Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Anchors for footnotes 27 and 59 were missing and have been added in appropriate places.

The Orphean hymn in footnote 12 is in error. The correction is shown with the footnote.

(the act the Lesbian) in footnote 327 is erroneous but could be ‘to act ...’ or ‘the act of ...’ so remains uncorrected.

The book contains several blank pages and long and multi page footnotes hence there are gaps in, and variable spacing of, page numbers. Many index entries refer directly to muli-page footnotes, where this is clearly the case, the index link directs to the footnote.

An index to both volumes is included in volume II. This has been copied into the end of this volume by the transcriber.

THE
PLAGUE OF LUST

Volume I

This work, printed for a small number of subscribers,
Medical Men—Experts and Specialists in
Nervous Diseases—Lawyers—Psychiatrists
Travellers and Anthropologists—is not
sold to the Trade, and is strictly
limited to FIVE HUNDRED
NUMBERED COPIES.

The present copy is

No. 105

THE
PLAGUE OF LUST,

BEING A HISTORY OF VENEREAL DISEASE
IN
CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY,

and Including:—Detailed Investigations into the
Cult of Venus, and Phallic Worship, Brothels,
the Νοῦσος Θήλεια (Feminine disease) of the
Scythians, Paederastia, and other Sexual
Perversions amongst the Ancients,

AS CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS
THE EXACT INTERPRETATION OF THEIR WRITINGS

BY
Dr. JULIUS ROSENBAUM

TRANSLATED FROM THE SIXTH (UNABRIDGED) GERMAN EDITION
BY

AN OXFORD M.A.

The First of Two Volumes

Paris
CHARLES CARRINGTON
Publisher of Medical, Folk-lore and Historical Works.
13, Faubourg Montmartre, 13
MDCCCCI

The price of this work complete is FIVE GUINEAS.

TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD.

The Translator of Dr. Rosenbaum’s great book, the Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume, feels that no apology is required for presenting a Work of this calibre and importance in an English dress,—for the first time. Needless to say the Book in no way appeals,—or is meant to appeal,—to the general reading public. It is a book for Students and Specialists, as is recognized indeed by the conditions of the present publication, in a limited edition and at a high price.

To Historical Students and Medical Specialists alike it is of the highest value and interest, and in many respects an indispensable addition to their Library. The object the Writer proposed to himself was a History of Venereal Disease, to trace its existence, symptoms and incidence, from the earliest notices of its occurrence recorded in Literature onwards. This ambitious programme he has only partially carried out in the present Work, which forms Part I. of the projected Treatise as a whole, and deals with the Disease under its various forms and successive manifestations throughout Antiquity. In it he devotes his efforts to proving,—and we think with conclusive success,—the existence, denied by so many, of the dread Disease in different shapes in Europe, Asia and Africa long before the Christian era, and all through the period of Classical Antiquity, scouting utterly, the popular theory of its first introduction at the end of the Fifteenth and beginning of the Sixteenth Centuries from America.

With this end in view the learned and laborious Author collects an enormous apparatus criticus of quotations from Greek and Latin writers, both in prose and verse, and this not merely from the better known authors of Antiquity, but equally from later and much less familiar sources. Obscure Erotic Writers, historical fragments, Christian Fathers,—all is fish that comes to his comprehensive, though not undiscriminating, net; and probably there is not to be found in the whole range of Scholarship so wide and complete a collection of historical and literary illustrations and allusions brought together with the express purpose of throwing light on one special subject of enquiry.

Such in briefest outline is the scope and achievement of Dr. Rosenbaum’s masterpiece. But brief as it is, it suffices to show to how many classes of Students and Scientists the work appeals. First and foremost it is of direct service to Physicians in general and Specialists in Venereal Disease in particular, to Enquirers into the problems of Insanity and the morbid manifestations of a diseased brain, as well as to Anthropologists and all scientific observers of Humanity. On another side, in virtue of its wealth of curious and recondite quotation, it is of the highest interest and attraction to Classical Scholars and every Student of Antiquity and Ancient Literature; while midway between these two categories, Students of Morals and Human Institutions cannot possibly afford to neglect a storehouse of “human documents” so invaluable in the domain of their studies.

Even to the general Historical Student, who without laying any claim to the proud title of Specialist, is deeply interested in the conditions of human life on our planet in former days, and eager to enquire into all matters relating to the health and happiness of mankind, the Book has a great deal to offer. Few things have more profoundly modified these factors of human well-being than Venereal disease and its ravages in all ages; while any systematic enquiry into this most important subject cannot fail to throw many side-lights,—lurid enough, but none the less instructive,—on life and morals, social relations and sexual aberrations, among different Peoples and at different Epochs. What can be more interesting,—painful as the interest often is,—than much of the information here afforded, at first hand and from authentic citations of Ancient writers, of social and sexual habits and ideals, of strange rites and rituals and abominable practices, prevalent as well in the free Republics of Greece as under the corrupt sway of the Roman Emperors.

Great and wonderful no doubt were the Communities of the Ancient world, beautiful the fine flower of graceful living, and high the level of philosophic and literary culture attained, consummate the artistic relics they have left us; but what a seamy side this same Classical Civilization had to show,—what unspeakable abominations underlay its social life, what atrocities of foulness, cruelty and lust,—some of them flourishing under the sanction of Religion itself,—counterbalanced the virtues of wise citizenship and warlike valour and Stoic self-denial. Lurid and terrible indeed are some of the pictures of horror that shape themselves from certain of Dr. Rosenbaum’s pages,—the whole Section, for instance, in Vol. I. dealing with “Brothels and Courtesans”, and in an even higher degree that on “Paederastia” and the diseases consequent on this unnatural practice. Specially graphic and vivid sections again, in Vol. II., are those treating of the practice of “Depilation” among Greeks and Romans, and the Baths and Bathing habits of Antiquity.

