Part 4

To assume that Hippocrates was actually acquainted with these in any completeness would up to the present be premature; at any rate we are bound, so far as our study of his writings enables us to judge, to deny him any knowledge of the fact that sexual excesses were the cause of the different affections of the genital organs chronicled by him. Of course he may have supposed all this to be notorious and the knowledge of it common property, but a host of statements would be found to tell against any such supposition. Opportunities of making acquaintance with the vice of the _cunnilingue_ could certainly not have been lacking, it being so familiar a thing in his time that _Aristophanes_[75] again and again derided it in his Comedies. Whatever conclusion we come to on this head, at least the passage of Hippocrates cannot justify anyone in maintaining that the φοινικίη νοῦσος,—(Phœnician disease) was true Elephantiasis, even if, as may be, the preliminary proposition that elephantiasis was a _consequence_ of debauchery be made good,—a point to which we propose later on to return. On the subject of Satyriasis in Crete, we have already expressed our views.

Just as the Phoenicians carried the seed of the vice to Greece and other lands, so at a later period was it disseminated from Syria to Italy; and so _Ausonius_ says (Epigr. 128.):

Eunus Syriscus inguinum liguritor, Opicus[76] magister (sic eum ducet Phyllis) Muliebre membrum quadriangulum cernit: Triquetro coactu Δ literam ducit. De valle femorum altrinsecus pares rugas, Mediumque, fissi rima qua patet, callem Ψ dicit esse: nam trifissilis forma est. Cui ipse linguam quum dedit suam, Λ est: Veramque in illis esse Φ notam sentit. Quid imperite, Ρ putas ibi scriptum Ubi locari Ι convenit longum? Miselle doctor, Ȣ tibi sit obscoeno, Tuumque nomen Θ sectilis signet.

(Eunus from Syria, glutton of the privy parts, Opican (clownish) master (Phyllis teaches him his letters) sees the woman’s organ four-cornered: when compressed to a triangle he makes it out the letter Δ. From the valley between the thighs start two furrows, a pair one on either side, while between them is a line, where lies the opening, the crack of the fissure; this he declares is Ψ; for ’tis three-pronged in outline. Then when he puts in his own tongue to it, lo! it is Λ; and he can feel there is a true Φ marked therein. What, dunce, think you a Ρ is inscribed there, where a long Ι should by rights be placed? Miserable, contemptible scholar, may the Ȣ (a noose) reward your foulness, and the cleft Θ (letter of condemnation, being initial of θάνατος,—death) be set against your name!) The more detailed interpretation of these obscene hieroglyphics the reader may find in the commentators on the passage, as well as in _Forberg_, loco citato p. 335.

Diseases of the Cunnilingue.

§ 24.

Can anyone believe such a vice as this was practised without incurring punishment? Yet there prevails amongst the Physicians of Antiquity, even including Galen, who knew the facts, an unbroken silence. It is impossible to suppose that girls and women could have their genital organs purged in this mode altogether without evil results, more particularly as actual experience in more modern times has proved that as a consequence of the habit of _cunnilingere_ inflammations of the external genitals have been set up in girls, as well as ulcerations in older women through the licking of these parts by dogs. Among Ancient writers we have found no vouchers for this; but on the other hand several such exist to show the mischief that results from the habit to the _cunnilingue_ himself. Excluding from consideration the _pale complexion_[77] and evil _smell from the mouth_, which were equally consequences of the other forms of vice already mentioned, we have _paralysis of the tongue_ mentioned, at any rate in one passage[78]:

Sidere percussa est subito tibi, Zoile, lingua, Dum lingis. Certe, Zoile, nunc futuis.

(Your tongue, Zoilus, has been stricken with a sudden doom, while in the act of licking. Why! surely, Zoilus, you copulate now). True this malady must be counted as one of very rare occurrence; but this is by no means the case with the ulcerations, which would seem not always to have confined their attacks to the tongue, but to have extended also, just as with the _fellator_, to the other parts of the mouth as well. This cannot but have had the effect of making it very difficult in diagnosis to distinguish between an affection of the sort due to _fellation_ and one due to the vice of the _cunnilingue_.

