FIRST SECTION.

Influences which promoted the generation of Disease consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

§ 1.

Directly it becomes a question of studying the diseases of a particular part or organ, diseases occasioned by the nature of the use made of that particular part or organ, it is primarily requisite to investigate more precisely the different forms of this use. Then and then only shall we be in a position to define the share which secondary influences are competent to have in producing the said diseases. The natural use of the genital organs is simply the performance of the acts necessary to beget children. On this depends the preservation of the whole species. It is therefore improbable that Nature should have made such use liable to produce disease. As a matter of fact the experience of all ages shows that in a judicious marriage, the natural aim and object of which is the procreation of children, diseases of the genitals seldom, if ever, arise.

There must then be a secondary use of the genital organs, which is carried out without any view of begetting offspring, or in which this plays only a subordinate part, and consequently some other than the natural object is that pursued. This object is Sensual gratification, which is associated with the use of the genital organs, and the use of the genital organs for the attainment of this object is Sensuality. Every misuse of any given organ cannot but be associated with detriment both to the organ itself and to the whole organism as well. This must of course also be the case with the genitals,10 and it is in the misuse of them, in Sensual practices, that the most prominent efficient cause of maladies of these organs must be sought. Now it is our business to give a history of the maladies of the genital organs; and this is only possible on the condition that we have first of all gained a clear insight into the history of Sensuality.

Doubtless it is a melancholy task for the Historian to follow up and reveal the moral degradation of Peoples and Nations even to its most revolting details, and the Ethical philosopher might find not a few objections to raise against an undertaking of the kind. None the less is the Physician compelled to search out under all forms the traces of Vice in its most secret hiding-places, and so fathom the nature of the Disease in each individual case; and still more with Nations as a whole is he permitted,—nay! it is his bounden duty, to fix his eyes on their doings and those of each of their component parts. Thus only can he detect the nature of a Disease, which destroys the marrow of Peoples more surely and more terribly for this very reason that its genesis proceeds in secret.

The reproach that the Moral repute of Nations is hereby ruined, and the general mass saddled with the guilt of vices which of course only individuals ever committed, has no place here, for it is solely through the precise knowledge of the doings of these individuals that a due appreciation is possible of the danger that threatens the whole body politic from this source. Had not a false ideal of Morality hitherto restrained the individual, as it did the mass, from speaking out the truth, we should be much farther advanced than we are in the knowledge of a Disease, whose characteristic symptom it is that those who suffer from it endeavour, as far as they possibly can, to conceal its cause!

The Cult of Venus11.

§ 2.

The imaginative son of the South, already of his very nature prone to attribute all that his unpractised intellect failed to comprehend to the influence of a special Deity, was bound to do this pre-eminently in the case of an act that is even yet to us moderns wrapped in impenetrable obscurity,—the act of generation and conception. How could he think of this Deity12, that used his own body as its instrument and in so doing bestowed on him the highest pleasure of the senses, otherwise than under the shape of a Being equally alluring and loving, convinced that this Being must be infinitely more alluring13 than even the beloved form that he held in his arms? “The young man’s fancy” craves a lovely maiden; the maiden needed a loving sister, into whose arms she could trustingly throw herself, who intuitively divined all her soft, sweet emotions, to express which she sought in vain for words, which she scarce dared to own to herself that she was conscious of, and understood them!

To the Goddess’ Temple she wandered, before her poured out the longings that filled her heart to overflowing14, and at the last offered up herself a gift at the holy place, that so Aphrodité Ἀφροδίτη εὔκαρπος, κουροτρόφος, γενετύλλις,—Aphrodité rich in fruit, giving offspring, of the birth-hour) might be glorified in her, and herself be a participant in the highest happiness of Woman,—the joys of Motherhood. First she prepared herself by bodily purification15 before she trod the Temple threshold, then at the Temple altar she received spiritual purity; and thus thrilled through and through with the influence of the holiest, the Priest’s hand16 led her to the arms of her Lover, who as unspoiled yet and unsophisticated as she, had not sought to unveil the most august secrets of Nature with audacious hand. Intoxicated with rapture he drew his darling on to the Torus (sacred couch) bedecked with fragrant blossoms, and almost unconsciously to himself, became the creator of a being wherein both saw themselves made young again.

If Man is really the noblest of created Beings, made by the Creator in his own image, in very truth then the power that unconsciously raises Man to the level of his Maker must be a divine power too, and that act in the exercise of which it comes itself into play an act of most sublime worship. Are we to suppose there never was a time when Man, pure as he came from the hand of his Creator, followed in the singleness of his heart no other law but that written in his heart? Surely not merely in the dreams of the Poet was found the legend of an Eden, from which Man was driven out by his own guilt; more true to say that to this day we are all of us born therein. But alas! others’ guilt or our own tears us away from out the garden of Paradise, ere we have yet been able often to raise our eyes to take delight in its glory. Thus it is that many a man now and again has the memory of a Dream, that accompanies him on his pilgrimage through life, and he hopes to find in the future what long ago, before he grew conscious of its existence, became a thing of the past. Perchance it may be the fatal tasting of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was nothing else than the misuse of the genital organs, to content bestial longings, to arouse the titillation of an enervating pruriency17. “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked!” The bestial had won the victory over the divine, which fled away from the desecrated altar; and the Genius of Mankind wept over their Fall!

Here is the History at once of Man individually and of whole Peoples. Over the Temple-worship of Aphrodité also impended such a crisis; and sooner or later the holy courts of Venus Urania (Heavenly Venus) changed into the Lupanar of Venus Vulgivaga (Brothel of Venus of the Streets).

§ 3.

A precise knowledge of the extension of the Venus-cult in chronological order would readily supply us the means of following up historically the moral deterioration of the Peoples of Antiquity; but so long as we do not possess this, History cannot be expected to give us anything of great value. All that we are for the present in a position to give, pertinent to the object we aim at, is as follows:

“The worship of this Urania,” says Pausanias18, “the Assyrians first introduced amongst themselves, after the Assyrians the Paphians in Cyprus19, and among the Phoenicians20 the inhabitants of Ascalon in Palestine. From the Phoenicians the inhabitants of Cythera21 learned to know and worship her. At Athene Aegeus introduced her worship.” It was at Babylon then that the cult of Venus originated as Mylitta worship, spread over the inland parts to Mesopotamia as the Sabaean22 religion, and was passed on by the Phoenicians to the seaboard peoples as Astarté-worship. For at the spot where this cult first arose, it lasted longest in its original purity, and Herodotus23 could report how at Babylon the daughters of the country were compelled once in their life-time to give themselves for money to a strange man to win the favour of the goddess, then to return to their dwelling all the more virtuous for the sin, and neither promises nor gifts, however great these might be, availed ever again to draw them into the arms of a stranger. Later indeed it was different even here, perhaps through the influence of the Phoenicians, who had manifold dealings with them. For Herodotus himself relates elsewhere (Bk. I. 196), that after the capture of Babylon by the Persians, the poorer classes, dreading the forcible abduction of their daughters, if means of subsistence failed them, made them harbour-wenches24. And accordingly Q. Curtius25 felt bound to write of Babylon:

“Nihil urbis eius corruptius moribus, nihil ad irritandas illiciendasque immodicas voluptates instructius. Liberos coniugesque cum hospitibus stupro coire, modo pretium flagitii detur, parentes maritique patiuntur.... Feminarum convivia ineuntium in principio modestus est habitus, dein summa quaeque amicula exuunt, paulatimque pudorem profanant: ad ultimum ... ima corporum velamenta proiiciunt; nec meretricum hoc dedecus est sed matronarum virginumque apud quas comitas habetur vulgati corporis vilitas.”

(Nothing can well be more corrupt than the manners of this City, nothing more artfully adapted to excite the passions and allure to voluptuous excesses. Strangers are permitted by parents and husbands, provided the price of shame is forthcoming, to have lustful intercourse with their children and their wives.... At their first entrance to the banquet-room the women’s dress is modest, presently they remove their outer robes one by one, and little by little violate all modesty, ... at the last stripping off the innermost coverings of their persons. And this is no mere abomination of harlots, but the habit of matrons and maids, who consider that in thus making themselves cheap and exposing their bodies they are showing courtesy). This custom we find again carried still further amongst the Armenians, who Strabo2627 says consecrate their daughters for some considerable length of time to Anaitis, and only after this suffer them to marry. Herodotus28 relates the same custom of the Lydians, degenerated in the same way as had been the case in later times at Babylon, for here too the lower classes used to abandon their daughters to prostitution for a livelihood. Still in its original purity the usage reached the Phoenicians29, but with them also would seem to have early degenerated, although in particular towns of Phoenicia the practice appears to have been followed only under certain circumstances. Lucian30 relates that the women, of Byblus, where was a Temple of Ἀφροδίτη βυβλίη (Venus of Byblos), if they would not allow their hair to be cut off at the Funeral-feast of Adonis, were bound in honour of Venus for one whole day to abandon their bodies to strangers. Among the Carthaginians31 also, as in Cyprus32, maidens had to earn their dowry, and the Tyrant Dionysius introduced the same custom, no doubt with a secondary design of a profit for himself, amongst the people of Locri.33

§ 4.

