CHAPTER IIIROMANS

In the first century B.C. the licentiousness of the Roman matron was already a subject for grim condemnation. Horace, who was virtually the Poet Laureate of the Augustan Age, laments the degeneration of morality. The temples are abandoned, he bewails, and lie in ruins. The sacred marriage vows are broken. The uprightness of the old domestic life is gone. Our own generation is plunging headlong into destruction. Against the women in particular he inveighs as follows:

The matron, when bidden, arises and goes forth publicly, not without the knowledge of her husband, whether some pedlar invites her, or the captain of a Spanish sailing vessel, who buys her shame at a high price.

A notorious, unsavory district in ancient Rome was known as the Subura. It was a valley lying between the Esquiline and the Viminal Hills of the city. This area was clamorous with brothels, with the dregs of Romans, foreigners, slavers, pimps, and harlots. Loads of marble passed through the narrow alleys. The lanes were cluttered with mules, dogs, goats, and sheep.

There were also shops of various kinds, practically nothing but openings in the wall spaces, where provisions were sold and various delicacies. Barbers and tailors pliedtheir occupations, while minor trades, according to epigraphical evidence, were also conducted here. Julius Caesar himself resided in the Subura. There was also a Jewish synagogue in this district. The Subura is mentioned frequently in Roman literature, in a derogatory and contemptuous sense, particularly by the poets Juvenal, Persius, and Martial.

In the Subura all kinds of amatory contrivances, concoctions and aids were offered to an eager clientele: amulets, incantations, spells, philtres, drugs; and a flourishing market in these commodities prevailed, at first furtively and warily: then with more determined and acknowledged public awareness.

The Roman satirist Juvenal, who dates in the first century A.D., mentions potions and philtres used by women; frequently, however, for purposes of torture or poisoning their husbands. Again, describing the immoralities and licentiousness of the frantic Roman matrons of his own days, Juvenal thunders:

From one person she secures magic incantations. From another, she buys Thessalian love-potions to destroy her husband’s mind.

The Roman poet Lucan produced an epic poem entitledPharsalia. Book 6 contains a vivid, elaborate description of magic scenes and practices. The capacities of the witch are enumerated with a feeling of mounting horror. Her skills come in for horrendous comment: brewing concoctions for malefic purposes: pronouncing incantations that inspire strange passions by virtue of their goetic potency. These spells, the poet awesomely declares, are more effective than even love goblets.

The implication is that love philtres were manifestly in common use for amatory purposes and in common knowledge.

Certain deities were anciently associated with particular sexual practices. Volupia, an old Roman goddess mentioned by St. Augustine, encouraged voluptuous pleasures. Strenia bestowed vigor on the male. Stimula aroused the erotic desires of husbands.

The practice of amatory aids, among the Romans, reached as far as the Imperial court. The Emperor Julian, known as the Apostate, for instance, mentions, in a letter to his friend Callixenes, mandrake as a love agent.

In antiquity, both Greek and Roman, Medea is the arch sorceress, the supreme exemplar of witchcraft, the most powerful adept in the Black Arts of Colchis.

Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and dramatist, who was also the tutor of the Roman Emperor Nero, is the author of a drama entitledMedea, in which he depicts the protagonist herself in frenzied action.

Medea’s nurse appears upon the scene, speaking of her mistress.

She describes Medea gathering potent herbs with her magic sickle, by the light of the moon. Medea sprinkles the herbs with venom extracted from serpents. Into this compound she thrusts the entrails and organs of unclean birds: the heart of the screech owl, vampire’s vitals, torn from the living flesh. Over the entire foul brew she murmurs her magic incantations, concocting her philtres.

In spite of the frenzied commerce in philtres and other means of stimulation, both in ancient and in modern times, Ovid himself, the Roman poet who produced the superlative amatory guides in poetic form, asserts categorically thatinvocations and formulas, enchantments and sorcery, secretive recipes and exotic philtres are ultimately of no avail in their purpose. Even witches and enchantresses such as Medea and Circe, for all their skill in the goetic arts, could not circumvent man’s own personal perversities, or prevent Jason, for instance, or Ulysses, from amatory unfaithfulness.