Here again it is _Martial_ to whom we are indebted for the proofs of our assertions. He leaves no room for doubt as to the way Manneius was punished for his debauchery in the following passage[79]:

_Lingua maritus, moechus ore Manneius,_ _Summoenianis inquinatior buccis:_ Quem cum fenestra vidit a Suburrana Obscoena nudum lena, fornicem claudit, Mediumque mavult basiare, quam summum: Modo qui _per omnes viscerum tubos_ ibat, Et voce certa consciaque dicebat: Puer, an puella matris esset in ventre; (Gaudete cunni, vestra namque res acta est!) _Arrigere linguam non potest fututricem Nam, dum tumenti mersus haeret in vulva_[80] Et vagientes intus audit infantes, _Partem gulosam solvit indecens morbus; Nec purus esse nunc potest, nec impurus._

(_Manneius was a husband with his tongue, a fornicator with his mouth, a more polluted wretch than the big-cheeked wenches of the suburbs._ When a vile bawd saw him naked from a window in the Suburra, she shuts her brothel up, and had rather kiss his middle than his head. The man who but now could _penetrate every vessel of the inwards_, and say with assured voice and certain knowledge whether it were a boy or a girl in the mother’s belly,—rejoice, rejoice, organs of women, for your business is done for you,—the same _cannot erect a fornicating tongue_. For at the very moment _he is plunged tight in the swollen vulva_, and hears the babes whimpering within, lo! _a shocking disease paralyses his greedy tongue. Now can he be neither clean, nor yet unclean_).

The Commentators, in particular _Farnabius_, refer the complaint spoken of in the passage just quoted to paralysis of the tongue. Farnabius says in fact: “Paralysisne ἀπὸ τῆς ἀφέδρου καὶ τῶν ἐμμηνιῶν, quorum malefico humore marcescunt segetes, apes moriuntur etc., Plin. c. 15 Lib. V., an sideratio?” (Is paralysis intended, _resulting from the menstruation and menstrual_ discharges, the poisonous humour of which will wither up crops, kill bees, etc.—Pliny ch. 15. Bk. V., or a sudden stroke?) Even supposing us willing to admit the possibility of menstrual blood bringing on paralysis of the tongue, there can at any rate be no question of such a thing here, inasmuch as it was with a pregnant woman Manneius carried out his vicious practises, and women in pregnancy do not _usually_ menstruate,—a fact about which the Philologist naturally enough was only imperfectly posted. Of course the possibility is always there, although the Poet says nothing about it; and the expression _vulva tumens_ (swollen organ) evidently stands here, as is clearly shown by what follows, for _uterus gravidus_ (pregnant womb)[81]. The _solvere_ (to loose, destroy) points in any case to a destruction, a dwindling, of the part, brought about by the _indecens morbus_ (shocking disease),—which disease might very likely find its explanation in the _scelerata lues_ (noxious contagion) mentioned on page 258 above. As a result of this, naturally enough not only did _arrigere_ (to erect—the tongue) become impossible, but the _impurus_ (_Cunnilingus_) (unclean cunnilingue) grew generally incapable of practising his vice. Nor yet was he _purus_ (clean)[82] altogether, for was he not a _cunnilingue_?—and now he was even less _purus_, because he suffered from the _indecens morbus_ (shocking disease), which even Farnabius has so far rightly understood, that he explains _nec purus_ (nor yet clean) by _morbo illo contaminatus_ (because contaminated by the said disease).

Rather more doubtful and difficult is the interpretation of the following passage of _Martial_[83], which would yet appear to be pertinent here:

Non dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum; Non sum tam temerarius, nec audax, Nec mendacia qui loquar libenter. Si dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum, Iratam mihi Pontiae lagenam, Iratum calicem mihi Metili. _Iuro per Syrios tibi tumores, Iuro per Berecynthios furores._ Quod dixi tamen, hoc leve et pusillum est. Quod notum est, quod et ipse non negabis: _Dixi te_, Coracine, _cunnilingum_.

(I never called you a _cinaedus_, Coracinus; I am not so rash or so reckless, not being one to speak lies willingly. If I called you a _cinaedus_, Coracinus, may Pontia’s jar be my enemy, and Metilius’ poisoned cup. _I take oath by your Syrian tumours, by your Berecynthian frenzies._ What I _did_ say is a trivial, an insignificant thing, a thing well known, that you will not yourself deny,—_I said_, Coracinus, _you were a cunnilingue_).