As to the reason for this custom, one might be found in the opinion that prevailed almost universally in Antiquity amongst the Asiatic peoples, that the first-fruits of everything were consecrate to the Deity, and accordingly the virgin’s hymen must be offered up to Venus. But this will not in any way explain why the self-surrender must nearly always take place with a Stranger (ἀνδρὶ ξείνῳ) of all people in the world. Heyne34 and Fr. Jacobs35, who paid special attention to this custom, are it is true agreed in thinking that a religious motive lay at the bottom of it, though they differ in their conception of what it was; but neither of them hit on the right explanation. A careful distinction must be made between the Ceremony and the Act of the self-surrender. The first was a matter of religion, the second not; for the women were conveyed at Babylon outside the Temple-precincts, in Cyprus to the sea-shore, for the purpose of yielding their bodies to strangers36. Had the act been regarded at that period as a religious one, it would of necessity have been practised, as was the case before and again later, in the Temple or at least within its precincts, and of course with fellow-countrymen, strangers not being allowed to take part in any native religious practice.

The discrepancies however soon disappear if it is remembered that in Antiquity, as to this day amongst many savage peoples, not only was the menstrual blood (of which more fully later) held to be impure, but also the blood that flowed, when a virgin was deflowered, from the rupture of the hymen, and consequently the act of defloration as well. The same held good in the case of coition with widows, because it was believed that with them the menstrual blood accumulated in greater quantity, then was discharged on occasion of the first coition, and must necessarily cause injury to the man. This also explains why Herodotus (loco citato) says γυναῖκες (women) and not simply κόραι or παρθένοι (girls, virgins); and removes at once Heyne’s doubts (p. 32) and the difficulties raised by Heeren37.

The dwellers on the sea-coast, who enjoyed more active intercourse with the rest of the world, left to strangers the polluting act of defloration, whilst among inland peoples this office was undertaken for those of the higher classes38 by the priests, or else an idol, specially appropriated for the purpose, a Priapus or Lingam (see later) was employed. Subsequently several mistaken reasons may well have been alleged for the custom; the only idea that continued to be consistently held was that defloration was not a proper function of the bridegroom. It was rather made a matter of honour, and accordingly brides offered themselves first to the wedding-guests, as among the Nasomonians in Africa39 and in the Balearic Islands40, where the right of preference went by age.

We must then take into consideration several causal factors to help us to an explanation of the custom in question. The original motive may very well have been in every case the consecration of the maiden’s virginity to the goddess,41—Hieroduli (Temple hand-maids) in the earlier meaning. Further again the maiden was bound to pay her tribute to the goddess of sexual Pleasure42, so as to co-operate with the husband with a view to the procreation of children. Little by little the custom lost its purer character. After a time it ceased to be any longer one of universal obligation, and became binding only for the poorer classes, who found in it an opportunity of earning a dowry43 for their daughters. Meantime the rich adopted the habit of presenting female slaves to the temple of the goddess, thereby giving occasion for the establishment of the regular Hieroduli,—who subsequently grew into filles de joie in the proper sense, and laying the foundation of the brothel system (see later). Out of the idea of consecration was subsequently developed on the one hand that of initiation for the married state,—an idea found again in the “proof-nights” custom of the Middle Ages, and on the other the idea of bondage that grew into the “Jus primae noctis” (Right of first night).

As second factor then must be reckoned the belief in the harmfulness of the blood resulting from rupture of the hymen at defloration; and connected with this the actual injury that the man’s genital organs are occasionally exposed to in deflowering a maid with narrow vaginal orifice, or at any rate the effort necessarily called for to perforate the hymen, a motive not without actual weight amongst indolent Asiatics44. To this day the bridegroom at Goa gives thanks to the Priapus (Lingam), that has loosed his bride’s virgin-zone, with marks of the deepest adoration and gratitude for having performed this honourable service and so relieved him of a heavy task45.

For the maid defloration is yet more painful, and as she had to go through it once and once only with a stranger, she might readily get the idea that it was the stranger alone that was to blame; consequently that every surrender to a stranger must involve the same sufferings. This would deter her from a second experience of the kind, and all the more so because the subsequent embraces of the husband stirred in her only pleasurable sensations. So the wife had no inducement to break the marriage vow.

§ 5.

When and under what circumstances the cult of Venus first came into Greece can hardly be discovered, though indeed Pausanias states in the passage quoted above that it was Aegeus (Erechtheus) who brought it to Athens. For a long period it played only a subordinate part, being kept under by the primeval god Eros (Love)46. No doubt the physical element may have come in early times from abroad47, but before long the stamp of the spiritual was strongly impressed upon it (the Graces were added as handmaidens to Aphrodité!),—so strongly that the idea of the procreating power fell henceforth into the background, to give place to that of Love, an idea that was entirely foreign to Asia. The amalgamation of Eros and Aphrodité, who was now first hallowed by him, or as the poet puts it, now first brought forward into the assemblage (Order) of the Gods, came about so gradually and imperceptibly that it would hardly be possible to obtain a clear conception of the views of the Greeks on the point. In consequence of the growing intercourse with the peoples of Asia, and particularly the Phoenicians48, foreign customs and usages came to be introduced and adopted with ever increasing frequency; and during the flourishing period of Greece we see the Asiatic character of the Venus ritual come into ever greater prominence, and the goddess herself in a sense re-introduced. Especially was this the case in the Islands and the seaport-towns, where as a rule the worship of Aphrodité first arose. Hence she was entitled the goddess “born of the (Sea) Foam”, and temples were built to her as “Protectress of Havens.”49

But the Greek genius found this physical Cult too strongly opposed to its own spirit. The Greek could not bring it into unison with his Eros-worship; and accordingly distinguished his goddess, under the name of Aphrodité Urania (Heavenly Aphrodité)50, from that worshipped by other Peoples as Aphrodité Pandemos51 (Aphrodité Common to all Men). The latter was relegated to the Islands52, and particularly Cyprus; and never properly speaking became a national Deity.

It is very interesting as a general fact that the Venus Urania always belongs, so it appears, to the inland regions, the Venus Pandemos on the contrary to the sea-ports and islands53; for it was as a rule from East to West along the coast-lines that the Asiatic form of the Cult spread, a thing that could not have happened except through the instrumentality of a people early practising navigation, such as the Phoenicians.

It cannot fail to have an important bearing on our subject to make a more precise acquaintance with the geographical distribution of the Venus-cult. We propose to give here a brief enumeration of the localities where she had her temples. The passages in evidence for this will be found given with tolerable completeness in Manso,—p. 46, also pp. 158 sqq.

In Cyprus: at Paphos, whither came yearly a great concourse of people at the festival time54; in Pamphilia; in Asia Minor; along the Coast-line of the Aegean; in Caria (Cnidos); Halicarnassus; Miletus; Ephesus; Sardis; Pergamus; Pyrrha; Abydos (Aphrodité πόρνη—harlot); in Thessaly; at Tricca; in Boeotia, (Tanagra—on the Sea); in Attica, (Athens, Colias, Pera55, on the Cephissus); in the Islands of the Aegean Sea, (Ceos, Cos, Samos, where the temple was built from the earnings of the Hetaerae); in the Peloponnese: at Argolis, Epidaurus, Troezen, Hermioné, (was visited by maids and widows before their marriage); in Laconia, (Amyclae, Cythera); Arcadia, (Megalopolis, Tegea, Orcomenus); Elis, (Olympia, Elis); Achaia, (Patrae, Corinth); on the Coast of the Corinthian Gulf. From Greece we come to Sicily, where the temple of Venus on Mount Eryx was hardly inferior to that of Paphos, also at Syracuse56.

Not without importance for our purpose is the statement of Strabo57, that in the island of Cos in the temple of Aesculapius was an effigy of Venus Anadyomené (coming from the bath), while according to Pausanias58 in a wood near the temple of the same god at Epidaurus was built a chapel of Aphrodité, since very possibly this may throw some light on the question of the knowledge of complaints of the genital organs possessed by the physicians of Cos. Böttiger59 is of opinion that it was from the infirmaries and lazarettos of the Phoenicians that the earliest medical science of the Greeks was introduced—to the island of Cos; to Aegina, on the Peloponnesian coasts, especially at Epidaurus. Probably these establishments were originally under the protection of the national deity, until the latter was superseded by the god Aesculapius.

As regards the cult of Aphrodité itself and the manner in which it was celebrated in Greece, there appears to be a great lack of particulars capable of supplying a general knowledge of the subject, and especially so where the Pandemian Aphrodité is concerned. Accordingly we will limit ourselves here to mentioning the female Hieroduli60 who as bondswomen of Aphrodité dwelt within the precinct of her Temple, and performed the necessary observances in her honour. These were, as already pointed out, of Asiatic origin, and to be found in greater numbers particularly at Ameria61 and Comana62 in Pontus, where they united with the temple-service the traffic of their bodies, (τῶν ἐργαζομένων ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος—of women who traffic with their body), just as in later times male Hieroduli gave up their persons for Paederastia.

When the cult of Venus came into Greece, the Hieroduli were introduced along with it. But they stripped off in Greece their Asiatic character, which they assumed again only in particular sea-port towns at the period of the decline of the moral greatness of the Nation, in places where the temple of Aphrodité Πόρνη (Harlot) was found. Specially was this so at Corinth63, in which city were more than a thousand female Hieroduli, who were presented as slaves to the Temple. These attracted a great concourse of strangers to the place, and in particular used to prey upon sea-faring visitors. Possibly however in this case as in others a confusion took place between the Hieroduli properly so-called and the Hetaerae (Lady-Companions), who were euphemistically entitled Priestesses, Handmaids of Aphrodité, because they were under the patronage of that goddess, just as in a general way sexual enjoyment was called an offering to Venus.

