ORAL SEX AND SEX POSITIONS IN ANCIENT ROME

SEX POSITIONS IN ANCIENT ROME


Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton wrote in the notes of “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus”: “In Alosiae Toletanae Satyra Sotadica examples of” the seven sex positions listed below” are given, and the reader who wishes to go further into the subject is referred to Forberg and Aretin, the former of whom enumerates ninety erotic postures (including spinthriae, from spinther (a bracelet), a group of copulators, forming a chain or bracelet by their connection with each other) whilst the latter in his Sonnetti lussotiosi describes twenty-six varieties of congress, each one accompanied by an illustrative design from the hand of Giulio Romano. [Source: “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus” translation by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton, 1890, sacred-texts.com]

Gaius Valerius Catullus (85-54 B.C.) was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic. He speaks of Novem continuas fututiones:
Sweet Hypsithilla, passion's delight,
My gleeful soul, bid me to come;
Noontide is nearing, bar not the gate--
Hence roam ye not, stay close at home.
Prepare our pleasures in nine fresh ways,
Thighs joined with thighs, nine bouts we'll try:
Instant the summons, dinner is past,
Heated with love, supine I lie,
Bursting my tunic, swollen with longing:
Leave me not thus, dear, your lover wronging.

“Of like importance is the posture too,
In which the genial feat of love we do:
For, as the females of the four-foot kind
Receive the leapings of their males behind,
So the good wives, with loins uplifted high,
And leaning on their hands, the fruitful stroke may try;
For in that posture will they best conceive;
Not when, supinely laid, they frisk and heave;
For active motions only break the blow,
And more of strumpets than of wives they show,
When, answ'ring stroke with stroke, the mingled liquors flow.
Endearments eager, and too brisk a bound
Throw off the ploughshare from the furrow'd ground:
But common harlots in conjunction heave,
Because 'tis less their business to conceive,
Than to delight, and to provoke the deed;
A trick which honest wives but little need. [Source: Dryden's Lucretius]

“Amongst the Easterns the modes of congress form the subject of an intelligent study, and their erotic works contain detailed explanations of every possible (and, to a European, impossible) position in which the act of venery can be performed. The Ananga Ranga gives thirty-two divisions; The Perfumed Garden gives forty divisions (together with six different movements during the coitus) and, in addition, describes the most suitable methods for humpbacks, corpulent men, pregnant women, &c.; and The Old Man Young Again, placing the act into six divisions: 1) the ordinary posture; 2) the sitting posture; 3) side or reclining postures; 4) the prone postures; 5) the stooping postures and 6) the standing postures — subdivides each of these into ten varieties, thus arriving at the grand total of sixty!”

Seven Sex Postures of the Thesaurus Eroticus


Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton wrote in the notes of “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus”: “'The Thesaurus Eroticus numbers seven different postures of coition: 1) “In the natural manner, the woman lying supine with legs stretched apart. Ovid: 'Assume different attitudes according to your shape; one style does not become every woman. She who is noteworthy in face, let her he supine.'

  1. “Women who desire to become gravid submit their back, after the fashion of the tortoise. Lucretius: 'Women are thought to conceive oftener when on all fours, because the organs can absorb the seed better when they are lying on their breast with loins upraised.'[2] Ovid: 'Thou also whose stomach Lucina has marked with wrinkles should be used with back turned, as the swift Parthian with his horses.' And the same writer: 'Let those whose backs are sightly be gazed at from behind.' Aristophanes: 'Clinging to the ground on all fours'; and in Lysistrata: 'I shall not squat down like a lioness sculptured on a knife-handle.' The Emperor Augustus, whilst his wife Livia was with child, used to approach her in this manner. And under this heading may perhaps be classed the attitude which Apuleius speaks of in the Tale of the Carpenter and his Wife: '... whilst the gallant, the handsome youth, bending over the woman lying prone along the outside of the cask, cudgelled away like the carpenter.'

