by Paul Bahn
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Aesop’s Fables, written 2600 years ago, far from being children’s stories, were in fact coarse, violent and cruel. The Victorians translated them from the ancient Greek, but suppressed 100 of them, which have only recently appeared in English for the first time. The translators, Robert and Olivia Temple, say that ‘the fables are not the pretty purveyors of Victorian morals that we have been led to believe. They are instead savage, coarse, brutal, lacking in all mercy or compassion. Some of them were probably suppressed because they were very violent and didn’t suit the purposes of the Victorians. They were brutal or they were non-Christian. They were about alien gods; they contained coarse, peasant humour and were very rude.’ Even some of the 250 or so that were already published had been mistranslated to give them a more comforting and more moral tone.
One example of an untranslated fable is about the beaver:
A beaver’s genitals serve, it is said, to cure certain ailments. So when the beaver is spotted and pursued to be mutilated — since he knows why he is being hunted — he will run for a certain distance, and he will use the speed of his feet to remain intact. But when he sees himself about to be caught, he will bite off his own parts, throw them, and thus save his own life. The moral: is that wise men will, if attacked for their money, sacrifice it rather than lose their lives.
One, entitled ‘The camel who shat in the river’, goes as follows:
A camel was crossing a swiftly flowing river. He shat and immediately saw his own dung floating in front of him, carried by the rapidity of the current. ‘What is that there?’ he asked himself. ‘That which was behind me I now see pass in front of me.’ The moral: This applies to a situation where the rabble and the idiots hold sway, rather than the eminent and the sensible (6).
The asses appealing to Zeus:
One day, the asses tired of suffering and carrying heavy burdens and they sent some representatives to Zeus, asking him to put a limit on their workload. Wanting to show them that this was impossible, Zeus told them that they would be delivered from their misery only when they could make a river from their piss. The asses took this reply seriously and, from that day until now, whenever they see ass piss anywhere they stop in their tracks to piss too. The moral: This fable shows that one can do nothing to change one’s destiny.
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The Hyenas:
They say that hyenas change their sex each year and become males and females alternately. Now, one day a male hyena attempted an unnatural sex act with a female hyena. The female responded ‘If you do that, friend, remember that what you do to me will soon be done to you.’ The moral: This is what one could say to the judge concerning his successor, if he had to suffer some indignity from him.
The British Museum recently spent £1.8m on the Warren Cup, a Roman silver drinking cup from around AD 50, depicting two scenes, each set indoors: one of two males copulating on a mattress, the other of homosexual paedophilia. This is a rarity, because much of the homosexual imagery of the time was either hidden or destroyed.
WHAT A WAY TO GO!
Around 1260, ‘at Tewkesbury, a Jew fell into a privy, and out of respect for his sabbath, on which day the accident happened, would not allow himself to be extricated till the following day, which was Sunday; and in consequence he died, being suffocated by the foul stench.’
In early imperial times, a very nasty Roman gentleman pushed his long-suffering slaves too far, and they decided to murder him in the bathhouse by shoving the sponge-stick (used for wiping the backside) down his throat — presumably to leave no trace of cause of death, as well as to really stick it to him. When he stopped kicking, they threw him down on the burning-hot floor to make sure he was dead. Unfortunately he recovered consciousness and lived long enough to see them suitably punished .…
In 1326 in England, Richard the Raker was drowned — he entered a privy, seated himself, and the rotten planks of the floor gave way, letting him fall into the deep cesspool filth. There his body was found by a fellow raker.
Another fatal accident occurred in Bread Street Ward: in the courtyard of a house, two men had dug a privy well to the depth of five casks — they had cribbed it with a pile of five casks in which new wine had been kept. As one of the boards from the end of one of the casks had fallen to the bottom of the well, one of the men put down a ladder and began to descend, but was overcome by fumes (carbon dioxide) from the wine-soaked staves, and dropped unconscious to the bottom. The other man descended to rescue him, but he too fell unconscious, and both were asphyxiated!
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The Roman emperor Caracalla (AD 211–170) was suffering from a stomach upset on a journey, and ordered a halt while he went to relieve himself — only a single attendant went with him. The rest of the bodyguard turned their backs in respect for the emperor’s privacy. One officer of the bodyguard killed him with a single sword thrust as he was lowering his breeches (7).
The Roman emperor Elagabalus (AD 204–22) was hacked to death by the praetorian guard as he sat on the lavatory, and his body thrown down a sewer. In life, he used to like to surprise guests with rare dishes — sometimes he would serve exact replicas of the food he was eating, but in wood, ivory, pottery or stone. The guests were expected to continue eating as though nothing had happened.
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In England, the Saxon king Edmund Ironside was assassinated while seated on a wooden lavatory — someone hiding in the pit below thrust his longsword up his backside into his bowels, killing him instantly (8).
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Sir Arthur Aston, a Royalist commander during the English Civil war, was beaten to death with his own wooden leg by Cromwell’s men (9).
TRY THIS FOR THIGHS!
Among the Ancient Greeks, as depicted on vases, male homosexuals did indulge in anal intercourse, but they also often rubbed the penis back and forth between the young man’s thighs — this is known as intercrural intercourse.