To return for a moment to the Medical and Anthropological aspects of the Work. Perhaps no single branch of Scientific Enquiry has made such noteworthy strides of late years as Anthropology, and in particular the special Department of that Science devoted to morbid and anomalous manifestations of the sexual appetite,—unnatural lusts, sensual aberrations, sexual inversions, and all the rest. The subject, no doubt, is repulsive, but it is none the less profoundly important from the scientific side, in connexion both with the general advance of our knowledge of Mankind, and with the special Study of Insanity and Madness, as well as from the humanitarian point of view as giving material for the eventual alleviation of many of these manifestations of Mental Disease. Out of a host of names, it is only necessary to mention two, those of Lombroso and Krafft-Ebing, to demonstrate the high place these investigations have vindicated for themselves among the scientific triumphs of the Century that has just closed. On this side the Geschichte der Lustseuche is of the highest importance, supplying as it does innumerable instances of those very phaenomena of morbid sexual perversions that constitute the subject matter of this rapidly progressive branch of Science, one likely in the near future to prove of infinite benefit to afflicted humanity.

Of the Author personally there is no need to say much, nor indeed is there much to be said. His life was quiet and uneventful, as a Scholar’s and Savant’s should be. After holding a Professorship at Berlin, he was summoned to fill a similar post at the University of Halle, where he succeeded to the Chair left vacant by the death of the celebrated Dr. Baumgarten-Crusius; and it was here that he completed his great Work,—in spite of difficulties and lack of books, which he naïvely and rather pathetically laments in his Preface. Halle had already been made illustrious by an earlier and even more distinguished worker in the same field, the famous Sprengel (died March 15, 1833), author of a masterly History of Medicine and many other professional works; and with a characteristic touch of Teutonic sentimentality our Author dates the Preface to his own Geschichte on Sprengel’s birth-day.

A by no means unimportant feature of Dr. Rosenbaum’s book, and one according well with his patient and laborious methods, is the very extensive and valuable Bibliography, which will be found at the end of the Work. This embraces almost everything that has been written on the subject in all languages, and should prove of inestimable service to the serious student.

For any errors that may have crept into his version, the Translator must crave indulgence. Some such are inevitable, more particularly in the renderings of the innumerable Latin and Greek quotations, many of which are involved in diction and obscure in allusion, and some of disputed interpretation. The labour involved has been no small one,—the mere proof-reading itself being a heavy task in a book like the present crammed with citations from several languages.

For the general appearance and get up of the Book, the Publisher, Mr. Charles Carrington, of Paris, is responsible, and his name, so well known in connection with the production of Medical and Scientific works of this kind, is a sufficient guarantee of excellence.

In conclusion, the Translator offers with confidence the result of his labours to all Englishmen interested as Specialists in the History of Medicine, in Anthropology and the Scientific Study of Insanity, as also in Classical Scholarship and the Study of Antiquity and Ancient Literature, as well as to Enquirers generally into the History of Morals and the life and life conditions of earlier days. In doing so, he feels sure of a favourable reception for so important and scholarly a Work, throwing such a flood of light on all these different departments of study.

Oxford, June 14, 1901.

DR. ROSENBAUM’S
PREFACE TO THE FIRST (GERMAN) EDITION

[AUTHOR’S PREFACE]
TO THE
FIRST (GERMAN) EDITION.

It is now six years ago, during my residence in Berlin, and with a view to a historical Survey of miliary fevers, that I began a closer and more systematic study of the Epidemics of the XVth. and XVIth. Centuries. In the course of these enquiries my attention was inevitably directed to the subject of Venereal disease, which exerted so powerful an influence at that epoch both on the physical and the moral life of nations. Accustomed as I was to regard History as being something more than a mere quasi-mechanical aggregation of facts, the observation was soon borne in upon me that only through a painstaking examination of the contemporary conditions of epidemic disease could the Venereal Disease of the period be really understood. Consequently I felt I must isolate this terrible scourge of humanity from the general survey,—so general as to be well-nigh all-embracing,—and consider it as a phænomenon apart.

Once started on these lines, I occupied myself specially with the subject, and arrived at the surprising result, that the Venereal Disease of the XVth. Century owed its terrible characteristics solely and entirely to the contemporary exanthematic-typhoïdal Genius Epidemicus, which made itself known in the South of Europe by petechial fevers and by the Sudor Anglicus (English Sweating-fever) in the North. I concluded further that the disease was not epidemic at all, merely liable to arise under epidemic influence; and must consequently have been already extant before the arrival of the said Genius Epidemicus.

Time and circumstances compelled me to remain satisfied provisionally with this general conclusion, and only after I had fixed my abode permanently at Halle, could I resume my earlier investigations. Yet again these were interrupted, partly by my work on the Diseases of the Skin for the Dictionary of Surgery edited by Prof. Blasius, partly by my Habilitation (formal entry on the Staff) at the University of that place, to which I had been repeatedly invited after the unexpected death of the late Dr. Baumgarten-Crusius. Eventually I was enabled to devote the greater part of my leisure hours to this subject, one which in the meantime was never quite lost sight of. I began to sift and arrange the material I found accumulated, but in a short time I convinced myself that in its treatment I had to strike out a different road from that followed hitherto, if I ever intended on my own account to reach important results; and I felt it would be impossible to complete the whole Survey in a single moderate-sized volume. Consequently I proceeded to limit myself to the enquiry whether or no Venereal disease had been extant in Ancient times, and it is this investigation that I now publish as a first Part of the History of Venereal disease.

The general plan I have followed in my treatment of the subject is sufficiently explained in the Introduction; while a perusal of the text will show in what relation my investigations stand towards those of my predecessors, and at the same time to what extent these have been made use of, or indeed could be made use of, in my work. Owing to the very nature of the subject the Survey as a whole was bound to assume a critical character, dealing as it does not solely with the history of the Disease, but also with the examination of an extensive array of views and opinions already formulated. The conduct of this examination I leave the reader to judge of; but I believe I can confidently assert it was always the matter, never the man, that I subjected to critical treatment. Accordingly I laid little stress on brilliant results, and made no effort to conceal lack of facts by dazzling hypotheses; instead I made it my supreme object to come at the truth as near as possible, and preferred to confess my ignorance, if the helps and authorities I had at my disposal failed me, rather than advance propositions the baselessness of which a sober criticism is only too soon in a position to demonstrate.