  2. Tollere pedes. The woman, lying on her back, raises her feet in order to offer herself more open. Martial describes how Leda, whose husband was elderly, was cured of hysterics: 'Forthwith the physicians approach, the nurses retire, and her feet are raised in the air: O weighty medicine!' Sosipater has an epigram which alludes to this attitude:
    “When I stretched Doris with the rosy buttocks on her bed
    I felt within me rise immortal strength,
    Her little feet were tamed across my loins,
    And ne'er she moved till we had done at length.

4) Pendula Venus. The woman above, bending over the man. 5) “Mulier equitans. The woman riding.

6) Supponere femur. The woman lies partly on her side with her right thigh thrown over. Ovid: 'Let the woman who is distinguished by the length of her side press the bed with her knees, her neck slightly thrown back'; and: 'There are a thousand modes of venery; the simplest and least fatiguing is when [the woman] lies half supine on her right side.' And elsewhere he says: 'She, forsooth, cast round my neck arms white as ivory, fairer than Sithonian snow, mingled milky kisses with a passionate tongue, and upheld my thigh upon her lascivious thigh.' Catullus: 'It is no wonder, Rufas, why no woman wishes her tender thigh to be placed under thee.' Martial has an epigram on Phyllis, who, urged by two lovers each desirous of being the first to enjoy her favours, satisfies them both at the same time; one raising her leg, the other her tunic. Phyllis, lying on her side, throws her leg over the thigh of the gallant who, stretched on the couch facing her, is swiving her; at the same time offering her buttocks to her other lover.

  1. Mulier sedens. The woman is in a sitting posture with legs spread apart, whilst the man stands to her. Ovid, 'She whose thigh is youthful, and whose breasts are faultless, should stretch herself obliquely along the bed, whilst the man stands to her;': and, 'Milanion supported Atalanta's legs on his shoulders; if they are shapely they should be placed in this manner.' This last posture may either refer to a man and woman standing face to face, he supporting her in such a way that her whole body is lifted up, her thighs resting on his hips; or to the body of the woman lying along a couch whilst the man raises her legs to his shoulders. Ovid recommends to lovers the apt touches of their fingers as preparatives for the amorous encounter; and Erasmus explains the term siphniassare (French — faire postillion) as meaning to insert a finger in the anus during the venereal act to double the enjoyment; the word being derived from and this custom being in usage amongst the ancient inhabitants of Siphno, one of the Cycladean Isles.

Woman-on-Top Sex Position in Ancient Rome


Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton wrote in the notes of “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus”: In Martial’s Epigram 18, “reference is made to that posture 'in congress in which the man lies supine, whilst the woman mounts on him, and procures the orgasm by her movements; vulgarly called 'St George' and 'le postillon', this appears to have been a favourite position amongst the Romans, Judging from the frequent references to it in their writings. Juvenal, in speaking of the debauchery of women, says of Saufeia: ‘She challenges them, and bears off the prize of her hanging thigh; but she herself adores the undulating wriggling of Medullina's haunches.’ “The 'hanging thigh' means Saufeia's thigh, which hung over the girl who lay underneath her, the reference being to tribadism. In the same Satire, 'Inque vices equitant, ac luna teste moventur' — They [the women] ride each other in turns, with the moon witnessing their movements. [Source: “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus” translation by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton, 1890, sacred-texts.com]

“In Lucilius: 'The one grinds, the other winnows corn as it were . . and: 'Crissatura, ut si frumentum vannat clunibus' — Her motion was as though she were winnowing corn with her buttocks. Martial, speaking of a Gaditanian dancing girl, says: ‘She wriggles herself so tremulously, and excites such lubricious passions, that she would have made Hippolytus himself a masturbator.’