Straton, a Greek physicist of the 3rd century BC, compared girls unfavourably with boys: ‘They’re all so dull from behind, and the main thing is, you’ve nowhere to put a roaming hand’.
Dioskorides, a Greek doctor of the first century AD, recommends a friend to ‘delight in the rosy bum’ of his wife when she is pregnant, treating her as a ‘male Aphrodite’, and Rhianos rapturously talks of the ‘glorious bum’ of a boy, so beautiful that even old men itch for it.
The fifth/fourth century BC Greek playwright Aristophanes, in Birds, has a character say ‘Where the father of a good-looking boy will meet me and go on at me as if I’d done him a wrong:
That was a nice way to treat my son, Stilbonides! You met him when he’d had a bath, leaving the gymnasium, and you didn’t kiss him… you didn’t say a word to him, you didn’t pull him close to you, you didn’t tickle his balls — and you an old friend of the family!
And in Knights, the Sausage-Seller says ‘..here’s a folding stool for you, and a boy (he’s no eunuch) who’ll carry it for you. And if you feel like it sometimes, make a folding-stool of him!’.
Greek vases often show old men fingering the genitals of young men. In the play Clouds by Aristophanes, it is recalled that when boys ‘were sitting in the trainer’s, they had to put one thigh forward in order not to show anything cruel to those outside. Then, when a boy got up again, he had to brush the sand together and take care not to leave an imprint of his youth’ for the old men to look at. This means that the sight of the boys’ genitals would torment the spectators, while the old men might brood longingly over the mark in the sand where the genitals had rested (10).
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It was said that Julius Caesar had been King Nicomedes’s catamite — and this was frequently quoted by his enemies. For example, Licinius Calvus wrote ‘The riches of Bithynia’s King Who Caesar on his couch abused’, while Dolabella called him ‘the Queen’s rival and inner partner of the royal bed’, and Curio the Elder ‘Nicomedes’s Bithynian brothel’. Bibulus, Caesar’s colleague in the consulship, called him ‘the Queen of Bit
hynia’. When his own soldiers followed his decorated chariot in the Gallic triumph, they chanted ribald songs, as they were privileged to do (11):
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Home we bring our bald whoremonger
Romans, lock your wives away!
All the bags of gold you lent him
Went his Gallic whores to pay.’
Caesar also had numerous and extravagant affairs with women, including several queens, and was called ‘every woman’s husband and every man’s wife’.
Mark Antony alleged that Julius Caesar made Octavian (Augustus) submit to unnatural relations as the price of adoption; Octavian was also said to have sold his favours to the Governor-General of Spain for 3000 gold pieces, and it was claimed that he used to soften the hair on his legs by singeing them with red-hot walnut shells.
Once, while sacrificing, the emperor Tiberius (42 BC–AD 37) took an erotic fancy to the acolyte who carried the incense casket, and could hardly wait for the ceremony to end before hurrying him and his brother, the sacred trumpeter, out of the temple and indecently assaulting them both. When they protested at this, he had their legs broken.
The emperor Caligula persistently teased Cassius Charea, who was no longer young, for his supposed effeminacy. Whenever he demanded the watchword, Caligula used to give him ‘Priapus’ or ‘Venus’; and if he came to acknowledge a favour, always stuck out his middle finger for him to kiss, and waggled it obscenely.
Aristophanes’ comedy is rich in obscene and scatological invective, and abounds in abusive terms alluding to anal sex — ‘Wide-assed’ (euryproktos) was a common insult that he expanded into’with gaping ass hole’ (chaunoproktos). The politician Cleisthenes was evidently known as a passive homosexual, and Aristophanes never tired of making fun of his effeminate ways and his hospitable rear end.
The concept of anal penetration as demeaning and humiliating is perhaps best seen in what may be termed the ‘radish treatment’ (see below, p.88).
One Greek vase shows a Persian captive about to submit to anal penetration by a Greek.
Eubolos, a comic poet of the fourth century, said of the Greeks who spent ten long years in capturing Troy: ‘No one ever set eyes on a single hetaira (harlot); they wanked themselves for ten years. It was a poor sort of campaign for the capture of one city, they went home with arses much wider than the gates of the city that they took.’ (12)
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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS ENEMAS?
Louis XIV is said to have endured more than 2000 enemas during his reign, often meeting with various dignitaries during the procedure, which clearly made him public enema No. 1 (13).
The Late Classic Maya (AD 600–900) may have ritually used hallucinogenic enemas (probably made of mead, tobacco juice, mushrooms and morning glory seeds) to go into a trance state more quickly than through oral consumption. Some are illustrated on their pottery, while certain mysterious artifacts such as slim bone tubes found in graves may also be linked with the practice. Similarly, a prehistoric tomb on the south coast of Peru, dating to 3000–1000 BC, contains a 45-year old man, buried with various artifacts including what is thought to be an enema apparatus used for hallucinogens or other substances.