“I imposed this law on myself—to believe no man’s mere assertion; to depend on original authorities; to look at every passage with my own eyes, and read it in connexion with its context; to pick out the plain fact observed from the Chaos of hypotheses, and to accept as exact only what I could deduce from the authorities myself and see to be the evident purport of the observation,—absolutely unconcerned how each arbitrary theory might be affected or the sacrosanct authority of such or such a Scholar stand or fall. Why should we deem great men infallible? why find it impossible to honour them and yet dissent from them in opinion?—I felt I owed to my reader a corresponding impartiality in statement of the facts and arguments based upon them. If I was determined to take nothing on trust, but to examine and see for myself, I could not reasonably demand faith from the reader and refuse to communicate to him the proofs and original documents I had drawn upon. It was no case of mere quotation from books,—I was bound to lay open the original evidence for his inspection.” These words of Hensler’s I took as my guiding-principle, and if I have deviated from their standard in the Third Section, this only happened because the greater part of the passages there quoted have been repeatedly handled by my predecessors, and I feared to increase the bulk and consequently the cost of the Book to the prejudice of the reader.

I am well aware that the method I have adopted hardly corresponds with the taste of the present day; and if the public choose to find in my work nothing but an idle display of quotations, I cannot fail to be mortified. Nevertheless I prefer to encounter, if needs be, the reproach of pedantry rather than that of superficiality. With the difficulties I met with in connection with particular investigations I need not trouble the reader at greater length, as they are sufficiently familiar to everyone engaged in similar researches. I may be allowed to point out what a task was presented by the co-ordination of so considerable a number of scattered data. These I had, in the almost total absence of earlier works on the same subject, to collect mostly by my own reading from very widely separated Authors; and anything like symmetry of arrangement was made still more difficult when, as occurred more than once, the discovery of a single passage forced me to entirely re-write a substantial part of my manuscript, often within a short time of its going to Press. For the same reason the indulgent reader must excuse it, if here and there a later observation involves the supplementing and in some degree correcting of a previous statement,—a thing that would have been done much more frequently, had I not dreaded treating my material in too rambling a fashion. It would be quite easy now to subjoin in the form of appendices a multitude of additional proofs, of course only corroborating views already laid down,—proofs I owed to further reading of the Ancient authors. However absolute completeness is impossible of attainment for the individual; and I can only hope the humble request I hereby express,—a request addressed specially to professional students of Antiquity,—that others may favour me with contributions and remarks relevant to my subject, may be not entirely without result. So later on perhaps the material accumulated may be utilised more efficiently, if the interest manifested by the learned in my undertaking is of such a nature as to demand a re-modelling of the whole Investigation.

The necessity I found myself under of expressing this request for countenance on the part of students of Antiquity is the very thing that specially induced me to strongly recommend the First Part of my work, even on its Title-page, to their particular consideration; and it will be a source of self-congratulation if the attempts incidentally introduced to gain a better insight into the relics of Antiquity, meeting with their approval, become an inducement to the Physician in his professional studies to offer a helping hand to human weaknesses. The question at issue is nothing less than that of gaining a clear insight into the nature and origin of the operation of a Disease that destroys the very marrow of Nations. Without such insight the Physician cannot hope, whether in the particular case or speaking generally, to obtain a radical cure; and of all forms of Disease the Venereal is pre-eminently that where obscurity in the history of the malady conditions obscurity in its curative treatment. For the first time it is successfully proved with irrefragable certainty that the Ancients were infested with this morbus mundanus (World-disease) just as much as the Moderns. Honourable nations are freed from the shameful reproach of fathering this Complaint; and at the same time Physicians see themselves forced to seek a reason for the untrustworthiness they recognise at the present day as belonging to the so-called “Specifics”, not in the nature of these remedies, but in the changes which the Disease has undergone under external influences. Moreover they will find that the non-mercurial treatment nowadays so highly extolled is far from being the mere creature of fashion; rather it is the direct consequence of the alteration in the common and universal genius of the Complaint, which appears at this moment to be again tending to a gradual disappearance. The grounds for this assertion I have already more than once explained to my hearers in my repeated Lectures on Venereal Disease; and I propose to communicate them fully in the Second Part of my History of the Disease, framed on the same principles as the First.

When I shall publish this Second Part, if ever, will depend first on the reception of the preceding volume; secondly on whether more favourable external conditions provide the leisure that is indispensably necessary for Historical investigations of the sort, and at the same time put at my disposal a more complete literary apparatus than has hitherto been the case. For historico-medical studies in general there exists hardly a more unfavourable[1] place than Halle; and this is specially and peculiarly so with regard to epidemic diseases. As far as Venereal Disease is concerned the whole literary wealth of our University Library amounts to something like ten or twelve Works, half of which are all but worthless. I myself shrank from no expense to obtain possession of the literary helps required, and my collections, particularly on the subject of Epidemics, might boast of being not inferior to those of any private individual; yet they are quite insufficient for my purpose, so much, especially from the earlier Centuries, being no longer procurable by way of purchase.

But when all that is extant in writing is procured, the business is still far from being done. I am still in want of quite a formidable array of facts that can only be the fruit of observations in more recent times. For this reason may I appeal to my elder professional brethren, and above all to the different medical Unions and Associations at home and abroad with the request that they will, whether directly or indirectly, help me to the possession of the facts in question. Such are in particular facts concerning the influence of the Genius Epidemicus on the different forms or Venereal Disease, and first and foremost it behoves me to learn—what influence Typhus manifested during the first fifteen years of this Century, particularly since 1811, in different Countries. That such an influence, and a disastrous one, did take place is evidenced not only by the 364 pp. of collected Authorities, but also by the data of the brilliant Sachs in his “Concise Dictionary of Practical Therapeutics”, II. Pt. 1. (Article: Guajac) p. 637. To my sorrow I have only just, since the appearance of the Index to that valuable Work, become acquainted with these data, which appealed to me all the more from the fact that throughout they corroborate the results reached by myself in the historical sphere.