What were these _Syrii tumores_ (Syrian tumours) that afflicted the _cunnilingue_ Coracinus? _Beroaldus_, Annotat. ch. 25., understands them as “tumores et vibices a cultris et flagris quibus sacerdotes Cybeles (quam deam Syriam esse volunt) se sauciabant.” (the swellings and weals from the knives and scourges with which the priests of Cybelé,—whom they claim to be the Syrian goddess—used to wound themselves). _Farnabius_ on the contrary thinks only _Berecynthios furores_ (Berecynthian frenzies) to be intended in this explanation, and makes the _tumores Syrii_ mean “_ulcera et morbos quibus credebatur irata Isis inflare peierantes_,” (ulcers and maladies with which the angry Isis was supposed to afflict false swearers), appealing to the passage of Persius[84], already brought forward a few pages back (p. 254.), which reads:

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

(Then the tall Galli, and the one-eyed priestess with her sacred rattle, instil terror of _the gods that make men’s bodies swell_, unless three times at dawn you have eaten the prescribed head of garlic).

Whether this passage affords any direct proof would seem doubtful, inasmuch as the _inflare corpus_ (to make the body swell) properly speaking only refers to the abdomen. To this also the eating of the allium (garlic), which no doubt first won its magic significance on account of its carminative properties, appears to point.

However another explanation is possible. Referring back to the passage of _Porphyrius_ quoted above on p. 254., the _tumores_ Coracinus had contracted in consequence of his general incontinence with women, which incontinence had at last brought him as a _senex_? (old man) to such a condition of weakness that nothing was left him but the vice of _cunnilingere_ to satisfy his still unexhausted lubricity. A side light in this case may be thrown on the matter by Horace’s description of the _Anus libidinosa_ (The lecherous old woman) in Epodes VIII. 9. 19.:

Venter mollis et femur _tumentibus_ Exile _suris_ additum.—Fascinum Quod ut superbo provoces ab inguine Ore allaborandum est tibi.

(Flabby belly and skinny thigh joined with swollen calves,—A tool, that requires you, in order to call it up from the supercilious groin, to work it with the mouth). _Casaubon_ in his commentary on the passage of _Persius_ is for connecting this, as well as the _Tumores Syrii_, with ἕλκεα Συριακὰ (Syrian sores), and—as quoted on p. 253 above—to regard them as a consequence of the wrath of the _Dea Syria_ (Syrian goddess). No doubt as a matter of fact the _tumores_ were a result of debauchery, one that was prevalent in Syria and was disseminated thence to Rome, for they attacked a _cunnilingue_ no less than other debauchees; but this brings us no nearer to a knowledge of their nature. We should perhaps be inclined to regard them as swellings of the tonsils or of the lympathic glands of the throat, having the same significance as the inguinal buboes in affections of the genitals.

But what are the _Berecynthii furores_ (Berecynthian frenzies)? Possibly nocturnal pains in the bones, that torment a patient to the pitch of frenzy? The metaphor, drawn from the nocturnal rites of Cybelé, must be admitted to be a happy one. Still, however acceptable conjectures of the sort may be to many, we cannot take them seriously. It appears to us most judicious to regard the _Syrii tumores_ as being ulcerations that covered the body of Coracinus, and by their violent itching reduced him to a state of frenzy. Our view as stated is confirmed by Epigram 108. of _Ausonius_:

IN SCABIOSUM POLYGITONEM.

Thermarum in solio si quis Polygitona vidit Ulcera membrorum scabie putrefacta foventem, Praeposuit cunctis spectacula talia ludis. Principio tremulis gannitibus aëra pulsat, Verbaque lascivos meretricum imitantia coetus Vibrat et obscoenae numeros pruriginis implet. _Brachia deinde rotat velut enthea daemone Maenas,_ Pectus, crura, latus, ventrem, femora, _inguina_, _suras_, Tergum, colla, humeros luteae Symplegadis antrum. Tam diversa locis vaga carnificina pererrat, Donec marcentem calidi fervore lavacri Blandus letali solvat dulcedine morbus. Desectos sic fama viros, ubi cassa libido Femineos coetus et non sua bella lacessit, Irrita vexato consumere gaudia lecto: Titillata brevi quum iam sub fine voluptas Fervet et ingesto peragit ludibria morsu. Turpia non aliter Polygiton membra resolvit, Et quia debentur suprema piacula vitae, Ad Phlegethonteas sese iam praeparat undas.

