A Cabinet Of Greek Curiosities
Page 5
Crow
Cynna
Bitch
Dorcas
Gazelle
Hys
Sow
Leaena
Lionness
Leontion
Little Lionness
Lyce
She-Wolf
Melissa
Bee
Moscharion
Little Calf
Myia
Fly
Phryne
Toad
Sepia
Squid
Strouthion
Little Sparrow
Tigris
Tigress
To Thinabdella from Pelaeas and Socraton, the collectors of the tax on prostitutes: You have our authorization to have intercourse with anyone you wish here on the date given below—Year Fourteen, Phaophi 10 [October 7, A.D. 111] (Wilcken Ostraca 1157, written in Greek at Elephantis in Roman Egypt).
In Ptolemy Philadelphus’s great parade at Alexandria, the objects on display included a gold phallus one hundred and eighty feet long, painted in various colors and bound with golden garlands. At its tip, it had a gold star nine feet in circumference (Athenaeus Wise Men at Dinner 201e). It is not the phallus per se, but its size, that is remarkable. A phallus, as a fertility symbol, was appropriate to festivals in honor of various deities: Since they happen to be Athenian colonists, [the people of Paros are] to send a cow and a suit of armor to the Panathenaea, and a cow and a phallus in commemoration to the Dionysia (from an inscription, dated to 372 B.C., found on the slope of the Athenian acropolis; Rhodes and Osborne Inscriptions 29).
A woman carrying a phallus. Note the eye near the top of the phallus, intended to ward off evil.
Chrysippus of Soli is considered to be an ornament to the Stoic sect of philosophers because of his many wise treatises, but he misinterprets the Samian painting in which Hera is portrayed performing an unspeakable act for Zeus. The revered philosopher says in his writings that matter receives the words of god as seed and keeps them within herself, for the adornment of the universe, Hera representing matter and Zeus representing god in the Samian painting (Origen Against Celsus 4.48). Origen is discussing an allegorical interpretation of Hera fellating Zeus on a mural in her temple on Samos, a portrayal that puzzled many Greeks.
At the Scira [an Athenian festival for women], participants used to eat garlic, to ensure that they abstained from sexual intercourse, and so as not to smell of perfume (Philochorus frg. 89). An inscription records the generous provision for buying garlic for the women of one Attic deme for the Scira (Greek Inscriptions 22 1184.15).
Why is it not appropriate to make love while barefoot? Is it because the inner parts of the body, when we are intent on sex, should be warm and moist? … Being barefoot causes dryness and cold, making it difficult or impossible to have sexual intercourse (Ps.-Aristotle Problems 877a).
Why do people whose eyelashes drop out have a strong sex drive? Is it for the same reason as with bald men? (They both involve the same region of the body.) … The answer is that lust chills the upper parts of the body, which have little blood; nourishment is not digested there, and being starved of nourishment, the hair falls out (Ps.-Aristotle Problems 878b).
Why are people ashamed to admit that they want to have sexual intercourse, whereas this is not the case with drinking or eating or other such things? Is it because most of our desires are for things we must have, some of them actually being essential for life, whereas sexual desire is a non-vital indulgence? (Ps.-Aristotle Problems 880a).
The Cyrenaic school of philosophy maintains that we should not indulge in sexual intercourse in the light, but rather under a veil of darkness, so that our minds do not repeatedly kindle desire by picking up images of the sexual act through having seen it clearly (Plutarch A Pleasant Life Is Impossible on Epicurean Principles 1089a).
Pausanias refers to a temple of Black Aphrodite in Arcadia, noting that the goddess is so called because humans, unlike animals, generally have sexual intercourse during the night rather than in the day (Guide to Greece 8.6).
The philosopher Favorinus was a eunuch, but he was so passionate about sex that he was prosecuted for adultery by an ex-consul (Philostratus Lives of the Sophists 489).
Sexual intercourse has never done anyone any good, and we should be content if it does us no actual harm (Epicurus frg. 62).
The athlete Cleitomachus was admired because he always stood up and went away whenever anyone started talking about sex (Plutarch Table Talk 710e). By contrast, Pliny reports that when athletes are sluggish, sexual intercourse restores their strength (Natural History 28.58), but this was very much a minority view in antiquity.
What is “plucking” and “radishing”? Well, listen. A poor man who was caught committing adultery was laid out in the middle of the marketplace and had hot ashes sprinkled over his genitals, the hair being thus removed. Then the end of a radish was thrust into his orifice, making it wider (Scholion to Aristophanes Wealth 168). A fish, specifically a mullet, might be used in the latter procedure, a more awkward alternative because of the spines.
Astyanassa was the slave of Menelaus’s wife, Helen. She discovered the sexual positions and wrote about methods of intercourse. Philaenis and Elephantis imitated her, portraying such outrageous things in dances (Suda s.v. Astyanassa). Fragments of Philaenis’s manual have survived on Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2891, but they are brief and barely legible. Under the heading “On Seductions,” the introductory words, “The seducer should be scruffy and not comb his hair, so that the woman can’t see that he’s at work,” are hardly very salacious.