This would offer the best solution of the question, early debated, of the morality of the Hieroduli. It was quite opposed to Greek feeling to worship Aphrodité after the Asiatic manner in her temples; and so the Greek distinguished his Venus Urania from the Venus Pandemos, and on the same principle separated her temples into two categories, and made the temples of Aphrodité Pandemos, Porné and Praxis (Common to All, Harlot, Sexual Intercourse) into the οἰκήματα τῆς Ἀφροδίτης (houses of Aphrodité) serving as ordinary brothels, the latter being only intended for Foreigners originally.

How and under what form the cult of Venus came into Italy is uncertain, but the legend represents Aeneas as having brought it from Troy to Lavinium and Laurentum64, and already in the time of Romulus a Venus Myrtea (Venus of the Myrtle) was venerated at Rome. In addition a Venus Cloacina, Erycina, Victrix, and Verticordia (Venus—the Purifier, of Mount Eryx, of Victory, the Turner of Hearts) are mentioned, as also a Venus Calva (bald), whose worship King Ancus is said to have introduced, at a time when the Roman women had lost their hair through a plague and it had grown again by the help of Venus65. Not only are the notices as to Venus worship in Italy very scanty, but everything on the subject points to the fact that what there was of it in later times showed little of the Asiatic impress; and we can conveniently leave the matter where it is. Some questions belonging to the subject will be discussed later under the heading Brothels. In Spain too the worship of Venus was so unimportant that there is no need to enter more closely into the point.

The Lingam and Phallic Worship.

§ 6.

Whilst the cult of Venus sprang up in the interior of Asia and was disseminated from thence over other parts of the world, it is in India that the Lingam ritual took its rise, a ritual more closely corresponding with the egotism of man. The idea that was early formed as the result of observation, that the man’s genitals were the determining element in the process of generation, was bound to conceive these organs themselves as being, in the prevailing system of Pantheism, under the Government of a Deity, and therefore as specially holy66. Now how could this Deity be represented to the eyes of men otherwise than by that organ whereby he pre-eminently showed himself efficacious? The later legend it is true put the matter into another shape; and we find in Sonnerat67 the myth of the Lingam-ritual amongst the worshippers of Vishnu related in the following form:

“The Penitents had by means of their sacrifices and prayers attained great power; but their hearts and their wives’ hearts must ever remain pure, if they would continue in possession of it. Now Siva had heard the beauty of these latter highly extolled, and formed the determination of seducing them. With this aim in view he took on him the form of a young mendicant68 of perfect beauty, bade Vishnu transform himself into a fair maiden and resort to the spot where the Penitents dwelt, in order to make them fall in love with him. Vishnu betook himself thither, and as he passed through their midst threw them such tender glances that they were all enamoured. They left all their sacrifices to follow after the youthful fair one.69

Their passions grew all the fiercer, till at last they seemed all lifeless and their languishing bodies resembled wax that melts near the fire.

Siva himself hied to the dwelling-place of the women. In mendicant guise he carried in one hand a water-bottle, and sang as he went, as beggars do. Now his song was so entrancing, that all women gathered round him, and thereupon under the gaze of the fair singer fell into complete distraction. This was so great with some that they lost their ornaments and clothing, and followed him in the garb of nature without noticing the fact.

When he had marched through the village, he left it, but not unaccompanied, for all followed him into a neighbouring thicket, where he had his will of them. Soon afterwards the Penitents became aware that their sacrifices no longer possessed their former efficacy, and that their power was no more the same as before. After a period of pious contemplation they now learned that it had been Siva who in the form of a Youth had seduced their wives into profligacy, and that they themselves had been led astray by Vishnu in the likeness of a Maid.

Accordingly they determined to slay Siva by means of a sacrifice.

(After many vain attempts), ashamed to have lost their honour without being able to avenge themselves, they made a last desperate effort; they united into one all their prayers and expiations, and directed them against Siva. It was the most terrible of their sacrifices, and God himself could not withstand the effects of its operation. They went forth like a flame of fire and fastened on Siva’s organs of generation and severed them from his body. Enraged with the Penitents, Siva now resolved to set the whole world in conflagration to punish them. The fire was already beginning to seize all around, when Vishnu and Brahma, on whom it was incumbent to save the living creatures in the world, thought of means to put a stop to it. Brahma took the form of a pedestal(?) and Vishnu that of the female organs of generation, and in this way copied Siva’s organs of generation, and thereby the universal conflagration was stayed. Siva suffered himself to be appeased by their prayers, and promised not to burn up the world, if men would pay divine honours to the dissevered organs.”

Now if we consider this myth, as related here, more closely, we can scarcely avoid the suspicion that it is one of those that in later times were fabricated in many forms and foisted in as genuine. For it is entirely adapted to explain the origin of the Venereal disease in a way that leaves little to be desired; for which reason it was used by Schaufus as the basis of his argument that the Venereal disease was introduced into Europe from India. But on the other hand this particular story is so accordant with the ancient creed of the Hindoos in general that, if it is of later origin, it must have been put together with the assistance of older legends. The continued union with the god, the power which the Penitents owed to him, was connected with purity of heart, with avoidance of sensuality70; directly they indulged in the latter, they were deprived of the divine influence, just as in the Mosaic legend resulted from the Fall of Man. This is one part of the legend,—manifestly a double one, while the other includes the punishment of the being who wrought this profanation. His genitals were destroyed by burning, which was attacking the World (i.e. men through the women seduced by Siva?), and ceased only through the prayers of the Penitents, which again became efficacious; thereupon the organs thus happily made sound again were suspended as thank-offerings in the temple of the god.

It would seem then that it was the sickness of the male genitals which gave occasion for their consecration and worship; and this is so far not inconsistent with reason, as the external position of the sexual parts in the male make every affection and injury perceptible at once with but little trouble, while the female organs lie in a more concealed situation. So that to the present day diseases of the male genitals are far more precisely known and appreciated than those of the female.

Should the enquirer push his search for an explanation further still, he might, arguing from what is said as to Vishnu’s having copied Siva’s sexual organs that had been blighted by the fire under the form of female genitals, allege a sort of natural cause for the conflagration, to wit the suggestion of a mode of cure which was frequently recommended and practised in the Middle Ages, when persons thought to drive away the clap by coition with virgins. But this is surely nothing else than an explanation of the Lingam71 superimposed on the symbol of the Juni, the feminine principle, in the form of the triangle, which Böttiger holds to be identical with the navel-stone of the Paphian goddess.

F. G. Klein72 professes to have proved from annals of Malabar that long before the discovery of the West Indies Venereal disease was known in the East Indies, for the Malabar physicians Sangarasiar and Alessianambi, who lived more than nine hundred years ago, and other physicians even before them, make mention he says of the Disease and its cure by means of Mercury. But in Antiquity affections of the genitals must have certainly been rarities amongst the inhabitants of India, for the Greeks73 count them amongst the longlived peoples, as owing to their moderation they were subject to few diseases. Again the climate of India is by no means to be considered as a factor favourable to the disease, Munro74 assuring us that simple herbs and moderate mode of life make the Hindoo recover, when no European could fail to succomb.

§ 7.

Whether the Phallus ritual in Egypt, where it is supposed to have arisen from the generative organs of Osiris cut off by Typho, have an Indian origin or no, it is impossible to decide75. But that it existed is certain, for not only are miniature Phalli often found with Mummies, but it was also portrayed in the Temple of Karnak76; and Herodotus77 mentions it, and adds at the same time that in the statutes the Phalli were movable. Perhaps from it was developed in part the cult of Mendes, of which we shall speak later. Although Herodotus78 declares that the Egyptians were the first people who had forbidden the accomplishment of coition in the temples, yet Strabo79 writes that they dedicated to Zeus the fairest and best-born maidens, whom the Greeks called Pallades, and compelled them to give themselves to men until their menstruation began for the first time, whereupon they were married.

As regards Greece on the contrary there is scarcely a doubt that the worship of Bacchus, and with it the Phallic ritual80, was transplanted to that country from India. To explain the occasion of this introduction there is a legend related in the highest degree worthy of attention in connection with the history of affections of the genitals. It is told by Natalis Comes81 in the following terms:

“Fuerunt et Phallica in Dionysi honorum instituta, quae apud Athenienses agebantur, apud quos primus Pegasus ille Eleutheriensis Bacchi cultum instituit, in quibus cantabant quem ad modum Deus hic morbo Athenienses liberavit et quem ad modum multorum bonorum auctor mortalibus extitit. Fama est enim quod Pegaso imagines Dionysi ex Eleutheris civitate Boeotiae in Atticam regionem portante Athenienses Deum neglexerunt neque, ut mos erat, cum pompa acceperunt: quare Deus indignatus pudenda hominum morbo infestavit, qui erat illis gravissimus: tunc eis ab oraculo, quo pacto liberari possent petentibus, responsum datum est: solum esse remedium malorum omnium, si cum honore et pompa Deum recepissent; quod factum fuit. Ex ea re tum privatim tum publice lignea virilia thyrsis alligantes per eam solennitatem gestabant. Fuit enim Phallus vocatum membrum virile. Alii Phallum ideo consecratum Dionyso putarunt, quia sit autor creditus generationis.”