(_To the scabby Polygiton._—If any man caught sight of Polygiton on the seat of the Thermae bathing the sores on his limbs all rotten with scab, he preferred so entertaining a spectacle to all the games. First he beats the air with twittering, whining noises, and utters broken sounds in imitation of the wanton embraces of harlots, and completes the symphony of his foul-minded lechery. _Then he twirls his arms about like a Maenad under the god’s afflatus_; breast, legs, flank, belly, thighs, _groin_, _calves_, back, neck, shoulders, cave of the bemired Symplegades,—i. e. hollow between buttocks,—in so many different places does the shooting torture fly, until he droops and faints in the warmth of the hot bath and the disease is soothed and gives a fatal respite. So it is said castrated eunuchs, when barren desire tries hard for embraces with women and for contests they cannot properly engage in, are consumed with empty transports on the tossed and tumbled bed,—till eventually their lust, tickled and tickled, flames high for a last moment, and completes the wanton act by applying the mouth and biting. So with Polygiton a final spasm relaxes his disfigured limbs, and the last sin-offerings of his life being due, thus makes himself ready for the waves of Phlegethon).

True the connexion with the vice of _cunnilingere_ is apparently lost here, but this also may be preserved without any great straining of the words, as we shall see presently; and accordingly the _Tumores Syrii_ can be quite well regarded as a consequence of the vice of the _cunnilingus_.

Mentagra (Tetter of the Chin).

§ 25.

Ever since the so-called first appearance of Venereal Disease, most of the advocates of the antiquity of the complaint have made a point of bringing in _Mentagra_[85] within the purview of the quotations they adduce to prove their contention, although strictly speaking they were never likely to succeed in a direct demonstration that the disease was really and truly connected with sexual excesses. Accordingly, to the present day the majority of them see in it nothing more than a form of Leprosy, particularly as _Hensler_[86] and _Sprengel_ were among those who decided in favour of its leprous character. Instead of giving a useless list of names of the different authors, who in former days declared for the one view or the other, we think it more expedient to quote first of all the capital authority, a passage in Pliny[87], setting this down as it stands so as to be able afterwards to form a correct appreciation of its bearing:

Cap. I. “Sensit et _facies_ hominum novos omnique aevo priore incognitos, non Italiae modo, verum etiam universae prope Europae morbos: tunc quoque non tota Italia, nec per Illyricum Galliasve aut Hispanias magnopere vagatos, aut alibi, quam Romae circaque: sine dolore quidem illos ac sine pernicie vitae: sed tanta foeditate, ut quaecunque mors praeferenda esset.

Cap. II. “Gravissimum ex his _lichenas_ appellavere _Graeco nomine_: _Latine_, quoniam a mento fere oriebatur, _ioculari primum lascivia_ (ut est procax natura multorum in alienis miseriis) mox et usurpato vocabulo, _mentagram_: occupantem in multis totos utique vultus, oculis tantum immunibus, descendentem[88] vero et in colla pectusque ac manus, foedo cutis furfure[89].

Cap. III. “Non fuerat _haec lues_ apud maiores patresque nostros. Et primum _Tiberii Claudii Caesaris_ principatu medio irrepsit in Italiam, quodam Perusino equite Romano Quaestorio scriba, quum in Asia apparuisset inde contagionem eius importante. Nec sensere id malum feminae aut servitia, plebesque humilis, aut media: sed proceres veloci transitu osculi maxime: foediore multorum qui perpeti medicinam toleraverant, citatrice, quam morbo. Causticis[90] namque curabatur, ni usque in ossa corpus exustum esset, rebellante taedio. Advenerunt ex Aegypto, _genitrice talium vitiorum_, medici, hanc solam operam afferentes, magna sua praeda. Siquidem certum est, Manilium Cornutum, e Praetoriis legatum Aquitanicae provinciae, H.S. CC. elocasse in eo morbo curandum sese.”

(Ch. I. Moreover the human _face_ experienced new diseases, and such as had been unknown in any former age not merely to Italy but to the whole of Europe very nearly, and these not widely diffused over Italy generally, or through Illyricum or the provinces of Gaul or of Spain, or indeed anywhere else but just in Rome and its neighbourhood. They were painless, it is true, and did not involve loss of life, but were of such a horrible nature that death in any form would have been preferable.

Ch. II. The most serious of these diseases they called _lichenes_,—scabs, a Greek name; in Latin, as the malady generally showed itself first on the chin, it was known as _mentagra_,—chin-bane, scab or tetter of the chin, at the first by way of jest and mockery—for it is the nature of the multitude to make merry at others’ misfortunes,—but soon this became the recognized word. In many persons it covered absolutely the whole countenance, the eyes alone being left unaffected, with a horrible scurf of the skin, going down sometimes to the neck as well, and breast, and hands.