Africanus says that the Gorgon plant grows mostly underground but that, if a girl has sexual intercourse near it, it shoots up to watch and observes what is going on with considerable curiosity. It is also very easy for Africanus to restore a woman’s virginity even if she has had intercourse with many men (Michael Psellus Opusculum 32). The Gorgon plant has not been securely identified, and the restoration of virginity is not discussed in the surviving portions of Africanus’s works.
The stump of one of two monumental phalloi in the sanctuary of Dionysus on Delos, with a phallus-bird sculpted in relief on the base.
A nymph with an ithyphallic satyr.
Much thought was given on Crete to legislation intended to encourage the useful practice of eating sparingly, and homosexuality was introduced to prevent too high a birth rate through intercourse with women; whether rightly or wrongly, there will be another opportunity to consider (Aristotle Politics 1272a).
Sexual intercourse is a brief attack of apoplexy
(Democritus frg. 32).
V
ANIMALS
Why do all animals have an even number of feet? Is it because movement other than jumping is not possible unless one foot is stationary?
(Ps.-Aristotle Problems 893b).
Hares became so numerous on the island of Astypalaea that the inhabitants consulted the oracle about them. The Pythia replied that they should breed dogs and hunt the hares. More than six thousand were caught in one year. This plague happened because someone from the island of Anaphe had introduced two hares, just as someone from Astypalaea had earlier released two partridges on Anaphe; the partridge population grew so big that the inhabitants of the island were in danger of having to move away (Hegesander frg. 42).
An evil viper once bit a Cappadocian, but the snake itself died, when it tasted his poisonous blood (Demodocus Greek Anthology 11.237).
To determine how long they live, Alexander the Great attached collars to a large number of deer. When they were captured a hundred years later they still showed no signs of old age (Solinus The Wonders of the World 19.18).
Some people hate particular animals, such as weasels, beetles, toads, and snakes (Plutarch On Envy and Hatred 537a). Spiders might seem conspicuously absent from this list. Arachnophobia is a pure Greek term, but it is a modern coinage. Spiders are rarely mentioned in surviving ancient texts as an object of fear. Lucian’s reference to spi
ders in the yarn he spins at True History 1.15 is exceptional: Endymion’s army had about sixty million infantry, including many huge spiders, each bigger than one of the Cycladic islands, that had been ordered to spin a web between the moon and the morning star.
The Psylli [an African tribe] often filled Italy with poisonous creatures from other countries so that they could make money at the expense of other people’s misery [by getting rid of them]. They tried to introduce scorpions, but they could not survive the climate north of Sicily (Pliny Natural History 11.89). Pliny was probably referring to a particularly nasty species, for there are nowadays some twenty-seven species of scorpion ranging quite far north in Europe.
There are said to be so many scorpions on the second stage of the road from Susa to Media that, three days before he travels along it, the King of Persia commands everyone to hunt for them, and he gives rewards to the person who catches the most (Aelian On Animals 15.26). The region around Susa is so hot that at noon in the summer lizards and snakes cannot cross the street quickly enough to avoid being burned to death when they are halfway across (Strabo Geography 15.3.10).
I hear that the scorpions on Mt. Latmus in Caria inflict lethal stings on the local people, but only gentle stings on strangers, such as to cause merely an itching sensation. This is, I suppose, a gift to outsiders from Zeus the Protector of Strangers (Aelian On Animals 5.14).
Anyone who is stung by a scorpion should sit on a donkey, facing backward toward its tail, for this transfers the pain to the donkey and makes it fart (Farm Work 13.9).
When he was being bitten by many fleas, a fool put out the light, saying, “You can’t see me any more” (Ps.-Lucian Greek Anthology 11.432).
Perhaps not many countries nowadays would feature a scorpion on their coinage.
If you are ever in a place where there are fleas, say, “Och! Och!” [with a long o, rhyming with “joke”] and they will leave you alone (Farm Work 13.15).
Bugs are useful, because they wake us up, and mice motivate us not to leave all our possessions lying around untidily (Chrysippus frg. 1163).
Mice are said to nibble iron and gold. That is why gold miners cut them up and extract the gold (Photius The Library 278.528).
If a mouse cannot reach the oil in a lamp with its tongue, it inserts its tail and then licks the oil off it (Timotheus of Gaza On Animals 38).
Take a piece of paper and write on it: “I conjure any mice caught here to do me no harm and to allow no other mouse to do so either. I grant you such-and-such a piece of ground (and you specify which piece of ground). But if I catch you still here, I swear by the Mother of the Gods, I shall cut you into seven pieces.” When you have written this, attach the paper to a rock where the mice are, with the writing facing outward, before sunrise (Farm Work 13.5). The author feels moved to add: I have written this for the sake of completion, but I hope it has no validity. I reject these practices and advise everyone else to do the same, paying no attention to any such ridiculous measures.
Weasels give birth through their ears, though some say through their mouths (Timotheus of Gaza On Animals 39).