Sachs, and so far as I know he was the first to express this opinion openly, holds as a fully established conclusion that the Venereal Disease of the XVth. Century owed the characteristics it then possessed merely to the prevailing Genius epidemicus typhodes; though at the same time I cannot favour his assumption of a leprous-syphilitic Diathesis (general condition of body) as already existent. Nothing is better fitted to give a clear insight into these earlier conditions than a knowledge of the period of the Thirty Years’ War and of the Typhus epidemics at the beginning of the present Century. Would it had happened to any of those heroes of the healing art who played an active part in the great Drama of that time to have crowned his day’s-work by leaving us a more detailed medical recital of the incidents. The number of men qualified for the task grows daily fewer, the possibility of gathering the material required daily harder of realization; and, though it is not so yet, the work may later on be impracticable[2].

In conclusion—may I be allowed hereby to offer my sincere thanks to all who in any way have granted me active support in the course my enquiries. I should be glad to give their names, did I not fear they might dislike seeing themselves recorded in connection with a History of Venereal Disease. In spite of this scruple I feel compelled to make an exception in the case of one of them, viz. my friend, Dr. Eckstein, Headmaster of the Royal High-School (Pädagogium) of Halle. He shared with me the exceedingly laborious duty of correcting the proofs; and both myself and my readers into the bargain owe him a debt of warmest gratitude for so doing.

Written on the birth-day of C. Sprengel.

CONTENTS
AND
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

INTRODUCTION:

FIRST PART.

Venereal Disease in Antiquity.

INTRODUCTION.

Conception and Contents of the History of a Disease in general.

If we would undertake to write the history of a Disease, the very first thing needful is to frame in one’s own mind a clear conception of what the History of a Disease in a general way is, for it is from a right preliminary conception, that the right conditions will follow which a Historian as such is bound to fulfil. Consult experience,—in other words enquire what has been usually understood under the name History of a Disease, and you find to be included in the idea,—first, a more or less complete chronological comparison of the different observations and views of different Physicians at different times on such or such a Disease, secondly, a survey of the course of the Disease in the individual case. The first is properly only a history of the opinions of Physicians, the History of the Literature so to speak of the Disease, which must come before the actual History, while the latter is nothing else than a history of a Disease in a single instance, that is to say the history of a particular case of disease, the history of individual patients; and this we have long been in the habit of reckoning a part of Clinics.

Nay, the sum of such clinical histories if taken all together will not help us to the actual history of a Disease, so long as they merely give an account of the visible symptoms by which the disease makes its presence known. By this means we shall be learning merely the ideal course of the Malady, getting a pictorial representation of it such as is demanded by Pathological specialists,—as it were the internal history of the Disease. We cannot write the history of a single Man or of a single Nation so as to be a sufficient basis for the understanding and right appreciation of them, if we grasp only their inner history, that of their internal development, and consequently view them by themselves as a something separated off from all surroundings, instead of bearing in mind as we should the forms their relations take to environment, to the outer world generally,—in fact their external history. Similarly we are just as little in a position to furnish the history of a Disease, if we include in the matter of our enquiry only the course of the disease and not its external relations as well.

It is only the inner genetic co-ordination of the two, viz. the internal and the external history (for Disease has also an external history) that can conduct to the actual History of the Disease. This may be defined as a genetic co-ordination and statement of the symptoms of a Disease under different conditions and in different individuals, from the first moment at which they arose and came under observation down to the time when the report is made; or, expressed more briefly, the History of a Disease is a genetic co-ordination and account of its development and progress in time (as conditioned by time). Supposing Time, Relations, and Number of individuals definitely limited, a Special History is the result; while the General History of a Disease properly speaking can never be viewed as isolated from its surroundings. In that case the conditions on which the generation and origin of the particular Disease depend would necessarily cease entirely and for ever to exist.

Now if we analyse the conception of the History of a Disease into its component parts, we shall get to know its special contents, the efficient factors of which it is compounded, and which the Historian has to comprehend and express. The function of History is to exhibit something that has happened; naturally therefore the first thing the Historian must do is to look out for the point of time at which the process of change began. But certain generating factors and influences are indispensable to every process of change, and their activity again is dependent on certain favourable external conditions; and so it becomes the next duty of the Historian to authenticate the existence of the said favourable influences as well as of the generating factors, and concurrently to determine in what manner they came into active operation. Inasmuch as it happens however sometimes that the interposing or favouring as well as the generative factors are known to be present, and yet no outbreak of disease occurs, so far as we see, or only an incompletely developed one, those influences also will require authentication which hindered or modified the potential activity of the factors.

Only after all this has been systematically and sufficiently analyzed, will it become possible to trace the development and course of the Disease itself and to mark the successive changes offered to observation from its first appearance to the time when its history was recorded. Now these changes are imposed upon it either by its own proper nature or from outside, and so the Historian must explain also the internal and external relations involved. Again in any individual case the various manifestations or signs of a Disease by no means appear all together at one time, but rather develope in a series; so in the general course of a Disease, as recorded historically, a similar continuous series of symptoms will be more or less clearly noticeable, yet without implying that it is dependent solely on external conditions. Further, as every Disease is liable at any given time to come into conflict with another, the Historian will in this case also have to point out, what forms the relations of either took at the moment, whether the disease in question showed itself as determining the other or was itself determined by it, whether it consented to enter into combinations, whether it led to the annihilation of its adversary or was itself annihilated, or whether lastly both remained in a manner neutral. Finally account must be taken of the influence of medical aid, and generally of the relation of the Physician to the Disease.

These different points once successfully and in a competent manner co-ordinated into a kind of organic connexion, the resulting History of Disease, a clinical History, yet as wide as humanity itself, will supply the most momentous factor towards an insight into the nature and essence of Disease. It will not merely afford the theoretical enquirer the necessary materials for his speculations as to Disease in general and systems of treatment, but also teach the practical Physician the conditions of a rational method of Therapeutics; and will consequently be equally interesting, and what is more, equally needful to both. Such an organic connexion can only be established on the condition that the Historian calls to remembrance step by step, as he proceeds, the sciences of Physiology and Pathology. Only by their help is it possible always and everywhere to mark the inner necessity of the relation of cause and effect and to distinguish the essential from the accidental.

Possibility of the History of a Disease in General and of Venereal Disease in Particular.

Having learned the Conception and proper Contents of the History of a Disease, we naturally proceed to another closely connected question,—do all Diseases admit of such a historical exposition? It may be taken for granted at the outset with tolerable certainty that the answer to this question will be affirmative for the majority of actual Diseases; at any rate hardly an objection can be alleged from the theoretical stand-point. At the same time practical Experience must be allowed a voice on this point.