(There were Phallic rites too established in honour of Dionysus, (these were observed among the Athenians; for it was at Athens that the far-famed Pegasus first established the worship of Eleutherian Bacchus)82, at which men chanted hymns telling how the god freed the Athenians from a plague, and how he was the giver of many good gifts to mortals. For the story relates that Pegasus brought the images of Dionysus from Eleutherae, a city of Boeotia, to the land of Attica; but the Athenians slighted the god, and did not, as was the wont, receive him with a procession. Wherefore the god was wroth, and afflicted the men’s private parts with a disease that was most grievous to them. So they consulted the oracle, asking in what way they might be freed from the plague, and received the answer: there was one only remedy for all their ills, viz. that they should welcome the god with due honour and fitting procession. And this they did accordingly. And in commemoration thereof they used to bind virilia (male generative organs) of wood to the thyrsi (Bacchic staves), and carry them thus at the solemnity in question; and this was done both privately and publicly. For Phallus is the name given to a man’s privy member. Others again considered that it was consecrate to Dionysus for this reason, because he was deemed the author of procreation).

Still more striking is the legend which the same author, Natalis Comes83, gives of the introduction of Priapus worship into Lampsacus, though it bears so great a resemblance to the preceding that the one might almost be thought to have been taken from the other. Aphrodité, he says, on the occasion of Bacchus’84 progress to India was made pregnant by him, and on her return to Lampsacus was brought to bed of Priapus, whose deformity was caused by the goddess Juno85, who afforded succour to the mother at the time of his birth:

“Deinde, cum adolevisset (Priapus) pergratusque foret Lampsacenis mulieribus, Lampsacenorum decreto ex agro Lampsaceno exulavit.—Fuerunt qui memoriae prodiderint Priapum fuisse virum Lampsacenum, qui cum haberet ingens instrumentum et facile paratum plantandis civibus, gratissimus fuerit mulieribus Lampsacenis. Ea causa postmodo fuisse dicitur, ut Lampsacenorum omnium ceterorum invidiam in se converterit, ac demum eiectus fuerit ex ipsa insula. At illud facinus aegerrime ferentibus mulieribus et pro se deos precantibus, post cum nonnullis interiectis temporibus Lampsacenos gravissimus pudendorum membrorum morbus invasisset, Dodonaeum oraculum adeuntes percunctati sunt an ullum esset eius morbi remedium. His responsum est: morbum non prius cessaturum, quam Priapum in patriam revocassent. Quod cum fecissent, templa et sacrificia illi statuerunt, Priapumque hortorum Deum esse decreverunt.”

(Subsequently when he—Priapus—had come to man’s estate, and was now exceedingly pleasing to the women of Lampsacus, by a decree of the Lampsacenes he was exiled from the territory of Lampsacus.—Some there are to tell the tradition that Priapus was a man of Lampsacus who had a huge “instrument” ready and willing for the making of new citizens, and who on that account was most pleasing to the Lampsacene women. Wherefore it is said afterwards to have come about that he incurred the envy and hatred of all the rest of the men of Lampsacus, and eventually was expelled from the island altogether. But this was a disaster that the women most bitterly regretted; so they prayed to the gods to help them, and after some interval of time had elapsed a most grievous disease of the private parts attacked the men of Lampsacus. Then they reported to the oracle of Dodona, and enquired of the god if there were any remedy for this plague. The reply was to the effect that the disease would not cease till they had recalled Priapus to his native land. This they did; and furthermore built temples and established sacrifices in his honour, and decreed that Priapus should be the god of gardens).86

Whatever interpretation we may give to these legends of Bacchus and Priapus, this much at any rate may be gathered from them without fear of contradiction, that affections of the male genitals at the time when they first became prevalent were taken to be the original cause of the introduction of Phallic worship,—in connection with the defloration of virgins mentioned in § 4. This is not without importance as bearing on the antiquity of the well-known Indian legend of the Lingam-ritual; and at the same time shows clearly that those affections of the genital organs must have borne a malignant character that men could not explain to themselves otherwise than as proceeding from the wrath of a Deity, a deity who on the other hand alone possessed the power to remove these ills. Another factor of great importance in connection with affections of the genitals in Antiquity, and of all the greater importance in as much as it leads us to the conclusion that resort was had for their cure not to human but to divine assistance, partly indeed depends on reasons which we shall discuss more exactly later on. However these reasons may in part be gathered at once from the following supremely important poem in the Priapeia87, to which de Jurgenew first called attention in his Dissertation, p. 11, but without communicating it in its entirety:

Voti solutio.

Paying a Vow.

(Why, you ask, is portrayed on the tablet the member whereby we are begotten? When, as it befell, my penis was damaged, and like a wretched coward I dreaded the Surgeon’s hand, I was afraid to entrust myself and the cure of my organ to the great official gods, that were too high for me, such I mean as Phoebus and Phoebus’ son. “To the member, I said, do thou, Priapus, give aid,—the member that thou art fashioned in the likeness of88. Then when it has been healed without the knife, a painted image of the part thou has relieved shall be dedicated to thee,—a match, a perfect match in form and in hue.” Thus he made his vow; the god nodded his penis in token of assent, and answered his prayers.)

This poem, whoever its author may have been89, testifies most explicitly that the Poet’s genital organs were seriously affected (by Phimosis and Ulcers?), that he from fear (timerem) of the Surgeon’s knife, from shame (verebar) before the regular physician in view of the part affected and of the way in which he had got the disease, had recourse to prayer and vow before the image of Priapus, and thereupon happily recovered without medical assistance!

The veneration of Priapus was pretty well universal in Italy, as the Roman poets teach us, and equally so the Phallic worship, of which the frequent representations of the Phallus that we find at Pompeii bear witness; in fact the latter, as Knight shows, maintained itself in connection with the veneration of Saints Cosmus and Damian down to the last Century at Isernia. The just quoted Poem from the Priapeia might perhaps serve to afford us an indication as to how the Phallus ritual has come to be connected with these Christian Saints; for probably patients attacked by the Venereal disease prayed to them, just as the Romans did to Priapus. Possibly examples of such cures by the saints in question are found in the “Acta Sanctorum Bollandi”. (Bollandist Lives of the Saints),—under Sept. 27.; but we are not able to consult the book. These Saints however were not the only ones that were venerated in the Middle Ages in the same way as the Priapus of the Ancients. In France unfruitful wives used to pray to St. Guerlichon, in Normandy to St. Giles, in Anjou to St. René, in connection with whom they practised rites which Stephanus declares himself ashamed to specify90.

Plague of Baal-Peor.

§ 8.

Although the period at which the worship of Priapus was introduced among the different Peoples cannot be always definitely fixed, and although Classical Mythology invariably counts him as belonging to the newer91 gods, yet he appears in quite early times to have played a not unimportant part in Syria92,—if that is to say the conclusion93, pretty generally believed on other grounds, is well founded, that the god Baal Peor was a sort of Priapus, in whose temple, situated on Mount Peor94, young Maidens were offered up. The Rabbis95 derive the name from פְּעוֹר aperire sc. hymenem virgineum, (to open sc. the hymen of a virgin), as if it had sprung from the Phallus ritual, as still found in Italy. At Goa indeed a man’s member made of iron or ivory is fastened in the Pagoda, which in the case of every bride is pushed by the parents and relations into her vagina, until it brings away with it visibly the bloody traces of the rupture of the hymen96; a proceeding that is connected, as shown in § 4., with the belief in the malignity of the menstrual blood, and in that of blood coming from the ruptured hymen. On the Coromandel Coast likewise a wooden Priapus is to the present day most ardently venerated by the inhabitants97.

Here again we encounter a legend, which is not without importance for the history of the affections consequent upon the misuse of the genital organs, to wit the story of the Plague that broke out amongst the Jews at Shittim in consequence of their having taken part in the worship of Baal-Peor. Sickler98 was the first who, as a champion of the antiquity of the Venereal disease, made this the subject of a more precise examination. However, in order to obtain as clear an insight into the matter as possible, it will be needful to quote at length the passages of the Old Testament connected with the subject, according to the English Revised Version99:

Besides these passages in the Books of Moses we find the plague of Baal-Peor further mentioned in the following places in the Old Testament:

§ 9.

We find the Jews on their march towards Canaan already arrived at the Jordan, from which river Shittim lay at a distance of 60 Stades or 2-1/2 leagues according to Josephus101, and the neighbouring Peoples in a state of terror at their near approach and at their victories. The King of the Moabites, Balak, had sent to the soothsayer Balaam, that the latter by his arts (his curse) might annihilate the threatening foe. Balaam however, inspired by the spirit of the Lord, blessed the sons of Israel instead of cursing them, but gave Balak counsel how he could in another way bring about the ruin of the Jews. This counsel is indicated in the passage quoted, Numbers Ch. 31, v. 16, without being explicitly stated; but what it was can indeed be partially gathered from the context of the whole passage, and was apparently so understood by the author of the Apocalypse, when he says:102 “But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there some that hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication.” Both Philo and Josephus, who perhaps lived only a little later, picture the course of events in full detail, though, it is true, from unknown authorities.

