Note 133 — Second Part. (continued 2)

Besides Acro, Florus Christianus also, in his notes on Aristophanes’Wasps v. 1337., referred the morbus Campanus to fellation, saying, Hac detestanda libidine iuxta Lesbios usi sunt etiam Campani sive Nolani, ut ex Ausonio et Horatio patet, quorum testimonia non arcessam, quia hoc occupatum ab eruditioribus. Hoc tantum dicam, aenigma illud, quod in Clodii Metelli uxorem iactum putant: In triclinio Coa, in cubiculo Nola, respicere ad hanc Lesbiam et Campanam foeditatem. (This hateful form of lust was practised by the Campanians or Nolans, as well as by the Lesbians, as is manifest from what Ausonius and Horace say,—whose evidence however I will not quote, this ground being already preoccupied by more learned writers. This much only will I add, viz. the riddle that was directed against the wife of Metellus Clodius: “On the banquet-couch a Coan, in the bed-chamber a Nolan,” and which is thought to allude to this Lesbian and Campanian abomination). The riddle is found in Quintilian, Instit. Orat. VIII. 6.; but is differently explained in Forberg, loco citato p. 283. He says: Coam dici, quod voluerit in triclinio coire, Nolam, quod noluerit in cubiculo, (that she was called a Coan, because willing to have intercourse on the banquet-couch, a Nolan, because unwilling to do so in the bed-chamber), that is to say, Clodia would satisfy her lust only publicly, not in private.