“Arnobius calls this posture, inequitatio — a riding upon. Lucretius says, 'For the woman prevents and resists conception if wantonly she continues coition with a man with her buttocks heaving, and fluctuates her whole bosom as if it were boneless.' (That is, whilst the woman bends over the man and continually curves herself as if she had no spine or bone in her back.) 'For she thrusts out the ploughshare from the right direction and path of her furrow and turns aside the stroke of the semen from her parts. And the harlots think to move in this manner for their own sake, lest they should be in continual pregnancy and at the same time that the coition might be more pleasing for their men.'

Apuleius (A.D. 125-170) has several passages bearing upon this posture. In his Metamorphoses we read, 'As she spoke thus, having leapt on my bed, she repeatedly sank down upon me and sprang upwards, bending inwards; and, wriggling her flexible spine with lubricious movements, glutted me with the enjoyment of a pendant coition, until fatigued, with our passions enervated and our limbs languid, together we sank panting in a mutual entwinement.' This passage refers to the posture practised by the man lying on his back, with the woman upon him, her back turned towards him; but from the words pygisaca sacra the meaning may be that Eumolpus did not swive, but sodomised the young girl.

“In the Errones Venerii appears this fragment by the same author: ‘Gladsome now do I return to amorous sportings, and the furtive delights of love-liesse. My Muse delights to toy, so fare thee well, Melpomene. Now will I tell of the fullness of Arethusa's hair, one while restrained, anon loosely streaming. And but now at night time, with signal tap at my threshold, a fair one is skilled to tread with fearless step in the darkness. Now with her soft arms wound round my neck, and lying half-upturned, let her curve her snowy side. And, having imitated in their every mode the joyous tablets, let her change posture and herself hang o'er me on the couch. Let naught shame her, but e'en more abandoned than myself, let her, unsated, gambol o'er the whole couch. There will ne'er be wanting a poet to bewail Priam or to narrate the deeds of Hector. My Muse delights to toy, so fare thee well, Melpomene.’”

More on a Woman Riding a Man in Ancient Rome


“In the Satyricon of Petronius we read: ‘Eumolpus, who was so incontinent that even I was a boy in his eyes, lost no time in inviting the girl to the pygiacic mysteries.[1] But he had told everybody that he was gouty and crippled in the loins, and if he did not fully keep up the pretence, he ran great risk of ruining the whole drama. In order to preserve an appearance of truthfulness, he prayed the damsel to seat herself on the goodness which had been commended to her, and commanded Corax to get under the bed on which he was lying, and with his hands pressed on the floor, to assist his master by the movement of his loins. Ordered to move gently, he responds with slow undulations, equal in speed to those of the girl above. The orgasm approaching, Eumolpus with clear voice exhorted Corax to hasten his movements. And so, placed between the servant and the damsel, the old man enjoyed as if in a swing. In this manner amidst our great laughter, in which he joined, Eumolpus furnished more than one course. [Source: “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus” translation by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton, 1890, sacred-texts.com]

“Horace in the Satires says: ‘When keen nature inflames me, any lascivious slut who, naked under the light of the lanthorn, takes the strokes of my swollen tail, or wriggles with her buttocks on her supine horse. ‘And in the same book he uses the phrase 'peccat superne' in speaking of a woman who will not gratify her lover with this posture. Martial says, 'The Phrygian slaves masturbated themselves behind the door when ever his wife seated herself on the Hectorean horse.' But Ovid recommends this posture to little women, and states that on account of her tall figure Andromache never assumed this attitude with Hector. In the 'Essai sur la Langue Erotique' which is prefixed to Liseux's edition of Blondeau, the following passage from Ovid is cited as an example of the above posture: Thou also whose stomach Lucina has marked with wrinkles (i.e. by child bearing) should be used with back turned, as the swift Parthian with his horses.

“I am, however, inclined to think that this passage has reference to the posture called by the Arabs el kebachi (after the fashion of the ram), and described as follows: 'The woman is on her knees, with her forearms on the ground; the man approaches her from behind, kneels down, and lets his member penetrate into her vagina, which she presses out as much as possible; he will do well in placing his hands on die woman's shoulders.' — The Perfumed Garden of the Sheikh Nefzaoui.]

