Note 266 — SECOND SECTION. Influences which served to hinder to a greater or less degree the inception of Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Clement of Alexandria, Paedagog. bk. III. ch. 5., says of women: καὶ δὴ τοῖς μὲν ἀνδράσι τοῖς σφῶν οὐκ ἂν ἀποδύσαιντο, προσποίητον αἰσχύνης ἀξιοπιστίαν μνώμεναι· ἔξεστι δὲ τοῖς βουλομένοις τῶν ἄλλων οἴκοι τὰς κατακλείστους, γυμνὰς ἐν τοῖς βαλανείοις θεάσασθαι· ἐνταῦθα γὰρ ἀποδύσασθαι τοῖς θεαταῖς, ὥσπερ καπήλοις σωμάτων, οὐκ αἰσχύνονται ἀλλ’ὁ μὲν Ἡσίοδος

(Oper. et Dies lib. II. 371).

παραινεῖ· κοινὰ δὲ ἀνέωκται ἀνδράσιν ὁμοῦ καὶ γυναιξὶ τὰ βαλανεῖα· κἀντεῦθεν ἐπὶ ἀκρασίαν ἀποδύονται· ἐκ τοῦ γὰρ εἰσορᾶν, γίνεται ἀνθρώποις ἐρᾶν· ὥσπερ ἀποκλυζομένης τῆς αἰδοῦς αὐτοῖς κατὰ τὰ λουτρὰ· αἱ δὲ μὴ εἰς τοσοῦτον ἀπερυθριῶσαι, τοὺς μὲν ὀθνείους ἀποκλείουσιν, ἰδίοις δὲ οἰκέταις συλλούονται, καὶ δούλοις ἀποδύονται γυμναὶ, καὶ ἀνατρίβονται ὑπ’αὐτῶν, ἐξουσίαν δοῦσαι τῷ κατεπτηχότι τῆς ἐπιθυμίας, τὸ ἀδεὲς τῆς ψηλαφήσεως· οἱ γὰρ παρεισαγόμενοι παρὰ τὰ λουτρὰ ταῖς δεσποίναις γυμναῖς, μελέτην ἴσχουσιν ἀποδύσασθαι πρὸς τόλμαν ἐπιθυμίας ἔθει πονηρῷ παραγράφοντες τὸν φόβον. (And of a truth they would not strip before their own husbands, feigning a pretended plausibility of mock-modesty; but for other men, whosoever will, may readily see the women that are so close shut up at home, naked at the Baths. For there they are nowise ashamed to strip before the spectators, looking on like dealers in human flesh; whereas Hesiod (Works and Days, bk. II. 371.) advises “But do not, for the earning of a woman’s price, let her wash her skin bright and clean.” Now the Baths are open for men and women alike. And hence their stripping leads to incontinence; for from seeing, men come to desire, as though their modesty were washed away in the Baths. Other women that have not attained such effrontery, shut out strangers indeed, but wash along with their own house-slaves, and are stripped naked before their servants and are rubbed by them, giving opportunity to the man a-tremble with longing, the free right to handle without fear; for the men that are admitted into the Baths with their naked mistresses take care to strip in such a way as to correspond to the daring audacity of their longing, putting down fear to the count of evil habit).—Cyprian, De Virginum habitu: Quid vero, quae promiscuas balneas adeunt, quae oculis ad libidinem curiosis, pudori ac pudicitae dicata corpora prostituunt, quae cum viros ac a viris nudae vident turpiter ac videntur, nonne ipsae illecebram vitiis praestant. (But in truth, those women that frequent indiscrimate Baths, that expose to prying and lustful eyes their bodies that should be dedicate to modest shamefacedness, that along with men see what is disgraceful to see and in nakedness are seen by men, do not such women offer an enticement to sinfulness?) Comp. Mercurialis, De arte Gymnast. bk. I. ch. 10.—It is true we read in Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico bk. VI. ch. 21., of the ancient Germans: Intra annum vero vicessimum feminae notitiam habuisse, in turpissimis habent rebus; cuius rei nulla est occultatio, quod et promiscue in fluminibus perluuntur, (But to have known a woman under the twentieth year is held by them most disgraceful; and there is no concealment of it, as they bathe indiscriminately in the rivers); but here the antecedent clause bars any suspicion of sexual excesses having been invited by the practice.