Philo103 writes as follows:

“Quae prius, inquit (Bileam), dixi oracula sunt omnia et vaticinationes: de reliquo quae loquar, animi mei coniecturae erunt.—Age vero praeclara eius monita videamus, quibus artibus instructa fuerint ad certissimam offensionem eorum, qui semper vincere poterant. Cum enim intelligeret Hebraeos una tantum ratione capi posse, violata facinore aliquo lege, per stupri libidinem et intemperantiam, magna mala, ad maius impietatis scelus inducere studebat voluptatis esca. Huius enim, aiebat, regionis, o rex, mulieres specie reliquis longe praestant: viri autem nulla re facilius quam mulieris forma expugnari possunt. Proinde si formosissimas quaestum facere prostareque permiseris, iuventutem adversariorum velut hamis capient. Ita autem doceri eas oportet, ne statim floris sui volentibus copiam faciant. Nam molestus ille aculeus simulatae recusationis libidinem acrius excitabit, et amorem accendet, actique libidine tanquam obtorto collo trahuntur, quidvis et facere et pati in animum inducent. Amatorem igitur ut quaeque sic affectum nacta erit, quae ad venationem illam subornantur, ferociter dicat: tibi consuetudine mea frui nefas est, nisi a patriis institutis desciveris, mutataque sententia eadem iuxta mecum colere coeperis. Huius defectionis fides ea demum mihi perspecta fuerit, si libamentorum eorundem et sacrorum particeps esse volueris, quae simulacris et statuis reliquisque signis ex ritu facere solemus.—Sic igitur ille tum consulebat: rex ista non abs re dici ratus, sublata de adulteris lege et abrogatis omnibus de stupro corruptelaque sanctionibus, proinde quasi nunquam rogatae essent, liberam facit mulieribus quibuscum vellent consuescendi potestatem. Illae vero licentia et impunitate data adolescentulorum multitudinem illiciebant, multo ante eorum animis circumventis et illecebrarum praestigiis ad impietatem impulsis: usque dum postremo pontificis filius Phinees, facta ista supra modum indignatus (teterrimum enim ei videbatur eodem tempore corpora et animos pro deditiis, illa voluptatibus, hos sceleri et impiae fraudi tradi iuvenilis audaciae memorabile facinus viroque dignum forti edidit. Nam quendam sui generis sacris operatum ad scortum ingredi conspicatus, neque submittentem in terram vultum, neque latere cupientem, neque, ut assolet, clanculum aditum suffurantem, sed inverecundam fiduciae intemperantiam prae se ferentem et in flagitio ridiculo velut in re praeclara magnifice se efferentem, exacerbatus indignitate rei et iusta repletus ira, cursu irrumpens adhuc in lecto iacentes amatorem et meretriculam confodit, genitaliaque eis praeterea desecat, quibus incestum satum patrarant. Istud exemplum aliqui continentiae et religionis studiosi iussu Mosis imitati, omnibus qui initiati fuerant simulacris manu factis, propinquis iuxta necessariisque occidione occisis, scelus gentis expiarunt inexorabili sceleratorum supplicio,—unoque die viginti quatuor millia hominum caesa sunt, et una statim sublata est communis labes, qua totus exercitus maculosus polluebatur.”

(All my words, said he (Balaam), thus far are dark sayings and prophecies; what I shall speak henceforth will be the counsels of my own mind.—But come let us look into his excellent advice, in what artful ways it has been framed for the sure and certain destruction of our ever-victorious foes. For perceiving that the Hebrews could be overcome in one fashion only, viz. through their violating the law by some terrible wrongdoing, he set himself, employing the bait of lust, to lead them on by way of fornication and incontinence, great offences in themselves, to the still greater crime of impiety. For this land, he said, oh! King, far excels all others in the beauty of its women; and by no other thing may men’s minds be so readily mastered as by a woman’s fairness. So if thou suffer the fairest amongst them to play the harlot and offer their beauty for a price, they will catch the young men of our enemies, so to speak, on their hooks. But they must be instructed not to surrender the enjoyment of their persons straightway at the first offer. For the sharp sting of a feigned refusal will, as thou knowest, excite their longing more keenly than ever, and inflame their passion, till driven on by lustfulness they are dragged along, as it were, by a halter round their necks, and there is nothing they will not consent to do or suffer. Accordingly the lover that each of the fair women who are set on to this task has won for herself and brought to this condition, must be bluntly told: It is impossible for thee to enjoy my love unless thou break with the customs of thy fathers, and change thy heart, and undertake the observance of the same rites as we. And this desertion of thy people’s faith will I then only hold as manifested, when I shall see thee willing to partake in those same libations and sacrifices that we are wont duly to pay to our idols and statues and other images.—Now such was the advice Balaam then offered; and the King deeming that he spake much to the purpose, repealed the law as to unlawful intercourse, and removed all punishments for fornication and licentious conduct, and made them as though they had never been, giving free licence to the women to lie with any man they pleased. And the latter, permission being granted and impunity guaranteed, soon ensnared a great number of the young Jewish warriors, whose minds indeed had long beforehand been entangled and by every trick and allurement impelled towards impiety.

At the last the high-priest’s son, Phinehas, above measure indignant at such deeds of shame, and convinced that both souls and bodies were at one and the same time being enslaved, the one by sensual pleasures, the other by wickedness and craft and impiety104, did a deed at once memorable for youthful daring, and worthy of a hero. For when he saw a kinsman of his own and one of the priestly order go in to a harlot, and this without any look of shame fixed on the ground, without any attempt at concealment, without any stealing up privily and making, as men are wont in such a case, a surreptitious entrance, but instead carrying it off with an air of shameless self-confidence and bearing himself proudly as though his act were one to merit renown and not ridicule, he was fired by the indignity, and filled with righteous anger rushes up and bursts in on the lover and his wanton actually lying on the bed. He pierces them through, and furthermore cuts away those organs wherewith they were satisfying their unholy passion. This example was followed, by command of Moses, by other zealous partisans of purity and religion; and those who had been initiated into the service of idols died the death at the hands of their family and kinsfolk, and so the wickedness of the nation was expiated by a merciless punishment of the wrongdoers;—and in one day four and twenty thousand men were slain, and thereby was straightway removed the common stain wherewith the whole host was spotted and polluted).

In much the same way, only still more fully, Josephus105 relates the circumstance. Licentiousness had laid hold of almost the entire host, and ancestral institutions were in danger of being abandoned altogether. Consequently, Josephus says, Moses appointed an assemblage of the People and in a speech drew attention to the perils that threatened. Sambrias (Simri) however made a defence, maintaining that they had long enough obeyed tyrannous laws and would fain live free henceforth. Hereupon he quitted the assembly, and was assassinated in his tent by the enraged Phinehas. Josephus (§ 12.) proceeds:

“Iuvenes autem omnes, qui virtutis aliquid sibi vindicarent et honestatis studio tenerentur, Phineesis fortitudinis exemplo accensi, eiusdem cum Zambria criminis reos interfecerunt. Multi itaque illorum, qui leges patrias violarant, horum egregia virtute perempti sunt. Peste autem reliqui omnes perierunt, deo hunc illis morbum immittente. Et quotquot e cognatis, qui cum prohibere debuerint, eos ad haec impulerant, a deo pro sceleris sociis habiti, pariter sublati erant.”106

(But all the younger men who laid any claim to manly virtue and tried to live honorably, fired by the example of Phinehas’ bold deed, slew all that were guilty of the same crime as Sambrias. And so by their singular courage and patriotism numbers of the men who had broken their ancestral laws were destroyed. But all that survived perished by a plague, that God sent upon them. Moreover such of their kinsfolk as ought to have hindered them, but instead had urged them to these courses, these God deemed accomplices in the wickedness, and they also were cut off.) Philo and Josephus are not indeed to be regarded as authentic eye-witnesses of what they record; still the passages quoted from them prove this much, that in their time the opinions they express were generally held.

The Jews were thus led astray by the daughters of the Moabites, and both practised fornication with them and made sacrifice in their temples to the god of the country, whose priestesses, as Balaam declared, were conspicuous above other women for their beauty. The consequence of these excesses was an infectious disease, (according to Josephus it communicated itself, but, he says, only to kinsmen!), which cost many107 their lives. The number however fell far short of 24000, for these perished mainly by the sword of their brethren, as Philo and Josephus expressly remark, and the author of the Pentateuch intimates, when he says (Numbers Ch. 26. v. 5.), “And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that have joined themselves unto Baal-Peor.” The narrator declares that by this slaughter the plague was stayed for the sons of Israel; but it certainly cannot have ceased altogether, as is manifest from the passages quoted from Joshua, where Phinehas asserts: that to that day the people was not yet cleansed from the misdoing of Peor.

The disease therefore cannot have been merely some passing disorder. It must evidently have been somewhat widely disseminated by the Moabitish women, and have been of very common occurrence among them; and that it was readily infectious follows from the whole course of Moses’ proceedings. The latter was angry because the woman had been suffered to live, and commanded to put to death all of them that had known men in carnal intercourse, but to keep alive the young virgins,—and their number was, according to Ch. 31. v. 35., thirty-two thousand!—who were brought into the camp as prisoners and there divided amongst their captors. So we see the executions took place not in order that opportunity for intercourse with the heathen women,—a thing which might very well on its own account have been an abomination to the Lord,—might be altogether removed, (for how in that case account for the maidens being saved alive, brought into camp, and divided as booty?)108 but that by this means the risk of the further dissemination of the disease might be for ever prevented.