Arnobius writes: “to move in swinging motion with upraised thighs and a curling, tremulous movement of the loins” and “to fluctuate with wriggling buttocks.” Afranius, Donatus and Plautus also mention the subject. Aristophanes, in the Wasps, describes the wrath of the woman who, when asked by Xanthias to mount him, demanded of him if he wished to re-establish the tyranny of Hippias (playing on the double sense of the word Hippias, which means also a horse). Similar references occur in another of the same author's plays, Lysistrata; and in the Analecta of Brunck are several epigrams of Asclepiades, in which the fair votaries boast of their prowess in the art of riding their gallants.

“Many of these courtesans dedicated as ex-votos to Venus a whip, a bridle or a spur, as tokens of their inclination for the attitude here noted. In the Decameron of Boccaccio we read: ‘The girl, who was neither iron nor adamant, readily enough lent herself to the pleasure of the abbot, who, after he had clipped and kissed her again and again, mounted upon the monies pallet, and having belike regard to the grave burden of his dignity and the girl's tender age and fearful of irking her for overmuch heaviness, bestrode not her breast, but set her upon his own and so a great while disported himself with her.’”

Oral Sex in Ancient Rome

All forms oral sex for the most part were also regarded as taboo. Roman culture prized machismo. It was considered humiliating and demeaning for a man to perform oral sex on a women because it demonstrated subservience and servility to a woman. Oral sex was tolerated between homosexual men and enjoyed by men when it was performed by courtesans but it was considered distasteful among married couples.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The satirist Martial relays that a man named Papylus, who was known as a fellator, had breath so bad that when he opened up a jar of expensive perfume to smell it the perfume turned to garum, a rotten fish sauce used in cooking. The idea that people who performed oral sex had “foul breath” was a common form of slander in the Roman period. Even the most distinguished orators would accuse their opponents of having bad breath and, thus, poor morals. As for poor Papylus, he was apparently doubly cursed, being blessed with a large nose and a large penis. Martial writes “Papylus, your nose and your dong are both so long that when your dong grows, your nose knows. ” Being well endowed, it seems, was not always a blessing. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 16, 2019]

Claudine Dauphin of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris wrote: The Apostolic Constitutions of the the Church Father (dated from A.D. 375 to 380) forbade all non-procreative genital acts, including anal sex and oral intercourse. The art displayed by prostitutes consisted precisely in making full use of sexual techniques which increased their clients' pleasure. Not surprisingly therefore, Lactantius (A.D. 240-320) condemned together sodomy, oral intercourse and prostitution.” [Source: “Prostitution in the Byzantine Holy Land” by Claudine Dauphin, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, Classics Ireland ,University College Dublin, Ireland, 1996 Volume 3 ~]

Irrumation in Ancient Rome

Irrumatio is a form of oral sex in which the man thrusts his penis into someone else's mouth — fucking the mouth so to speak — as opposed to fellatio where the penis is being actively orally stimulated by a fellator. Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton wrote in the notes of “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus”: “The tertia poena (third punishment) referred to in Epigram 12 is irrumation or coition with the mouth. The patient (fellator or sucker) provokes the orgasm by the manipulation of his (or her) lips and tongue on the agent's member. Galienus calls it lesbiari (Greek lesbiázein), as the Lesbian women were supposed to have been the introducers of this practice. Lampridius says: 'Libidinosus, ore quoque pollutus et constupratus fuit' (That lecherous man, whose mouth even is defiled and dishonest) and Minutius Felix: 'Qui medios viros lambunt, libidinoso ore inguinibus inhaerescunt' (They who lick men's middles, cleave to their inguina with lustful mouth). [Source: “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus” translation by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton, 1890, sacred-texts.com]


“In old Latin it was called offendere buccam, to offend the cheek. Suetonius calls the vice illudere ori — to sport with the mouth.Ausonius says that the Campanians were addicted to the practice, and calls it capitalis luxus — the debauchery of the head. Martial says: ‘O greetings raven, how is it thou art considered a sucker, though no mentule has ever entered thy mouth?’ He refers to the ancient belief that the raven ejected the semen in coition from its beak into the female. Aristotle refutes this belief.

