laity, this knowledge we cannot reasonably demand from the Physicians of Antiquity. Yet supposing they did actually possess this knowledge, it was very excusable if they looked at what lay nearest before their eyes and regarded all throat ulcers as being primary,—in just the same way as any Practitioner of to-day finds it excusable in a Colleague that he thinks only of secondary ulcers, inasmuch as what in Ancient times happened very commonly is practised at the present day at any rate much less frequently. Consequently the absence of mention on the part of the old Physicians of secondary ulcers of the throat in connection with complaints of the genital organs cannot be considered as any sort of proof of their non-existence.

Among the maladies to which the _fellator_ was exposed, we have in the first place to reckon the _foul smell from the mouth_[36], which is mentioned as especially prevalent among the Romans. The Physicians as a rule derived it, if no local symptoms, of ulcers, etc., were apparent, from some fault of the stomach[37],—an instance surely where the Laity were cleverer than the Profession! The sympathy between the mouth and the genitals and anus makes it evident why at the present day we notice, particularly in immoral women, an evil smell from the mouth, which they endeavour to conceal by chewing burned coffee and the like. No doubt this was the case in Antiquity[38] as well, so we are by no means justified in attributing every instance of foul breath in harlots and cinaedi to the practice of _fellation_.

Yet another consequence of _fellation_ was _pain in the mouth_ (στομαλγία, mouth-ache; only we must remember as to this that _Pollux_, Onomast. III. 7. 69., cites ἀλγεῖν,—to suffer pain, as a synonym of _to love_), _tongue-ache_ (γλωσσαλγία[39]) and _toothache_[40], and generally pains of the palate and throat, rendering voice and speech indistinct. Hence _Martial_ says[41]:

Qui recitat lana fauces et colla revinctus, Hic se posse loqui, posse _tacere_ negat.

(The man who reads aloud his works, his throat and neck bound about with wool, declares he cannot speak, yet cannot hold his tongue).

But the evil by no means stopped here; there more often occurred as the result of the habit of _fellation_ acute no less than chronic inflammations of the palate (sore throats, quinseys). In the passage quoted a little above from _Lucian’s_ Pseudologistae, it is said of Timarchus: “In Egypt on the other hand they called you συνάγχη (sore throat),—as everybody knows.” In explanation _Lucian_ adds: “It must have been a close thing with you not to be choked, that time you came across the sailor of a three-master, who fell upon you and stopped your mouth for you.” Without in any way detracting from the importance of what we are told here, it still appears to us, on full consideration, that Timarchus was not merely a _fellator_, but an _irrumator_ as well, and this is the more probable as he no doubt acquired this nickname, because he, _bene vasatus_ (well provided with a big _member_), frequently brought on sore throat, that is to say in those who served him as _fellators_!

Moreover this reveals to us the real meaning of a passage of _Aretaeus_, one that has often been quoted before as connected with Venereal disease. This occurs in the 9th Chapter of the Book[42], which would certainly seem to admit only of a direct application; still we are convinced that much of the pathological description of sore throat (Ch. 7.) and many symptoms of the complaints of the uvula (Ch. 8.) owe their origin to _fellation_. Undoubtedly we have nowadays much fewer occasions to note affections of the uvula, which were of very common occurrence among the Ancients[43], as is shown by their own accounts,—a circumstance hardly to be wondered at if we consider the particulars told us about Timarchus. _Aretaeus_ in Ch. 9. makes a distinction between κίων (pillar, uvula) or columella (little pillar, uvula), when the whole uvula is inflamed and swollen, σταφυλὴ or uva (bunch of grapes), when only the lower part is affected, and ἰμάντιον (little strap), when the palatal membrane is attacked. “Κίων”, he goes on, “occurs most frequently with old men, σταφυλὴ with young men and such as are in the prime of life, affection of the palatal membranes (τὰ ὑμενώδεα) in those who are at the age of puberty and in boys.” The ninth Chapter runs as follows:

Of Ulcers of the Throat.

Ulcers arising in the throat of a benignant and harmless nature are common, the malignant and dangerous rare. Benignant ulcers of the sort are clean, of slight extent and superficial, neither inflamed nor painful. The malignant on the contrary are broad, hollow, lardaceous, with a white, livid, or black covering. These ulcers are known as _aphthae_. But if the covering is very tough, then the malady is an eschar, and is so called. At the edge of the eschar are set up an intense redness, inflammation and a congested state of the veins, as in _anthrax_ (carbuncle, malignant pustule), while small, distinct and unconnected, elevations of the mucous membrane appear, which are continually uniting with fresh ones that successively follow, and so an extensive ulcer is established. If this extends from the outer mouth too far inwards, in fact once it has attacked the uvula and relaxed it, the disease spreads over the tongue, gums and lips, while the teeth become loose and blackened. Further the inflammation attacks the throat. Patients so affected die in a few days after the inflammation and fever are set up, of the evil odour and of hunger; the ulcer propagates itself by way of the wind-pipe to the chest, so that very likely suffocation supervenes the same day. For lungs and heart can tolerate neither so foul an odour nor the ulcers themselves nor the ichor (puriform, septic matter) coming from them, but cough and difficulty of breathing supervene. Origin of this affection of the throat is the swallowing of cold, pungent, hot, sour, or strongly astringent, substances. Now these parts serve the chest on behalf of the voice and the breathing, as also the abdomen for sifting the nutriment, and the stomach for swallowing food. But when these inward parts, viz. abdomen, stomach and chest, are attacked by a disease, the disease is in turn conveyed and carried to the œsophagus, the tonsils and neighbouring regions.