Unhappily we gain but little that is comforting from experience. It can scarcely be said that even a beginning has been made so far towards writing the History of a Disease in the indicated sense; and besides this, diseases have been primarily selected for consideration in which the historical factor obtrudes itself, as it were, on the attention, to wit the epidemic diseases. For the rest hardly anything at all has been done, excepting only in the case of Leprosy and the Venereal Disease, for which with singular unanimity an epidemic character has always been claimed. The Proteus-like character of these Maladies hindered every attempt of speculation to penetrate their nature, and so enquirers saw themselves forced to consult History. But the merest superficial glance at the treatment of Venereal disease by its Historians (and this applies equally to Leprosy) will show that little more than an insufficient collection of materials towards an actual History of the disease has thus far seen the light; and this in spite of the fact that no contemptible number of the most distinguished Scholars have devoted time and trouble to the subject, in many cases making it their life’s work.

However, if the matter is looked into more closely, it will be evident that a large proportion of these scholars directed their attention to one single point only, viz. the antiquity and time of origin of the Disease; and regarded all the other factors only in so far as they supported one or other of the views they had formulated. Besides the co-ordination of these factors is seen to be so loose that no general result of any stringency could ever be obtained. The few men whose definite purpose it was to arrive at such a result, failed, in view of the difficulty of collecting the material, to reach the completeness they had proposed, and so deferred working up what they had accumulated till death put an end to their enterprise. In especial this was the case with Hensler, and the non-appearance of the Second Part of his History of the Venereal Disease must doubtless long continue to be mourned as an irreparable loss.

The Past, on which all experience must draw, affords us so little assistance here that it is to the Future we must look for everything. The Present cannot show us in existence any history of Venereal disease as we understand it, but this in no way entitles it to deny the possibility of such a History. Thus it is of the highest importance to make the attempt to arrange and sift the material now ready and accessible, so far as it concerns the Venereal Disease, on principles conformable to the Conception and proper Contents as indicated above of the History of a Disease, and for this a relative completeness of the collected materials suffices. If in this way we are successful in sketching the history of Venereal Disease at any rate in its general outlines, it can quite well be left to the continued efforts of other Investigators to fill in the individual lines of the picture, especially as then and then only is the particular point ascertained by anticipation, at which later accessions must be worked in.

In every History, what comes first and foremost is to get to know the original Authorities from which the material for its treatment can be drawn, and this forms the proper Contents of the Literary history of the Disease. Accordingly our first duty will be to give a general survey of the literary helps lying ready to hand for the use of the Historian of Venereal Disease, and at the same time to specify how far these were accessible to ourselves. Thus the reader will be enabled at the very outset to form a judgement as to the completeness of the information supplied; and succeeding Enquirers will learn the gaps that are left remaining for them to fill up.

This will conclude a Survey of the historical results so far obtained in connection with the antiquity and time of origin of the Disease; and it will then be possible to indicate the special Scheme we propose to follow in our treatment of the task before us.

Abstract of Opinions advanced at various Periods on the question of the Antiquity and First Rise of the Venereal Disease.

The different Opinions advanced at various periods on the question of the Antiquity and Origin of the Venereal Disease may at the outset be brought under two main divisions, according as the disease is supposed to have been already known to the Ancients and from their time onwards to have been continuously observed, or on the other hand regarded as having first arisen in the ninetieth year of the XVth. Century. Both views were framed much about the same time, and depended largely on the position and education of the person delivering judgement. The former may be styled the view of the learned, the latter the popular view, though indeed at their first inception it was not so much scientific reasons in either case as men’s prejudices that formed their basis.

The few really learned Physicians of the end of XVth. Century and beginning of the XVIth. took as the theme of their study not Nature but rather the medical Writings of the Greeks and Arabians, a field that had long been left unappropriated by them, and all were far too firmly convinced, that Hippocrates, and still more Galen and Avicenna had already included in their Works everything that could ever be the subject of scientific treatment at any given time.

Attention was concentrated upon the Skin Affection that was the predominant form at first, and this was naturally enough taken for a kind of Leprosy, and called sometimes Elephantiasis (Seb. Aquilanus, Phil. Beroaldus), sometimes “Formica” (Schellig, Cumanus, Gilinus, Leonicenus, Steber), by others “Saphat” (J. Widmann, Nat. Montesaurus, Jul. Tanus, Jo. de Fogueda, Sim. Pistor). Hence the view advanced subsequently by Sydenham, Haller, Plenk, Thierry, Haward, and held for a time by Sprengel, that the original form of the Venereal Disease was the “Yaws” or “Piana”, and consequently that Africa must be assigned as the original home of the disease; and in this way the Moors also were brought in as part of the concatenation. Later on, when the conviction grew up that the beginning of the Disease consists in local affections of the genital organs, it was easy to show that these had always been in existence from the most ancient times. But as no direct information on the relation between affections of the Genitals and Skin-disease was to be found in the earlier Writers, enquirers were driven to the supposition, that Syphilitic affections of the Skin had been confounded by the Ancients with Leprosy.

A view, which Becket first sought to establish on precise grounds, appeared on the contrary too bold to other investigators, who thought to find some way of evading it. This was to the effect that Leprosy under favourable conditions had changed into Venereal Disease, and the increased rarity of the former seemed to speak for this opinion. Supporters of this last view are in especial Sprengel and Choulant in his Preface to Fracastori’s “Syphilis”. Whilst the particular home of the Disease was fixed in this way by some authors, Swediaur and Beckman thought to find it in the East Indies, and held that the “Dschossam”, a familiar Indian disease, or else the “Persian Fire” must be looked upon as the original form of the Complaint. Schaufus agreed with them in part; he believed Venereal disease to have been brought by the Gypsies from India to Europe. Dr. Wizmann[3] made the disease arise in the IInd. Century in Dacia, which at that date was transformed into a Roman Colony and had to welcome the licentious Roman soldiery. The excesses of these colonists, in a strange climate, and seconded by a combination of conditions favourable to epidemic sickness, produced the disease, which he says is generated to this day in its genuine form in Turkey. Accordingly Wizmann, as also Sprengel and Choulant, and to some extent Gruner, who considered the Moors to be the parents of the Venereal disease, may be regarded as taking up an intermediate position between the two extreme views, and as making a sort of transition to the opinions of those who look upon the Disease as a new one.