Arnobius uses the expression stuprum oris — the defilement of the mouth. Other terms used are: to corrupt the mouth; to attack the head; to defy to one's face; not to spare the head; to split the mouth; to gain the heights; to strike higher; to compress the tongue; complacently lending the mouth; the labour of the mouth; to lick men's middles; to lick and to make silent. Suetonius relates that Parrhasius bequeathed to Tiberius a picture which he had painted, representing Atalanta kneeling before Meleager and caressing him with her mouth.[1]

“Martial writes:
I enjoyed a buxom lass all night with me,
Which none could overcome in venery.
Thousand ways tried, I asked that childish thing,
Which she did grant at the first motioning,
Blushing and laughing I a worse besought,
Which she most loose vouchsafed as quick as thought.
Yet she was pure, but if she deal with you
She'll not be so, and thou shalt pay dear too.
[Source: Fletcher's Martial]

“This picture Tiberius caused to be hung in his bedchamber. The Romans regarded irrumation as a far more shameful vice than sodomy. Martial, Petronius and other writers mention the latter with indifference, but Catullus in speaking of the abandoned profligacy of Gellius alludes to irrumation as an act of the greatest turpitude. Martial directs many epigrams against fellators, whose presence at the dinner-table was regarded by the other guests with consternation; a thing not to be surprised at when we recollect that the salute amongst the Romans was a kiss on the mouth. The Phoenicians used to redden their lips to imitate better the appearance of the vulva; on the other hand the Lesbians who were devoted to this practice whitened their lips as though with semen. “

Cunnilingus in Ancient Rome

Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton wrote in the notes of “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus”: “Cunnilinges — defined as causing “a woman to feel the venereal spasm by the play of the tongue on her clitoris and in her vagina” — was a taste much in vogue amongst the Greeks and Romans. Martial lashes it severely in several epigrams, that against Manneius being especially biting. [Source: “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus” translation by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton, 1890, sacred-texts.com]

“Manneius, the husband with his tongue, the adulterer with his mouth, is more polluted than the cheeks of the Suburan prostitutes. The obscene bawd, when she has seen him naked from a window in the Subura, closes her door against him and prefers to kiss his middle, rather than his face. But lately he used to wander in all the cavities of the coynte [with his tongue], and could tell with certainty and knowledge whether there was in the womb a boy or a girl. (Rejoice, ye coyntes! for now all is over.) He is not able to stiffen his swiving tongue, for, whilst he sticks glued in the teeming vulva, and hears the babes whimpering within, a filthy disease paralyses this gluttonous member; and now he can neither be pure nor impure. [The translator of Martial's Expurgatorius renders this passage, 'her course came on'; and states in his note to the epigram that Martial was probably ignorant of the fact that the menses cease during pregnancy. Our translator is strangely mistaken. With many women the menses do not cease altogether during pregnancy, and there is, besides, no good reason to suppose that Martial is alluding to the menses at all. About the second or third month of pregnancy a woman is frequently troubled with a discharge in the nature of leucorrhoea or 'whites', consequent upon her monthly courses ceasing, and this discharge is quite sufficient to infect a man with gonorrhoea or 'clap'.]