Children up to the age of puberty suffer most in this way, for children have the very greatest and most marked desire for coolness, because with them the natural heat is at its greatest; the longing for foods of various sorts and cold beverages is boundless; while they shout loudly both in quarrel and at play. This is equally true of girls up to the commencement of menstruation.

With regard to locality, _Egypt_ gives most numerous examples of the disease, for this country has at once a dry air to breathe, and many sorts of comestibles,—roots, herbs, garden vegetables, pungent seeds; while the drink is either thick, being Nile water, or artificially made pungent with barley or with grape-skins. In _Syria_ the disease is also found, especially in Coelesyria. For this reason the ulcers in question are known as _Egyptian_ or _Syrian_ ulcers.

The mode and fashion in which death occurs in these cases is deplorable. The pain is a cutting and burning pain, as in anthrax (carbuncle, malignant pustule), the breath foul-smelling, the patient exhaling an intensely offensive breath, and re-inhaling into the chest another no less so. Patients are so loathsome to themselves they cannot tolerate their own smell; the face is pale or livid, the temperature excessively high, the thirst as distressing as in fever. Yet they reject drink when offered from dread of the pain of swallowing; for they undergo great agony both by the compression of the palate and by the return of the liquid through the nose. No sooner have they lain down than they spring up again; then finding they cannot bear an upright posture, no sooner have they sat down than they are forced by their agony to lie back once more. Most commonly they move about in an upright attitude. For as they are unable to sleep, they avoid all rest, as though they were fain to drive away one torture with another. Inhalation is deep, for they long for fresh air to cool themselves; exhalation on the contrary short and hurried, for the ulcers already burning like fire are heated yet further by contact of the feverish breath as it streams out. Hoarseness comes on, and loss of voice, and this goes on continuously increasing, until suddenly coming to the end of their resistance they give up the ghost.”

* * * * *

In the portion of the work devoted to Therapeutics (Bk. I. ch. 9.), which bears the title: Θεραπεία τῶν κατὰ τὴν φαρύγγα λοιμικῶν παθῶν, (Pestilential Affections of the Throat Regions, their Curative Treatment), caustics are especially recommended, as the actual cautery cannot be employed, and finally we read: “In some cases the uvula is destroyed right back to the bones of the palate, and the throat to the root of the tongue and the epiglottis, and in consequence of this destruction they can get down neither solid food nor liquid, for liquids return through the nose, and so the patient dies of hunger.”

* * * * *

Now if we examine these statements more closely, we cannot first of all help wondering how the ætiological factors named by _Aretaeus_ could possibly be regarded by him as sufficient to account for such dangerous ulcerations,—ulcerations which he himself even calls λοιμώδεα (of pestilential character), though of course they are perfectly adequate to explain simple ulcers of the throat. Indulgence in pungent comestibles and beverages is as little adequate to cause such symptoms as are the shouting and greediness of children, not to mention the fact that these are in no way peculiar to Egypt or Syria. The whole account shows us clearly that while _Aretaeus_ was well acquainted with the forms the disease took, the ætiological factors were obscure to him and it was merely in a spirit of ill-timed speculation he subjoined them, proving once more how right _Appuleius_ was when he exclaims: _Dii boni! Quam facilis, _licet non artifici medico_, cuivis tamen docto Venereae cupidinis comprehensio._ (Great gods! how easy it is for any educated man, _always excepting a medical practitioner_, to understand the passion of love).

We have already more than once in the course of these investigations proved how Egypt and Syria must be regarded as the nursery of licentiousness in Antiquity, and the passage quoted from _Lucian_ (above p. 229.) directly establishes the fact for us; again, a little further on (p. 240. Note I.) it was mentioned how boys particularly, (but also young girls), were used and specially trained as _fellators_. Hence _Martial_[44] wishes he had a boy,

Niliacis primum puer is nascatur in oris: Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis.

(In the first place my boy must be born on the banks of Nile: no other land can produce more finished wickedness). From all this, as well as from a comparison of the passage in Lucian, we believe we are amply justified in concluding that Aretaeus’ ulcers of the throat, these Αἰγύπτια καὶ Συριακὰ ἕλκεα (Egyptian and Syrian sores) were not unfrequently a consequence of _fellation_[45]. That this should be so is readily intelligible, when we consider the liability to corruption and the acrid quality of secretions from the _glans penis_ in hot countries. Again the βουβαστικὰ ἕλκεα (Bubastic sores), which _Salmasius_ cites from _Aëtius_[46] as being identical with the Egyptian and Syrian ulcers, find a satisfactory explanation on this hypothesis, for _Herodotus_[47] tells us in his time of the licentious worship of Bubastis, daughter of Isis, at Bubastos. In this expression (βουβαστικὰ ἕλκεα) the malady is named from one particular place, where it was probably specially prevalent, whereas in Aretaeus it is spoken of as general throughout the country.

In this connection we must not pass over the fact that Casaubon commenting on the passage of Persius (V. 187.) to be quoted directly is inclined to regard the ἕλκεα Συριακὰ (Syrian sores) as a punishment of the Dea Syra (Syrian goddess). In this he relies on a passage of _Plutarch_[48] that runs to this effect: “But of the Syrian goddess the superstitious believe that, if a man eat a sprat or anchovy, the goddess consumes his shin-bones, fills his body full of sores, melts down his liver.” The legend must at any rate be of great antiquity, for we meet with it in _Menander_, in a fragment which _Porphyrius_[49] has preserved,—in which however swelling of the belly and the feet is in question. To this also would seem to refer what _Persius_ (loco citato) says:

Hinc grandes Galli et cum sistro lusca sacerdos, Incussere _Deos inflantes corpora_, si non Praedictum ter mane caput gustaveris alli.