The imminence of this risk in Moses’ opinion is shown finally by the purification of the host which he had despatched for the massacre of the Moabites and their women. He made it, prisoners and all the spoil included, halt for a period of seven days outside the camp, and twice over submit to a thorough purification. The Jews had slain many thousands of men in their previous wars, nay! just before they marched against the Moabites, they had actually slaughtered 24000 of their own youth; yet they had never been ordered to leave the camp for seven days, and twice over during this time to purify themselves and all their possessions. Only after the annihilation of the Moabitish women (not of the Moabite men), from the accomplishment of which they had just returned, had this happened. All this points to some most cogent reason. Here comes into operation the same law which was enforced on occasion of purification after Leprosy and after foul discharge: and indeed also after contact with a dead person,—even where they had first caused the death of the said person! Thus no one can very well dispute the view taken by Philo,109 when he says with regard to the purification after the annihilation of the Moabites:—

“Nam ut legitima hostium caedes sit, attamen qui hominem interfecit quamquam iure, quamquam vim propulsans, quamquam coactus, non insons esse videtur nec extra noxiam, propter summam illam et communem hominum inter ipsos cognationem. Quo nomine piacula suscipienda fuerunt interfectoribus ad luendum scelus, quod conceptum censebatur.”

(For whereas the slaying of enemies is lawful, nevertheless whosoever has killed a man, whether lawfully, or whether initiating the violent act, or whether on compulsion, seems not to be innocent or free from responsibility; and this is owing to that supreme and general relationship of all mankind with one other. Wherefore certain expiations had to be undertaken by any man who had killed another, to wipe out the guilt that was deemed to have been incurred).

What was the precise nature of the disease that the Jews had brought on themselves by their intercourse with the Moabitish women cannot indeed be determined; but that it affected the genital organs can hardly admit of a doubt. The fact, if it is a fact, that not a few lost their lives owing to it, need be no objection, since the ulceration of the genitals that prevailed at the end of the XVth. Century caused similar fatalities, and as we shall presently see, the uncircumcised Apion met his death in some such way. Now the Jews were almost without exception still uncircumcised at that time, for it was Joshua110 who first on his arrival in Canaan, at the bidding of Jehovah, circumcised the children of Israel with stone knives on the hill Araloth. When the people adopted the worship of Baal Peor, we may be sure they ceased at the same time to observe the ancestral laws of purification,—if indeed these latter even as regards foul discharge and leprosy as well as intercourse with women during menstruation were not perhaps, as might almost be believed, first enacted in all their severity only in consequence of the plague of Baal Peor. Again it may well have been this experience that first taught the inhabitants of Palestine the necessity of circumcision, which was then laid down as an ordinance by command of Jehovah!

Brothels and Courtesans111.

§ 10.

There is no doubt that it was in the Asiatic cult of Venus that the first elements were given for sexual excesses. It is hardly a matter of surprise therefore if these same elements came constantly, as has been shown above, into greater and greater prominence, and in this way pushed the original form of the Worship into the background. By degrees as enlightenment increased and the respect felt towards the gods diminished, Venus also soon lost her old character as goddess of procreation and sank into the patroness of sensual gratification. Her temples as well as her holy groves lost their exclusive title to bestow the blessing of fruitfulness on the embraces of the sexes, and came merely to serve as appointed trysting-places of carnal pleasures. The offerings made at her shrines were no longer to win an assurance of posterity; they became bribes paid to buy a free opportunity for the indulgence of sensuality. They degenerated into fornication-fees, as her temples did into brothels. The priestesses of Astarté or Mylitta stood at the beck and call alike of strangers and natives, and the opportunity was ever open for sexual enjoyment. Hence too it is that a special designation for the brothel will be looked for in vain in Asia. The thing existed there without the name being required; and the State found no need to establish an institution, which had long ago, without any intervention on its part, taken form under the cloak of religion.

Even amongst the Jews, who frequently enough, but always as a temporary aberration merely, adhered to the foreign cult, brothels in the strict sense seem never to have existed112. Although courtesans are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and even the dwelling of a Wanton as well as her behaviour pictured with considerable fullness of detail113, yet all this would seem to have had more of a private than of a public character,—due heed being given to the fact that not a few passages are to be taken only in a figurative sense. Prostitution as a regular calling was strictly prohibited114 to the daughters of Israel; and such women as practised it openly seem to have been mainly foreigners, perhaps natives of Phoenicia and Syria, who at the same time entertained with dancing and the music of stringed instruments115. But the attempt to draw a conclusion from this as to the pre-eminent chastity of the Jewish women, as e.g. Beer (on p. 25 loco citato) wishes to do, would be justifiable neither for earlier nor yet for later times. The passages of the Old Testament dealing with Sodom and with the dissoluteness under Mannasseh even in the very Temple at Jerusalem are sufficient by themselves to prove the contrary.

As to Macedonia there is a passage in Athenaeus, quoted from Hermesianax to this effect: ἀλλὰ Μακεδονίης πάσας κατενίσατο λαύρας (But he went through all the alleys of Macedonia), where Dalechamp translates the word λαύρα by brothel, but Casaubon even in his time threw doubt on this rendering.116 Possibly however this judgement is connected with similar licentious practises among the Macedonians to what we find among the Persians117, who indulged in sexual intercourse with their own mothers, daughters, etc., and begat children upon them,—a practice which Euripides118 makes the Barbarians generally guilty of.

But if there were actually brothels existing in Macedonia, this would be the less surprising, as its inhabitants may well be reckoned amongst Greeks in many respects.

The Greek knew perfectly the boundary between the physical and the ethical, and sought ever to subordinate the former to the latter. His whole life belonged in the first instance to the State, of it he was bound to be a citizen, and for it to endeavour to produce good citizens. Consequently polygamy early disappeared in Greece, and so too community of wives, a custom which prevailed down to historical times at Sparta only. Monogamy was the first law of marriage, and marriage was the bounden duty of every true citizen119, to save his family from dying out. But while the Asiatic prided himself on the number of his children, the Greek’s boast was of their excellence. Only with the object of procreating offspring was the Greek husband to rest in the arms of his spouse (ἐπ’ ἀρότῳ παίδων γνησίων—for the sowing, procreation of lawful children), and not to desecrate the holy Torus (marriage-couch) by mere lustfulness. Where this was stirred in him, he ceased to be free; a slave of lust, he must consort only with slave-women, and not with free citizenesses120. Nay! even this was permitted solely to avoid greater evils; and illicit coition never ceased to be held as something οὐ καλόν—unseemly121, particularly when it was indulged in by married men.

It has been shown how under the clearer skies of Greece the Asiatic worship of Venus took on a form more worthy of mankind, how the Greek distinguished his Venus Urania (Heavenly Venus) from the Venus of the rest of the world, the Pandemian (Venus common to all), and so set up a barrier to the flood of dissoluteness,—a barrier however that was little by little broken down in later times. Foreigners, especially the voluptuous inhabitants of Asia, when they saw that the Greek cult did not like their native worship abet their carnal appetites, imported slave-women. These were purchased by the Greeks, and handed over as offerings to the temple of Aphrodité under the title of Temple-servants or “Hieroduli”122; and acquainted as they were with the needs of their fellow-countrymen, sought in every way to supply them,—as was in particular the case at Corinth.

This example could not well remain without influence on private life. The Greek indeed took no part in the Asiatic form of the Venus-worship; all the same illicit connection grew more and more universally prevalent, and as it could not be gratified in any other way, wives123 and daughters of fellow-citizens were imperilled. To avert this danger Solon (B. C. 594) according to the statements of Philemon and Nicander124 introduced actual brothels, οἴκημα, πορνεῖον, (house, brothel) and public women, πόρναι (prostitutes), who were accessible at a trifling charge. The houses of ill-fame were situated, as Pollux informs us, at Athens in the neighbourhood of the Harbour125, and in the Ceramicus according to Hesychius126, in later times also in the city itself127. They were presided over by a Whoremaster (πορνοβοσκός, πορνοτρόφος—harlot-maintainer, harlot-keeper). As to the internal arrangements of brothels among the Greeks we have been unable so far to discover anything more precise, but in all probability the same conditions held good as among the Romans.

Besides the regular brothels, women were also kept at the taverns128 (καπηλεία, καπηλεῖον, καπήλιον, πανδοκεῖα,—tavern, inn), which likewise were situated chiefly near the Port. The women were bought slaves, as the passages quoted above (p. 70. note 2.) show; and even such free Greek women129 as at a later period undertook the calling, were then looked upon as slaves130. All women of this class, as well as the whore-masters, were professionally under the supervision of the Ἀγορανόμοι (Market Commissioners131, who fixed how much each was allowed to receive for her services. This fee was called μίσθωμα, διάγραμμα or ἐμπολή,—fee, scale, purchase). It varied in amount;—8 Chalci— = 1 obol, a little less than twopence (τριαντοπόρνη,—an obol, two-penny, girl)132, 2 obols— = about three-pence halfpenny (διωβολιμαῖα, χαλκιδῖτις,—a two obol, three-pence halfpenny, girl)133, a drachma—a franc, say ten-pence134, a Stater—= 4 drachmae, say three and three-pence (στατηριαία,—a stater, three and three-penny, girl).135

The Hetaera (Lady-Companion) seems in this respect to have enjoyed a greater liberty of choice, and a knowledge of their prices to have been regarded as something out of the common136. The well-known Gnathaena at Athens asked 1000 Drachmae for a night from a foreign Satrap137; Phryné a mina (= 100 drachmae, something over four pounds sterling). But the most notorious of all was Lais at Corinth for the high price at which she sold the marks of her favour, from which arose the proverb: Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, (It is not every man that can go to Corinth)138.