The special supporters of this view were, as mentioned above, the non-medical, though a considerable number of men calling themselves Physicians agreed with them, though on other grounds, differing only as to the mode in which the Disease arose. The prevailing astrological views found the original cause of the Disease in the Conjunction of the Planets, a conjunction declared beforehand by prophecy to bode disaster. With this were included as contributing to the effect Inundations, the oppressed condition of Nations, Famine and the like. The disease was called an epidemic, or what at that period was practically synonymous, a pestilential disease, a Plague, and ascribed of course to the wrath of God. There were other accounts given, that still carry some show of probability; the Disease was referred to the poisoning of wells and of wine (Caesalpinus), to the admixture of gypsum with the flour (Fallopia), or actually to indulgence in human flesh.

When coition could no longer be denied as an interposing factor, rumour resorted to all sorts of wild tales, the copulation of a courtesan with a Leper, copulation with animals, and particularly with asses, and finally with the voluptuous Indian women of America. From the latter story grew up by degrees the theory of the American origin of Venereal Disease, which found its chief supporters in Astruc and Girtanner, and in spite of Hensler’s exertions seems even yet not absolutely forgotten.

General Scheme of Treatment.

It now becomes important to consider more closely these various views, as well as the reasons advanced for them, and to subject them to examination. But as the result of this examination will cover to some extent the same ground as the formal History, it will be expedient to treat the two as far as possible in connection with one another. By this method it will ipso facto appear how far the individual views are tenable, and how far the grounds alleged in their favour valid. And this is all the more necessary for two reasons, first because by this means a host of repetitions is avoided, secondly because only in this way are such gaps as still remain clearly recognised and made tangible.

All the different views fall, as already stated, into two groups, according as they maintain the antiquity or the modernness of the Venereal Disease. In conformity with this division we must separate our investigation from the outset into two parts, of which Part I is to comprise the Venereal Disease in Antiquity, Part II the Venereal Disease to the end of the XVth. Century. To this will be added further as a Third Part, the History of the Disease down to our own day.

Each of the two earlier Parts will open, in accordance with the views declared above, with a statement and examination of the Authorities.

After that will follow an investigation of the influences that evoked diseases as a consequence of the use or misuse of the Genital organs and are favourable to their genesis, as well as those influences capable of staying, or in the case of diseases already established, modifying their progress. The difficulty of such an investigation is as striking as is its necessity; for on this subject there is an almost total lack of previous Works of any use to consult; and yet it is only by their help we can possibly win a deeper insight into the history of Venereal Disease.

The attitude of medical Science in face of these influences and their consequences will next claim our attention, so far as it is competent to exert a determining and modifying effect on the form and character of the Disease. In this connection it is especially important to determine whether the Physicians correctly diagnosed these diseases for what they are, or generally speaking had any opportunity of doing so.

Having come to a clear understanding, as far as is possible, on all these points, we shall then be in a position to give a genetic exposition of the development of the Disease itself. This will form the conclusion of each separate part, as well as of the whole Work; and then and then only we shall be able to say our task is fulfilled.

THE PLAGUE OF LUST
IN
CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY.

First Part.

AUTHORITIES.

In Antiquity we find that for a considerable length of time the medical sciences were far from being confined to a distinct profession, and further, where this does seem to be the case, there is always a not insignificant proportion of such knowledge that comes to us merely as popular or traditional Medicine. It is therefore evident, that if we would gain definite information as to the existence of a Disease among the Ancients, we ought by no means to confine our attention to the medical writers. This becomes still more necessary, if we are bound at the same time to try and discover the ætiological relations of such a disease, of which it can be stipulated at the outset that it is intimately connected with the whole life and activity of peoples. The Historian accordingly is absolutely compelled to test and examine thoroughly everything that can possibly enlighten him as to these relations,—to interrogate the Literature of whole Nations.

But here comes in the drawback that only comparatively speaking a very restricted proportion of the Authors of Antiquity have come down to us, even after due account has been taken of the possibility that many an unknown author may lurk concealed in some corner or other of the globe. Then again the Authors that have been preserved are almost without exception Greeks or Romans, so that for the major part of the nations of Antiquity the national authorities are all but entirely lacking, or else, where something of the sort does exist, it is written in a language the correct interpretation of which is still partially to seek. From all this it clearly follows that a complete and final explanation of any controverted matter of Ancient times can never strictly speaking be expected, and in particular that it would be a very rash conclusion to declare positively that a Disease did not exist in Antiquity, because in the extant and known books no mention occurs of it.

But in as much as this general incompleteness of information exists with regard to all relations of Antiquity, and yet for many of them sufficient explanations have already been obtained, it is obviously incumbent on us to undertake for our subject also the enquiry how far the extant authorities are capable of throwing light on it,—a task that exceeds indeed the powers of any individual, even should he be able to bring to it all the qualifications indispensable for the understanding of the said authorities. Consequently there is no other course left open for him but to institute at the outset a survey of what has so far been accomplished and ascertained, and then to bring into line with this whatever he has gleaned from his own study of the authorities, in the hope that another enquirer, like-minded and better equipped, may follow on in the track of his endeavours, and so by dint of united efforts the intended goal may one day be reached.

It would be unprofitable for us, having laid claim, as authorities for our special enquiry into the ætiological relations, to the remains of Antiquity in their entirety, to consider them in detail in this place. At the same time it might well seem expedient to specify more exactly such of them as are in a position to afford us information as to the Disease itself. These fall into two classes, viz. physicians and laymen. The estimation of the first class as authorities for the Venereal disease demands a number of conditions which we shall only get to know in the course of our subsequent exposition of the ætiological relations themselves, and will therefore more conveniently find its place after this,—in that part of the work where the question is discussed of the influence of medical aid on the disease. Similarly only a part of the lay authorities come in here,—authorities from whom, as may be supposed, we have only to expect rather fragmentary information, but who are all the more important, when they do exist, as by their evidence is proved men’s wide, in fact universal, acquaintance with the disease; and they cannot be charged with having made their observations of it through such or such a pair of theoretical spectacles.