Weasels occur on one side of the road that runs across the island of Pordoselene, but not on the other (Aristotle History of Animals 605b).
The blood of the chameleon, and likewise that of green frogs, is thought to remove the hairs on the eyelids (Dioscorides Medical Material 2.79).
The people of Pergamum paid a substantial sum for the skin of a basilisk, to ensure that a temple decorated with murals by Apelles was kept free of spiders’ webs and birds (Solinus The Wonders of the World 17.53).
A bird perched on a herm.
There is an island in the Black Sea on which countless birds nest and look after a shrine dedicated to Achilles. Every day at dawn they fly out to sea, and when their wings are drenched with seawater they fly quickly back to the shrine. They sprinkle it with the water and then sweep the floor with their wings (Arrian Voyage Around the Black Sea 21).
Indian dogs are said to be a cross between tigers and bitches. Not on the first interbreeding, but on the third. The first cross is said to be a fierce creature. They take the bitches out to a lonely spot. Many get eaten, if the tiger is not in the mood for mating (Aristotle History of Animals 607a).
I hear that there was once a flying pig near the city of Clazomenae, and that it devastated the whole countryside. That is why there is a famous region there called “The Place of the Winged Sow.” If anyone thinks this is just a myth, that’s fair enough, but I don’t regret recording what I have heard said about any animal (Aelian On Animals 12.38).
Why are pigs particularly sensitive to the cold when they are being fattened? Is it because, just as with fat people, the fatter they become, the further they are away from their internal source of heat? (Ps.-Alexander Problems 4.138).
In Arabia, there is an amazing breed of sheep with a tail no less than five feet long. If they were allowed to drag their tails along the ground, they would develop ulcers from the friction. In fact, however, the shepherds are skilled enough at carpentry to make little carts that they fasten under each sheep’s tail (Herodotus Histories 3.113).
A pig with wings on a two drachma coin minted at Clazomenae in the early 5th century B.C.
This was not the only device used by shepherds. Varro notes that because ewes less than three years old are unsuitable for breeding, they sometimes wear chastity belts, little baskets made of reeds or some other material, fitted over their reproductive organs (Country Affairs 2.1), though he does comment that it is easier to look after them if they are pastured away from the rams.
In the same passage, Varro refers to the practice of putting little leather jackets on “Greek sheep,” a breed associated particularly with the south of Italy, to protect their especially fine and expensive wool. They were allowed to graze only in pastures from which all brambles and other bushes had been cleared, and their jackets had to be removed regularly to prevent them from overheating (Columella On Farming 7.4).
Sleeping among sheep is not as warm as among goats, for goats are less restive and come up close to people (Aristotle History of Animals 606a).
Hedgehogs shake vines with their paws and then roll around to impale the fallen grapes on their spines, so that they can take them to their young. When I was a boy, I once saw a hedgehog that looked like a walking bunch of grapes (Plutarch On the Cleverness of Animals 972a, in a dialogue discussing whether land or sea animals are more intelligent; the discussion reaches no clear conclusion).
Hedgehogs are easier to catch than to keep hold of; money is like that, too (Aelian Miscellaneous History 4.14).
In the only surviving fragment of a work entitled On Antipathy and Sympathy, Nepualius lists various interesting observations on natural history:
• Storks put a tortoise bone and the leaves of a plane tree in their nests because of the bats.
• Owls put a bat’s heart in their nests to prevent ants from removing their eggs or their hatchlings.
• If you put a bat’s heart close to an ants’ nest, the ants will not come near it, and they die.
• Warm goat’s blood dissolves diamonds.
• Neither horses nor cows walk on anything you smear with lion fat.
• A horse goes numb if it treads on the fresh tracks of a wolf.
• Lions are afraid of roosters, especially white ones.
• If anyone smears himself with rooster fat, this turns aside a lion’s charge.
• If you smear yourself with elephant fat, no wild animal will come near you.
A terra-cotta hedgehog with grapes attached, found in the Athenian agora. That hedgehogs do transport grapes in this way is a securely attested fact.
There are two ways to catch long-tailed monkeys. They are imitative creatures that tend to run off up the trees. So when hunters spot one sitting in the trees, they put out a bowl of water where the monkey can see it, and rub their eyes with the water. Then they put out a bowl filled with birdlime rather than wate
r and go off and watch from a distance. The animal jumps down and smears itself with the birdlime. When it blinks, its eyelids stick together, and the hunters run up and seize it. That is one way of catching monkeys, and here is another: the hunters put on baggy trousers and move away, leaving behind other pairs of pants that are smeared on the inside with birdlime, and then the monkeys are easily caught when they put them on (Strabo Geography 15.1.29).
About four hundred names for Greek and Roman dogs are known. They are almost never human names. The longest list is given by Xenophon at Hunting 7.5: forty-seven names for hunting dogs, all just two syllables long, to make it easy to give them commands. For example:
Actis
Sunshine
Alce
Strength
Bia
Force
Bremon
Roarer
Caenon
Killer
Chara
Joy
Hebe
Youth
Hybris
Violence