Licences to follow the calling were granted to the whore-masters, and also the women, on payment of a fixed duty, called “prostitute tax” (τέλος πορνικόν)139, which was leased out yearly by the Magistracy, and collected by professional farmers of the prostitution-tax or Collectors, known as πορνοτελώναι, who kept a complete list, in which were included even the “Pathici” (pathic sodomites), of all liable to the impost. From the proceeds of this prostitution-tax Solon would seem to have built a temple at Athens to Aphrodité Pandemos140. From this an idea may be formed, even if nothing more than a sort of brothel is to be understood by the term, of the large number of women of this character and of the considerable revenue of the city.

The public women were either such as lived in the brothels (πόρναι, αἱ προστᾶσαι τῶν οἰκημάτων,—harlots, prostitutes of the “houses”), where they used to stand at the doors, and that in rows (ἐπὶ κέρως τεταγμένας,—drawn up in column) more or less stripped, in almost transparent dresses (γυμναὶ, ἐν λεπτοπήνοις ὑμέσιν,—stripped, in fine-woven robes)141, or else they were kept partly as ἑταῖραι μουσικαί—“musical” hetaerae, like the harp-girls in German beer-halls, or with procurers (μαστροπός, προαγωγός,—bawds, procurers) in their taverns (προαγωγεῖα, μαστρόπιον, ματρύλλεια,—procurer’s house, bawdy-house, brothel). Or again they followed their trade in the Port-Market (the δεῖγμα) as δεικτηριάδες (Market-girls)142, in the στοὰ μακρὰ, (Long Portico), and generally in the Lanes of that neighbourhood (χαμαιτύπαι143, χαμαιευνάδες, χαμαιεύνης, χαμαιτηρίς, χαμεύνης,—all nick-names for common strumpets, “ground-thumpers,” “sleepers on the ground”), where they either surrendered themselves on the spot or hied to recognised harlots’ dens (χαμαιτυπεῖον) or houses of accommodation (τέγος)144.

The place of their abode shows at once what class of men frequented “filles de joye” of the sort. It was foreign sailors145 in particular who here indemnified themselves for their compulsory continence at sea. Of Greeks only the dregs of the people and debauchees who had lost all self-respect came here; and even these used by preference the taverns146, where procuration was carried on as well147,—for which reason they had fallen into general disrepute. For as late as Aristophanes’148 time the lower class of citizens felt no hesitation about taking their pleasure along with their wives in inns. On the other hand persons of repute, prominent by office and dignities, were actually forbidden by law to visit such places. “Were an Areopagite to have been seen but once in an Inn,” says Hyperides149, “his colleagues would no longer have tolerated him as a member of the Areopagus.” Later, matters changed, for the moralizing Isocrates150 says, “Nay! no well-conducted slave dares even eat or drink anything in an Inn”; and Theophrastus, portraying the character of a madman quite devoid of shame gives this as a trait,—he would be quite capable of keeping an Inn!

The hetaera (female-companion) must be distinguished from the πόρνη (harlot), though both were under similar conditions as to police surveillance. The hetaera was also strictly speaking a slave-woman, usually stolen as a child or otherwise obtained by procuresses, or bought by older hetaerae. They were educated151 in all that was understood by the Ancients under the name “Music”, that over and above their charms of person, they might especially captivate their lovers by their intellectual cultivation, who bought them to give them their freedom,—and then more often than not were presently abandoned by them. The great nursery of hetaerae was above all places Corinth, from which centre they travelled through all parts of Greece, as e.g. did Neaera, and frequently acquired enormous riches. The better class of them were everywhere held in high esteem; and many a hetaera, grown weary of her condition, gave her hand to a husband, in order to close her life as an honest wife152, or else retired so as at any rate to lead a blameless existence153. Frequently indeed they were also “Dames de Maison”, and often kept a considerable number of girls under the title of hand-maids. This was the case with Nicareta, just mentioned, at Corinth, as well as with the famous Aspasia at Athens, the latter of whom flooded all Hellas with her protegées154. Such as were held in less respect often put themselves under the protection of their more renowned sisters, or else carried on the calling on their own account, and this especially when they were not so well educated, not “musical” (πεζαι ἑταιραι—prose lady-companions)155, at Athens going to settle at the Peiraeus to entice the merchants who arrived in the port, whilst the more choice merely showed themselves there156. They often followed the troops on service in crowds, accompanying for instance the general Chares157 and Pericles to Samos, where they made so large an income that they even built a temple of Ἀφροδίτη ἐν Καλάμοις (Aphrodité at Calami,—the Reeds)158. For the remaining details as to the life of the hetaerae the classical Treatise of Friedrich Jacobs159 should be consulted.

Even these regular “filles de joie” at first existed almost exclusively for foreigners, who often squandered prodigious sums in their arms; the Athenians at any rate up to the time of Themistocles did not go with them160. But the example proved too strong to resist. Little by little the younger men acquired a taste for the freer society of the highly educated and luxuriously bedecked161 courtesans, who on their side were possessed of tact enough to subordinate the purely sensual to the intellectual, in order to captivate the Greek sense of beauty. Even older men might easily be seen at their feet, for the Greek ladies had but too little aptitude for stepping beyond the household sphere162. And so it was no longer matter for surprise when Chares took with him on his expedition, as stated above, a large number of hetaerae. The Athenian youth was already in the habit of killing time in their society163; and the important rôle they played in the time of Pericles needs to be no further insisted on. The Greek however never descended to the lowest level of shameless, brutal, coarseness. Before he threw himself into the arms of the foreign Wanton, he first raised her to some equality with himself; and of the handmaid and slave made a friendly companion or hetaera!

The account here given applies particularly only to Athens, for our efforts to discover anything more precise as to brothels and courtesans in the remaining States and Cities of Greece have not so far been crowned with success.

§ 11.

With the Roman, who could spare hardly a thought to any other feeling than his pride, love played but an insignificant rôle in his existence. Even the deference he showed towards marriage and the married woman was not really so much the outcome of a pure morality as of the interest that the State must of necessity feel in the nursing-mothers of each succeeding generation; in fact it can scarcely be regarded as much more than a mere measure of policy. When a Censor like Metellus in a public Speech intended to encourage matrimony could say164: Si sine uxore possemus, Quirites, esse, omnes ea molestia careremus: sed quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode, nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuae potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum. (If we could live without a wife, Quirites, we should all be free from such inconvenience; but since nature has arranged it in this wise that neither with women in any real comfort, nor without them at all, can existence be carried on, we ought to think of our life-long well-being rather than of a momentary gratification),—and when even the strict Cato declared165: In adulterio uxorem tuam si deprehendisses, sine iudicio impune necares: illa te, si adulterares, digito non auderet contingere, neque ius est. (If you should have detected your wife in adultery, you might kill her without trial and be scatheless; but she, if you were the adulterer, would not dare to lay a finger upon you, nor is it lawful she should),—it can hardly surprise us to find a complete lack of the ideal or intellectual element in the relations of the sexes. These never really rose among the Romans much above the level of the bestial; and harlots are found already in evidence at the very threshold of Roman history166, whilst association with them far from ever being a subject of blame, is rather represented as being a custom sanctified by immemorial usage that had never been forbidden167.

In spite of this however, and of the fact that the Etruscans168, at a time when Rome was hardly more than coming into existence, already led a life that was worse than licentious, while Messapians, Samnites and Locrians, as has been shown, habitually gave up their daughters to prostitution,—in spite of all this I say, the sexual excesses of the Romans were for the first 500 years on the whole insignificant. Their way of life as warriors and husbandmen hardly suffered them to sink into indolent sloth, the beginning of all vicious living, whilst the law of the XII Tables, “coelibes prohibeto” (be it forbidden to remain bachelors)169 forced men in the vigour of their powers to satisfy the impulse of nature in the arms of the lawful wife. But more and more did the Romans come into contact with foreign Peoples, and began to adopt more and more their customs and vices. In the year 513 A.U.C. (B.C. 240) the Floralia were introduced, which even granting they cannot have had the origin that Lactantius170 assigns them, yet by the very nature of the celebrations were an outrage on all good morals. Yet so universally popular were they that Cato could win no greater concession to his indignant zeal against them than that their closing scenes should be delayed until he had retired171.

The enormous wealth the Romans had won as booty in their continual Wars of spoliation, could not be hoarded unused, it must be enjoyed; and how enjoyed, the warriors knew already. The younger members of the Equestrian and Patrician orders went on travels, and learned in the arms of Greek and Asiatic wantons how to lavish their money secundum artem. Then on their return to Rome finding the native Scorta (common harlots) no longer to their taste, they brought home with them their freed-woman “Amica” (Mistress), who was a fair match for the Greek hetaera in greed, if not in refinement. It was not long before the old-fashioned Roman matron succumbed in the struggle with her for supremacy, and by dint of her only too successful endeavours to outdo the foreign courtesan in recherché vice and effrontery, became but the more despicable in the eyes of the proud Roman. She had indeed learned to be a mother, but not to love. At the same time the Roman himself, surrounded as he thus was by no softening influences, ceased not only to be a citizen of the state, but even to be a man at all; and the Ruler of the World sank at last to such a depth of exaggerated viciousness that it became his glory and boast to be without a rival in its enormity.