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“Again he says, 'Zoilus, an evil star has suddenly struck your tongue, whilst you were licking. Certes, Zoilus, you will futter now.' He also speaks of the foul breath of a coynte-licker, and in his epigram on Philaenis we read, 'She does not suck [men] — thinking this scarcely manly — but certainly devours the middles of girls. May the gods give thee sense, Philaenis, thou who imaginest it a manly thing to lick a coynte.' And he skits at Baeticus, a priest of Cybele, who, although castrated, eludes his goddess's commands by still using his tongue to fornicate with. To Gargilius he says, 'You lick, you do not fatter my girl, and you boast as though you were her gallant and a swiver. If I catch you, Gargilius, you will hold your tongue.' i.e. the luckless gallant would be irrumated by the poet. Of Linus he remarks, 'That mentule of Linus, lecherous to excess, and known to no few girls, ceases to stand. Tongue, beware!' His mentule beings no longer capable of active service, Linus's tongue would have to undertake its duties. Speaking of twin brothers, one of whom was a cunnilinge and the other a fellator, he gravely enquires whether this adds to or takes away from their resemblance to each other. Ausonius accuses Castor and Eunus of practising this vice and punningly compares the odour of the vulva to sardines and salgamas (salted roots and greens). He reproaches Eunus for licking his wife's parts during pregnancy, jocosely charging him with being in an undue hurry to teach his unborn children lessons of tongue (Eunus being a grammarian).

“According to Juvenal women were not addicted to exchanging this kind of caress with one another: 'Taedia does not lick Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla.' Juvenal's assertion may however be looked upon as a bit of special pleading required by the context, his Satire being devoted to lashing the vice of sodomy. In these matters the customs of ages gone by are repeated today, and vice versa. And it is well known that ladies of easy virtue of the present day look upon this peccadillo with a favourable eye; many of them keeping a 'companion', one of whose chief duties is to attend to this portion of her friend's daily 'toilet'.]

“The word labda (a sucker) is variously derived from the Latin labia and do, to give the lips; and from the Greek letter lambda, which, is the first letter in the word leíchein or lesbiázein, the Lesbians being noted for this erotic vagary. Ausonius says, 'When he puts his tongue [in her coynte] it is a lambda'- that is the conjunction of the tongue with the woman's parts forms the shape of the Greek letter {lambda}. In an epigram he writes:
‘Lais, Eros and Itus, Chiron, Eros and Itus again,
If you write the names and take the initial letters
They will make a word, and that word you're doing, Eunus.
What that word is and means, decency lets me not tell.’
The initial letters of the six Greek names form the word leíchei, he licks.”

Cunnilingus in the Salty Sea and Red Sea

Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton wrote in the notes of “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus”: ‘Suetonius speaks of the populace ridiculing Tiberius as 'an old buck licking the vulvas of goats'. Cicero also accuses Sextus Clodius of this action; and some epigrams in the Analecta of Brunck contain unmistakeable allusions to the subject, one in particular being very nearly tamed: ‘Avoid Alpheus' mouth, he loves Arethusa's bosom, And then goes and plunges into the salty sea.’ [Source: “Sportive Epigrams on Priapus” translation by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton, 1890, sacred-texts.com]

“The poet here draws upon the ambiguity of the words mouth, bosom (bay), plunge, salt sea, which may refer to the river Alpheus in Arcadia, to Arethusa, a spring in Sicily, and also to the mouth of a cunnilinge plunging into a woman's vulva. Galienus calls those who practise this debauchery, coprophages (dung-eaters). Ausonius calls Eunus an Opician because these practices were, according to Festus, most common amongst the Osci or Opici. Catullus compares cunnilinges to bucks on account of their foetid breath; and Martial mocks at the paleness of Charinus's complexion, which he sarcastically ascribes to his indulgence in this respect. Maleager has a distich upon Phavorinus (Huschlaus, Anaketa Critica), and Ammianus (Brunck, Analecta) has written an epigram, both of which appear to be directed against the vice. Suetonius (Illustrious Grammarians) speaks of Remmius Palaemon, who was addicted to this habit, being publicly rebuked by a young man who in the throng could not contrive to avoid one of his kisses; and Aristophanes says of Ariphrades in Knights: ‘Whoever does not execrate that man, Shall never from the same bowl drink with us.’


