Note 93 — THE SKIRMISH.90

The Sotadical Satire is so-called after Sotades, who lived three centuries before Christ, and whose erotic poems are unfortunately lost.—English Translator’s note. According to a note in Priapeia (Cosmopoli, 1890, Privately Printed), Sotades, the Mantinean poet, was the first to treat of Greek love, or dishonest and unnatural love. He wrote in the Ionian dialect, and according to Suidas he was the author of a poem entitled Cinædica (Martial, 2. 86). The title would leave us in no doubt as to the trend of the work. (Cinædus = he who indulges in unnatural lust; Cinædicus = pertaining to one who is unchaste.—Smith’s Latin English Dictionary.) C.f. also Sir Richard Burton’s “Sotadic Zone” in the Terminal Essay to The Thousand Nights and a Night (op. cit. sup.).