The conclusion then is indisputable that only subsequently to the Wars in Asia was Roman morality undermined172. At the same time it is impossible from the information given above to assign any definite point of time at which brothels and public women came into vogue at Rome, or at any rate when their existence as such was officially recognized by those in charge of the police supervision of the city. With the regulations and arrangements however we are more precisely acquainted. The brothels, lupanaria173, fornicas174, were situated chiefly in the Second District (Secunda Regio) of the city175, the Coelimontana, particularly in the Subura (Suburbana) that bordered the town-walls, lying in the Carinae,—the valley between the Coelian and Esquiline Hills. In the same district was the Macellum magnum, or Great Market, for all sorts of provisions176 along the banks of the Tiber, as well as the Cookshops, Stalls or Shops (Tabernae)—of the Barbers, even of the Public Executioner177, and the Castra peregrina, (Foreign Camp), barracks for foreign troops quartered in Rome under the Emperors as a garrison,—all circumstances that occasioned a great concourse of men178. To the North the Subura marched with the “Isis and Serapis”,—the Third District (Tertia Regio), where was situated the temple of Isis with its gardens and groves. The regular brothels are pictured to us as being in the highest degree uncleanly and dirty179, so that their frequenters carried away the smell with them. They possessed a definite number of “chambers”, Cellae180, and above the door of each of these was inscribed the name of the girl, that which she had adopted on her first admission181, and the price of her embraces182. In each “chamber” was to be found a bed (pavimentum, cubiculum, pulvinar,—pavement, sleeping-place, couch), which was spread with a particular kind of coverlet, lodix, lodicula, (blanket, little blanket)183, and a lamp, lucerna184.

As for the brothel-keeper, the Romans seem to have had no special word to express this; they use in fact leno in this signification, though the word properly means the Procurer who merely offers his house for the purpose, but does not keep women, giving them board and wage. Perhaps this arose from the fact that in earlier times no regular brothels existed in Rome; the women merely hired a lodging, and the owner of the house had nothing at all to do with their business, whilst the match-maker or pandar confined his efforts to procuring girls for his patrons and letting out his “chambers” for a fixed charge merces cellae (hire of the chamber)185, paid by each visitor. Only when the business became more profitable, did Lenones or Lenae (Procurers, Procuresses), for women also carried on Lenocinium (procuration), actually keep girls, whom they bought, as slaves186. The Leno had his Villicus puellarum (Superintendent of the Maids), who assigned name and price, provided the girls with clothes187, and kept a list of them and what they earned188. In fact such of the women as were bond-servants were obliged,—and this applied equally to those that were not slaves,—to deliver up not merely the As for the hire of the chamber, but the whole fee as well, according to the amount fixed by the brothel-keeper (Leno)189, though much underhand trickery of various sorts occurred in connection with this regulation190.

The brothels were not allowed to be opened before the ninth hour (four o’clock in the afternoon), so as not to draw young men away from their duties191. The girls either stood (Prostibula—women who stand in front)192 or sat (Proseda—women who sit in front)193 before the “chambers” or Lupanaria (brothels), to call the passers-by to them. Did a lover make his appearance, then the door of the “chamber” was carefully fastened194, and “occupata” (engaged) written over the door195, an unoccupied “chamber” being called nuda (naked)196. Towards morning the “chambers” were opened, and the Leno (brothel-keeper) let the girls go197. It would seem to follow from this that these either did not live in the brothel-keeper’s house at all, or that the “chambers” were situated somewhere else, away from head-quarters. From a passage in Juvenal198 it has, perhaps wrongly, been concluded that these “chambers” were at the Circus Maximus. Such places are at any rate mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus as existing at the Portico above the shops199; and without doubt several passages are to be found in Latin authors to prove that the women plied their trade even after the close of the Representations200, and we know that besides the regular Ludi Circenses (Games of the Circus) other performances of a similar kind were held in the Circus.

Besides the brothels, we find, particularly in the Taverns (cauponae, tabernae—inns, taverns) and Cookshops (popinae, ganea—cookshops, eatinghouses201, women kept by the hosts for the gratification of their patrons. As a rule these also were bought slave-women, who served the guests, entertained them with dance and music, and surrendered their persons on desire. The hostesses themselves devoted their attention to both trades, as e.g. is shown by the “Copa” (Mine Hostess) ascribed to Virgil; and hence they, and their husbands with them, stood in the eye of the Magistrate on the same footing with Lenones and Meretrices (Brothel-keepers and Prostitutes)202.

Now who frequented these places? Down to the time of the Empire only the lowest class of the people, particularly Sailors203, Freedmen and Slaves204, though indeed later, when Claudius and Nero205 set so eminent an example, high and low equally might be found both in brothels and in Taverns and Cookshops. The bakers, envious of the profits made by the inn-keepers, organized their tabernae (bread-stalls or shops) in the mills in such a way that they too could provide their customers with what they wanted206. This appears to have been done first in Campania207. But not solely in regular Houses and “Chambers” were “filles de joie” to be met with. They carried on their trade also as Scorta erratica (wandering whores, street-walkers) the commonest sort, in all public places, at the corners of streets208, round the tombs and monuments209, in out-of-the-way nooks of the town and the surrounding plantations in its neighbourhood210. In these places they carried on their trade, some no doubt on their own account, other perhaps as slaves working for their masters and mistresses and bound to deliver in a fixed sum daily.

The different kinds of “filles de joye” so far particularized were all of them slave-women, but over and above these there were in Rome a large number of Gay Women who carried on their profession entirely on their own account, either merely as a second string to their bow, like the Mimes, Dancers, Harp-girls, Ambubaiae211, or else as sole aim and object of their lives, in the character of Scorta nobilia (noble whores) or bonae meretrices (good harlots) to use Plautus’ expressions. They were all of them foreigners, and generally freed-women212, and were distinguished not only for their more elaborate dress213, but also on account of their education, which far and away surpassed that of the Roman ladies. In this respect however they fell short of the level reached by the Greek hetaerae in the best times of Greece, and for this reason never obtained the influence at Rome on the life of the city and of the State which the former possessed at Athens. They were not so much friends (Amicae) as mistresses (Dominae) of their Roman lover, and their relations with him bodily only and not intellectual. For the rest this class yet awaits a Friedrich Jacobs to be its historian. They were either kept by an individual lover, or else gave themselves only to rich admirers at their own private lodgings,214 that lay perdu far from the bustle of street and market; but no doubt descended, when the time of youth and beauty was over, to the condition of common courtesans or even of mere street-walkers.

Just as happened in Greece, immodesty spread not a little among the daughters and wives of the Roman citizens also, and already in the reign of Germanicus, Tacitus could report215: “Eodem anno gravibus senatus decretis libido feminarum coercita, cautumque ne quaestum corpore faceret, cui avus aut pater aut maritus Eques Romanus fuisset.” (This same year severe decrees of the Senate were passed to restrain unchastity on the part of women, and it was forbidden for any to give her person for hire, whose grandfather, father, or husband had been a Roman knight). So it cannot cause any great surprise to find Martial216 declaring:

“Quaero diu totam, Sophroni Rufe, per urbem: Si qua puella neget; nulla puella negat.”

(I have long been searching the city through, Sophronius Rufus, if there is e’er a maid to say no; there is not one!) To this result the introduction at Rome of the worship of Isis had contributed not a little217. Under pretence of serving Isis, the matrons found an opportunity of wantoning unhindered in the arms of paramours218, for the husbands dared not enter the temple precincts while their wives offered were performing their ten days’ devotion there. Probably in cases of disease of the genitals Roman women offered their prayers to Isis, as the men did to Priapus, for the temples of the goddess were full of images of parts of the body that had been healed and of maimed organs219, and contained numerous establishments for the care of sick persons of this particular character.

But of more influence than all the rest was the example which the Emperors Tiberius, Nero, Caligula and the infamous Messalina220 gave. Not contented with the possession of a Harem, they set up actual brothels in their palaces,—a practice the aristocracy soon copied, organizing similar establishments on their estates, to be able to wallow indisturbed in the mire of bestial lusts221.

Of vice as practised in the Baths and of male whores in the brothels we shall speak later.

Now how were Brothels and Courtesans affected in connection with the police of the State in Rome? It has been shown already that no penalty whatever attached either to illicit intercourse or to prostitution in general, because the disgrace to individuals involved in the commission of such offences in the eyes of their fellows was thought sufficient to ensure at any rate the daughters of citizens against unchastity. But the case was different with married women who were guilty of a breach of marriage honour. Of the manifold punishments we will mention only one here: the offender was imprisoned and obliged to surrender her person to all comers, whilst each time this took place a notification was given by the ringing of a bell;—a procedure that continued till finally abolished by the Emperor Theodosius222.

They sought indeed to avoid the punishment by declaring themselves engaged in Lenocinium (Procuration) as a calling, or by joining the ranks of the the actresses; but the Lex Papia included provisions to put a stop to this irregularity223.

Lenocinium (Procuration) in fact as well as the licentia stupri (fornication permit) had to be notified before the Aediles224, whose especial duty it was to see that no Matron became a prostitute225. With this object they were bound to frequently search all such places as have been specified above (loca aedilem metuentia—places that fear the aedile)226; but dared not themselves indulge in any immorality there227. When that pure-minded prince Caligula became Emperor, he introduced the Whore-duty (vectigal ex capturis—tax on prostitution-fees) as a State impost228. This, Alexander Severus retained, it is true, but assigned the revenue from it to the maintenance of the public buildings, that it might not contaminate the State Treasure.229