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A rock painting in South Africa’s Free State Province seems to depict the administration of an enema. A figure bends forward with buttocks raised and hands on the ground. A second figure approaches from the right to administer the enema, apparently using a horn fitted with a plunger. The apprehensive patient raises one leg in the air in anticipation of some discomfort. There are two onlookers.
The ancient Egyptians had highly developed medical knowledge — one palace official rejoiced in the title Keeper of the Royal Rectum for his knowledge of enemas (14).
The Roman emperor Claudius (ruled AD 41–54) was murdered by being fed poisoned mushrooms — one version is that he fell into a coma but vomited up the entire contents of his stomach and was then poisoned a second time, either by a gruel — the excuse being that he needed food to revive him — or by means of an enema, the excuse being that his bowels must be emptied too.
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FRIENDS, ROMANS……BAAAARF
Mark Antony, according to Plutarch (the Greek historian of the first century AD), was hated for his drunkenness, his gross intrigues with women, and the many days spent sleeping off his debauches, wandering about with an aching head and befuddled wits, and his many nights spent in revels. The story goes that he once attended a banquet given for the wedding of Hippias the actor; he ate and drank all night, and then, when he was summoned to attend a political meeting early in the morning at the Forum, he appeared in public surfeited with food and vomited into his toga, which one of his friends held ready for him (15).
Similarly, the emperor Claudius was always ready for food and drink — it was seldom that he left a dining hall except gorged and sodden; he would then go to bed and sleep supine with his mouth wide open, thus allowing a feather to be put down his throat, which would bring up the superfluous food and drink as vomit.
From ancient Egypt there is a depiction in tomb 49 at Thebes of a woman (presumably hung-over) throwing up, while there is also a Greek vase showing a young harlot comforting a vomiting customer.
UNDERNEATH THE ARCHES…
In ancient Rome, some prostitutes did not have the security of a brothel in which to work, but instead practised their trade out of doors under archways — the word ‘fornicate’ is actually derived from the Latin word for ‘arch’ (fornix) (16).
In Kingston-upon-Hull, in northern England, the medieval council’s attitude to prostitution was ambivalent. The corporation was prepared in the 1490s to let out the town walls and towers and the foreland to the whores, receiving £3-£8 a year in rent.
Among the Greek words for ‘harlot’ a common one is ‘chamaitype’, ‘earth-striker’, which shows that they often worked on the ground.
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BROTHELS AND BATHS
The term ‘brothel’ comes from the Old English word for wretch, perhaps referring to the living conditions of the women who worked in the early houses of prostitution. In the medieval period, lower-class women could avoid a life of toil and drudgery by bartering their sexuality, despite the risk of disease; while nuns and married upper-class women could escape the confines of their life by secretly entering a brothel. As long as they profited from the brothels, the nobles and clergy turned a blind eye to the houses devoted to sexual adventure, and indeed were often to be found among the clientele.
At Ashkelon, Israel, the Roman (fourth century) bathhouse contained lamps decorated with erotic images, while a Greek inscription ‘Enter, enjoy and .…’ suggests the bathhouse served as a brothel. It was probably in the red light district — an earlier Roman villa on the site had a room full of lamps decorated with erotic images. As mixed bathing came into vogue in Claudius’s reign, bath houses became like bordellos — in fact one author from Nero’s time wrote of a father who went to the baths, leaving one child at home, only to return from the baths a prospective father of two more. The poet Martial (first century AD) wrote ‘The bathman lets you among the tomb-haunting whores only after putting out his lantern’.
Ancient Egypt, on the other hand, has its ‘Bes chambers’ — early last century archaeologists at Saqqara uncovered four rooms of a mud-brick house; some had brick benches along the walls, and the walls were decorated with representations of the god Bes, 1–1.5 m high, covered with stucco and painted. The dwarf god Bes was often present where physical love is celebrated. In addition, 32 phallic figures were recovered from the debris. So these ‘Bes chambers’ may have been for lady inmates and their clients, or a place of worship linked to procreation.
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The names of medieval brothel areas were often explicit, and some still survive in contracted form: in fourteenth century London there were Slut’s Hole, Gropecuntlane (now Grape Lane), and Codpiece Alley (now Coppice Alley). Outside the city walls was Cokkeslane. In
Paris there was rue Trousse-Puteyne (Whore’s Slit Street) — Mary Stuart is said to have fainted whenever her route took her through there. There was also a rue Grattecon (Scratchcunt street), and rue du Poil au Con (now rue Pélécan), where there were prostitutes who refused to comply with a city regulation requiring them to shave their privates (17).
A 2000-year-old brothel has recently been unearthed at Salonika in Greece — all kinds of sex toys were found inside, including a small clay dildo, several erotic figurines, and a red pitcher with a phallic spout. There were also innumerable offerings to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The room containing this material of the 1st century BC conveniently bordered a bath house.
At Pompeii, sometimes taverns had rooms for prostitution upstairs, where the names of waitresses and prostitutes are found scribbled on walls. The graffiti refer to the women’s vices and attractions, and announce that some women can be had for two ‘as’ — the price of a loaf of bread. But these may be written as insults, rather than reflect a true price. The highest price of a woman is given as 16 as.