The more copious the materials the Historian provides as to the ætiological relations, the more scanty will be his contributions on the question of the existence of the disease, as historical characters of highest importance, or conspicuous frequency of the disease, give him occasion to mention it.

The case is different, from the first with the Poets. The Satirists and writers of Comedy it is true can only supply hints, and these are often quite unintelligible for later times, if Scholiasts and Commentators had not taken on them the task of explanation,—though again their statements must often be used with caution, as they are so apt to impute to earlier times the opinions of their own. But here also the field of these hints is very circumscribed, as they are only admissible so far as it is possible to extract from the subject-matter a ridiculous, satirical motif (versus iocosi, carmina plena ioci,—jesting verses, songs full of jest, are demanded by the very personality of Priapus); and even then acquaintance with the fact alluded to in general terms is presupposed on the part of hearer and reader. We see from this how ill-considered is the contention of those who say that poets like Horace, Juvenal or Martial, if they had been acquainted with the injurious consequences of sexual intercourse with Hetaerae, could hardly have failed to allude to them on occasion in unequivocal terms. Hensler[4] excellently observed long ago:—“In our Century certainly no German poet says one word about it,—neither the dallying light-o’-love versifiers nor the serious poets. But from this to draw the conclusion,—then Venereal disease did not exist among the people, then it has never been seen in Germany this year, would make physicians and barber-surgeons smile!”

Then again consider the widely different character of the Peoples and their Languages. The flowery Asiatic and Hindoo was, to begin with, far enough removed from the spirit of Satire, and on all occasions preferred to have recourse to images that to us may well seem more than obscure. The Greek writers of Iambi (Satiric verses in the Iambic metre) are all but completely lost to us, while of the Comedians we possess only Aristophanes, in the interpretation of whom we are certainly not yet far enough advanced to make all his allusions plain to us. Above all, those who pronounce so dogmatically as to the existence of the Disease on the evidence of hints, appear to have hardly a notion of the condition in which the Lexicography of both Greek and Latin is,—a condition still in many respects deplorable.

Besides this the Greeks, and for a time to an almost greater degree the Romans,[5] were above all things reticent in speech. The Roman still preserved intact through all the frivolity of his later days certain shrines, that were never broken open until the period of the utter corruption of morals; and then no doubt afforded all the richer booty. But in Satire it was not the fact that became matter of derision, but the habits of the voluptuary merely as affecting morality, as for instance is clearly seen from a perusal of the passages of Juvenal[6] read in their mutual connection. Moreover the following account will sufficiently prove that even among the Romans affections of thee genitals were never ascribed to natural, only to unnatural coition, Paederastia and the like; and that it was the vice that was derided, and not properly speaking its consequences.

After the Satirists come the Epigrammatic poets, near akin to them. Whether in this province the Greeks will afford much material, later investigations must decide; how abundantly the Roman Martial has rewarded our repeated perusals, the reader will soon be enabled to convince himself.

From the Erotic poets who composed their lays under the inspiration of Aphrodité surrounded by the Graces or of the roguish Eros, no one will expect to gain anything towards our object. The fact that the lascivious Erotic writers of Antiquity have for the most part been lost can only be deplored by the Historian of the Venereal disease; for undoubtedly such works were in existence in considerable profusion, only as in our own day they were carefully kept concealed from the eyes of the uninitiated. That the Greeks were not poor in such-like productions Cynulcus teaches us, who says to a Sophist[7]: “Thou lyest in the tavern, not in company with friends, but with harlots, hast a throng of panders round thee, and carriest always with thee the works of Aristophanes, Apollodorus, Ammonius, Antiphanes and the Athenian Gorgias, who all of them have written of the Athenian Hetaerae. One may fitly call thee a Pornograph, like the painters Aristides, Pausanias and Nicophanes.” Writings of the same character were still extant in Martial’s[8] time, for the lascivious epigrams on the walls of the grottos, temples and statues of Priapus[9], on garden-walls, and so forth, afforded an inexhaustible mine for collecting amateurs, to whom we owe the Priapeia that have come down to the present day. Had they all been preserved to posterity, we should doubtless have had no need to bewail the lack of clear information as to the Venereal disease among the Ancients.

Connected with the poems are the myths and legends of Antiquity. These however being difficult to understand when studied for their own sake owing to the confusion that still reigns in all the interpretations and discussions of them, hardly admit of being used for our purpose with advantage.

Finally we have yet to mention the Fathers as authorities for the history of the Venereal disease, for their “Orationes contra Gentes” (Denunciations of the Gentiles) especially afford much valuable material towards a knowledge of the moral condition of the nations of Antiquity. True it is very likely these only too willingly allow exaggerations at the cost of Paganism, and attribute to an earlier time as already existing then, what really belongs to their own day. Still these drawbacks lose much of their importance in so far as the question for the present is only,—whether previously to the end of the XVth. Century the Venereal Disease existed or no.

The difficulties that arise in the systematic study and manipulation of all these authorities require no further discussion here, being sufficiently well known to every investigator of Antiquity—be he physician or layman.

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 Venus[11].

§ 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 Deity[12], 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 alluring[13] 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 overflowing[14], 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 purification[15] 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 hand[16] 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 pruriency[17]. “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 Pausanias[18], “the Assyrians first introduced amongst themselves, after the Assyrians the Paphians in Cyprus[19], and among the Phoenicians[20] the inhabitants of Ascalon in Palestine. From the Phoenicians the inhabitants of Cythera[21] 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 Sabaean[22] 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 Herodotus[23] 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-wenches[24]. And accordingly Q. Curtius[25] 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 Strabo[26][27] says consecrate their daughters for some considerable length of time to Anaitis, and only after this suffer them to marry. Herodotus[28] 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 Phoenicians[29], 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. Lucian[30] 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 Carthaginians[31] also, as in Cyprus[32], 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. Heyne[34] and Fr. Jacobs[35], 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 strangers[36]. 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 Heeren[37].