Many passages in the classics, both Greek and Roman, refer to the cunnilinges swallowing the menstrual and other secretions of women. Aristophanes frequently speaks of this. Ariphrades sods his tongue and stains his beard with disgusting moisture from the vulva. The same person imbibes the feminine secretion, 'And throwing himself on her he drank all her juice.' Galienus applies the appellation 'drinkers of menses' to cunnilinges; Juvenal speaks of Ravola's beard being all moist when rubbing against Rhodope's privities; and Seneca states that Mamercus Scaurus, the consul, 'swallowed the menses of his servant girls by the mouthful'. The same writer describes Natalis as 'that man with a tongue as malicious as it is impure, in whose mouth women eject their monthly Purgation.' In the Analecta of Brunck, Micarchus has an epigram against Demonax in which he says, 'Though living amongst us, you sleep in Carthage,' i.e. during the day he lives in Greece, but sleeps in Phoenicia, because he stains his mouth with the monthly flux, which is the colour of the purplish-red Phoenician dye.

“In Chorier's Aloisia Sigea, we find Gonsalvo de Cordova described as a great tongue-player (linguist). When Gonsalvo desired to apply his mouth to a woman's parts he used to say that he wanted to go to Liguria; and with a play upon words implying the idea of a humid vulva, that he was going to Phoenicia or to the Red Sea or to the Salt Lake--as to which expressions compare the salty sea of Alpheus and the salgamas of Ausonius and the 'mushrooms swimming in putrid brine' which Baeticus devours. As it was said of fellators (who sucked the male member) that they were Phoenicising because they followed the example set by the Phoenicians, so probably the same word was applied to cunnilinges from their swimming in a sea of Phoenician purple. Hesychius defines scylax (dog) as an erotic posture like that assumed by Phoenicians. The epithet excellently describes the action of a cunnilinge with regard to the posture assumed; dogs being notoriously addicted to licking a woman's parts.”

“Orpheus is supposed to have introduced the vice of sodomy upon the earth — In Ovid's Metamorphoses: ‘He also was the first adviser of the Thracian people to transfer their love to tender youths’ — presumably in consequence of the death of Eurydice, his wife, and his unsuccessful attempt to bring her to earth again from the infernal regions. But he paid dearly for his contempt of women. The Thracian dames whilst celebrating their bacchanal rites tore him to pieces. François Noël, however, states that Laius, father of Oedipus, was the first to make this vice known on earth. In imitation of Jupiter with Ganymede, he used Chrysippus, the son of Pelops, as a catamite; an example which speedily found many followers.

Amongst famous sodomists of antiquity may be mentioned: Jupiter with Ganymede; Phoebus with Hyacinthus; Hercules with Hylas; Orestes with Pylades; Achilles with Patrodes, and also with Bryseis; Theseus with Pirithous; Pisistratus with Charmus; Demosthenes with Cnosion; Gracchus with Cornelia; Pompeius with Julia; Brutus with Portia; the Bithynian king Nicomedes with Caesar.
The Gauls to Caesar yield, Caesar to Nicomede,
Lo! Caesar triumphs for his glorious deed,
But Caesar's conqueror gains no victor's meed. [Source: L. Pomponius]

“An account of famous sodomists in history is given in the privately printed volumes of 'Pisanus Fraxi', the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877), the Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (1879) and the Catena Librorum Tacendorum (1885), the lists there presented including such names as Alexander of Macedon, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henri III of France, Peter the Great, &c. Those interested in the subject are referred to the Thesaurus Eroticus Linguae Latinae, under articles 'Aversa Venus' and 'Paedicare', and will find the following brochures worthy of reading: 'Un Point Curieux des Moeurs Privées de la Grèce' (an essay by M. Octave Delepierre on sodomy amongst the ancients), Gay, Paris, 1861, and Socrates sanctus Paiderastes, by Gesner (translated into French under the title of Socrate et l'amour Grec, by Alcide Bonneau), Liseux, Paris, 1877.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated November 2024


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