Ch. III. _This plague_ had not existed among our ancestors or fathers. For the first time it crept into Italy in the middle of the reign of _Tiberius Claudius Caesar_, a certain Perusinius, a Roman knight and Quaestorian secretary, after a period of service in Asia, importing the contagion from there. But women did not suffer from the malady, or slaves, nor yet common folk of humble or middle-class station; but nobles, and this particularly by the rapid infection of an embrace. In many cases the scar, where patients had submitted to medical treatment, was more horrible than the disease itself. For indeed it was curable by caustics, except when the body had been consumed to the very bones, the slowness of the treatment defeating its own end. Physicians arrived from Egypt, _mother-land of such taints_, practising this cure exclusively, to their own great profit. If, that is, it is true that Manilius Cornutus, of the Praetorians and governor of the Province of Aquitania, offered 200,000 sesterces for his cure when attacked by this disease).

Here if ever, it particularly behoves us to begin with an elucidation of the meaning of the name given to the malady under discussion. _Gruner_[91] long ago called attention to the divergence of opinion as to the signification of λειχῆνες (scabs) among the writers of Antiquity, but without success in putting the actual facts in a clear light. We must try if we can be more fortunate. An old etymologist says: λειχὴν παρὰ τὸ λείχω, καὶ γὰρ φάσιν ἐκ τοῦ λείχειν τὸ πάθος ἐπαίρεται[92], (λειχὴν comes from λείχω,—I lick, because they say the complaint is set up by licking). On this we may say.—there is no doubt λειχῆνες and λιχῆνες are derived from λείχειν or λίχειν, but the explanation _Kraus_ gives of the reason in his Lexicon we cannot think conceivable, viz. “because Lichen, the same as a parasitic plant does, or a skin-disease in animals, always creeps round further and further (see _Herpes_,—creeping eruption), or _as it were licks its way_,” for λείχειν is not so much _lambere_, λάπτειν,—to lick over, lick along, as _lingere_, _ligurire_[93],—to lick up, lick up greedily. At the same time it is true the word (_lambere_) was used by the Romans in a somewhat similar sense, so perhaps we ought not to refer to _lambit flamma_ (a flame licks), but rather to Plautus’ expression (_Pers. prolog. 5._), “_quorum imagines lambunt hederae sequaces_” (whose images creeping ivy-tendrils lick, i. e. entwine). Most probably there are two different stems underlying the word. Of these one is λέγειν,—to lay, etc., hence λέγνη, the edging, the border, λίγνυς, soot (depositing itself on the edge), together with the bye-forms λέχω, λίχω with which in fact λιχὴν, _moss_[94], so far as it forms on the edge, the surface, fringes it, would be connected. The other stem will be λίγω, or λείγω (comp. λίβω and λείβω), λείχω and λείχην, λίγγω, λίζω, to which would have to be referred also λίγυς and λιγυρὸς,—clear, shrill (ligurire, lingere,—to lick greedily, to lick), in all of which the underlying sense is of licking, and the noise connected with it.

It is plain that later on the derivatives of these stems suffered manifold variations and corruptions; but how much of all this is to be attributed to speakers and writers among the Greeks themselves, and how much to subsequent transcribers and editors of their work, it might be difficult to decide. But every day we have occasion to note a number of words, to which accident or other circumstances have given an ambiguous character. These, used quite unsuspectingly by the ignorant, make the better informed person blush, or else extort a smile from him that often enough causes the speaker no little embarrassment to know the reason. Undoubtedly it was the same with the Greeks and Romans, and so confusions between λίχω and λείχω, λιχὴν and λειχὴν, might have easily arisen, from which people were subsequently unable to extricate themselves. Originally perhaps λείχω, equally with _lingo_ and _ligurio_ (to lick), may have had the simple sense of licking, and only through later accretions to the meaning, have acquired an ambiguous character; soon however this got transferred to it to the exclusion of all others, and we find it used preferentially as the regular word for _cunnilingere_. The correctness of our conclusion would seem to follow above all from the passage of _Aristophanes_[95] given below, where it is the additional words that narrow down the meaning of λείχω (I lick), and definitely bring out the special signification. The words are said of Ariphrades, who reminds us of the ἀποφρὰς (unmentionable), the name Lucian appropriates to Timarchus:

Οὐδὲ παμπόνηρος, ἀλλὰ καὶ προσεξεύρηκέ τι· τὴν γὰρ αὑτοῦ _γλῶτταν αἰσχραῖς ἡδοναῖς μαίνεται, ἐν κασαυρίοισι λείχων τὴν ἀπόπτυστον δρόσον_, καὶ μολύνων τὴν ὑπήνην, καὶ κυκῶν τὰς ἐσχάρας.