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 classes[38] 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 Africa[39] and in the Balearic Islands[40], 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 Pleasure[42], 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 dowry[43] 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 Asiatics[44]. 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 task[45].

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 abroad[47], 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 Phoenicians[48], 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 Pandemos[51] (Aphrodité Common to all Men). The latter was relegated to the Islands[52], 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 islands[53]; 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 time[54]; 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, Pera[55], 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 Syracuse[56].

Not without importance for our purpose is the statement of Strabo[57], that in the island of Cos in the temple of Aesculapius was an effigy of Venus Anadyomené (coming from the bath), while according to Pausanias[58] 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. Böttiger[59] 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 Hieroduli[60] 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 Ameria[61] and Comana[62] 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 Corinth[63], 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 Laurentum[64], 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 Venus[65]. 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 holy[66]. 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 Sonnerat[67] 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 mendicant[68] 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 sensuality[70]; 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 Lingam[71] 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. Klein[72] 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 Greeks[73] 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, Munro[74] 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 decide[75]. 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 Karnak[76]; and Herodotus[77] 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 Herodotus[78] declares that the Egyptians were the first people who had forbidden the accomplishment of coition in the temples, yet Strabo[79] 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 ritual[80], 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 Comes[81] 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 Comes[83], 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 Juno[85], 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 Priapeia[87], to which de Jurgenew first called attention in his Dissertation, p. 11, but without communicating it in its entirety:

Voti solutio.

Cur pictum memori sit in tabella

Membrum quaeritis unde procreamur?

Cum penis mihi forte laesus esset,

Chirurgique manum miser timerem,

Diis me legitimis, nimisque magnis

Ut Phoebo puta, filioque Phoebi

Curatum dare mentulam verebar.

Huic dixi, fer opem, Priape, parti,

Cuius tu, pater, ipse par videris:[88]

Qua salva sine sectione facta,

Ponetur tibi picta, quam levaris,

Parque consimilisque concolorque.

Promisit fore: mentulam movit

Pro nutu deus et rogata fecit.

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 of[88]. 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 been[89], 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 specify[90].

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 newer[91] gods, yet he appears in quite early times to have played a not unimportant part in Syria[92],—if that is to say the conclusion[93], 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 Peor[94], young Maidens were offered up. The Rabbis[95] 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 hymen[96]; 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 inhabitants[97].

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. Sickler[98] 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 Version[99]:

Numbers, Ch. 25. verses 1-18: “And Israel

“abode in Shittim, and the people began to

“commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab:

2) “for they called the people unto the sacrifices

“of their gods, and the people did eat, and

3) “bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined

“himself unto Baal-Peor: and the anger of the

4) “Lord was kindled against Israel. And the

“Lord said unto Moses, Take all the chiefs of

“the people, and hang them up unto the Lord

“before the sun, that the fierce anger of the

5) “Lord may turn away from Israel. And Moses

“said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every

“one his men that have jointed themselves unto

6) “Baal-Peor. And, behold one of the children

“of Israel came and brought unto his brethren

“a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses,

“and in the sight of all the congregation of

“the children of Israel, while they were weeping

7) “at the door of the tent of meeting. And

“when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son

“of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from

“the midst of the congregation, and took a

8) “spear in his hand; and he went after the man

“of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of

“them through, the man of Israel, and the

“woman through her belly. So the plague was

9) “stayed from the children of Israel. And those

“that died by the plague were twenty and four

“thousand[100].... Now the name of the

14) “man of Israel that was slain, who was slain

“with the Midianitish woman, was Zimri, the

“son of Salu, a prince of a fathers’ house among

15) “the Simeonites. And the name of the Midianitish

“woman that was slain was Cozbi, the daughter

“of Zur; he was head of the people of a fathers’

16) “house in Midian.—And the Lord spake unto

17) “Moses, saying, Vex the Midianites, and smite

18) “them: for they vex you with their wiles, wherewith

“they have beguiled you in the matter of

“Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter

“of the prince of Midian, their sister, which

“was slain on the day of the plague in the

“matter of Peor.”

Numbers, Ch. 31. verses 7-24: “And they

“warred against Midian, as the Lord commanded

9)  “Moses; and they slew every male.... And

“the children of Israel took captive the women

“of Midian and their little ones; and all their

14) “cattle, etc.... And Moses was wroth with

15) “the officers of the host, ... and Moses said

“unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

16) “Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through

“the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against

“the Lord in the matter of Peor, and so the plague

17) “was among the congregation of the Lord. Now

“therefore kill every male among the little ones,

“and kill every woman that hath known man by

18) “lying with him. But all the women children,

“that have not known man by lying with him,

19)  “keep alive for yourselves. And encamp ye

“without the camp seven days: whosoever hath

“killed any person, and whosoever hath touched

“any slain, purify yourselves on the third day

“and on the seventh day, ye and your captives.

20) “And as to every garment, and all that is made

“of skin, and all work of goats’ hair, and all

“things made of wood, ye shall purify yourselves.

21) “And Eleazar the priest said unto the

“men of war which went to the battle, This is the

“statute of the law which the Lord hath commanded

22) “Moses: howbeit the gold, and the

23) “silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the

“lead, every thing that may abide the fire, ye

“shall make to go through the fire, and it shall

“be clean; nevertheless it shall be purified with

“the water of separation (impurity): and all that

“abideth not the fire ye shall make to go through

24) “the water. And ye shall wash your clothes

“on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean,

“and afterward ye shall come into the camp.”

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:

Joshua, Ch. 22. v. 17: “Is the iniquity of

“Peor too little for us, from which we have not

“cleansed ourselves unto this day, although there

“came a plague upon the congregation of the

“Lord?”

Psalm 106. verses 28-30.: “They joined

“themselves also unto Baal-Peor, and ate the

29) “sacrifices of the dead (idols). Thus they

“provoked him to anger with their doings; and

30) “the plague brake in upon them. Then stood

“up Phinehas, and executed judgement: and

“so the plague was stayed.”

Hosea, Ch. 9. v. 10.: “I found Israel like

“grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers

“as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first

“season; but they came to Baal peor, and

“consecrated themselves unto the shameful thing,

“and became abominable like that which they