In the contest of love, then, concludes the poet, philtres achieve nothing but imbalanced minds, wrecked health, and, sometimes, death itself.

Love philtres were not infrequently fatal in their effects. Suchveneficia amatoriawere forbidden by imperial decree. But there were furtive ways of circumventing these prohibitions.

Ingredients, apart from their poisonous nature, might be nauseating and repulsive to administer. As an instance, the milk of an ass mixed with the blood of a bat was considered a genesiac encouragement. The ingredients, again, might induce sickness, madness, and even death.

Among known ingredients that went to form the final, putatively effective brew were herbs, organs of birds, insects, blood, and genitalia.

With the ages, the range of ingredients and recipes was extended. In Mediterranean regions old traditional amatory philtres remained in folk use. In other areas, particularly in the South American continent, the natives used concoctions that were often virtual poisons. For they ceaselessly ransacked the forests and jungles for amatory aids.

Among the Romans, the sepia octopus had a wide reputation for its amatory potential. It is mentioned by the Roman comedy writer Plautus. In a scene depicting an exhausted elder, an octopus is bought by him at the market, as a rejuvenating aid.

In hisDe Re Coquinaria, a cookery book produced byApicius, a Roman of the first century A.D., there are many recipes for the preparation of gourmet dishes as well as less luxurious fare: fish and game, meats, vegetables, fruit, dessert, cereals.

Among the herbs that Apicius includes as ingredients in stews, roasts, pottages, soups, and sauces, there are many that had and still have reputedly, an amatory reaction, as: cumin and dill, aniseed, bay-berry, celery-seed, capers and caraway, sesame, mustard, shallots, nard, thyme, ginger and musk, wormwood, basil, parsley, origanum, pennyroyal, rocket, safflower, rue-berry, flowers of mallow, rue-seed, lovage, hyssop and garlic and capers.

Many vegetables, too, that are credited with genesiac virtue are included in Apicius’ book, as: artichokes and beans, asparagus, turnips, truffles, parsnips and leeks, beets and bryony, cabbage, chicory, cucumbers, fenugreek, radishes, and lettuce.

Apicius’ culinary directions and preparations include a variety of fish that had, in Rome times and also in later ages, provocative amatory properties. Among such piscatory agents are: Grilled red mullet, young tunny, sea-bream, murena, horse-mackerel, gold-bream. And, among sea food: octopus and mussels, sea-urchin, oysters, cuttlefish, squid, sea-crayfish, electric ray.

In some of the fragments and extant verses of the Roman philosopher Seneca, there are illustrations of the erotic theme. In one poem the partly obliterated verses run:

Love, my darling, and be loved in turn always,So that at no instant may our mutual love cease ...From sunrise to sunset,And may the Evening Star gazeupon our loveAnd the Morning Star too.

Love, my darling, and be loved in turn always,

So that at no instant may our mutual love cease ...

From sunrise to sunset,

And may the Evening Star gaze

upon our love

And the Morning Star too.

An instance of abnormal lust also occurs:

Fortunate is she who caresses your neck.Fortunate is the girl who presses close to you, bodyTo body,And crushes her tongue against your soft lips.

Fortunate is she who caresses your neck.

Fortunate is the girl who presses close to you, body

To body,

And crushes her tongue against your soft lips.

Another fragment inveighs against a wealthy, beautiful, noble matron, lustful and incestuous.

In ancient Italy the cult of Liber or Bacchus was so widespread that festivals held in his honor and called Liberalia were continued for an entire month. During this period the phallus, carried in procession exultantly, to the accompaniment of lewd songs, lascivious talk, and obscene gestures, was decked with garlands, while erotic acts in their final consummation were freely performed in public view, as reverential testimony to the potency of the deity so symbolized.

The cult of Bacchus and of his symbol the phallus was introduced among the Romans by the priests of Cybele, the Mighty Mother of the Gods, who were known as Corybantes. Clement of Alexandria, the Church Father, also calls these priests Cabiri.

In the Imperial Age of Rome, a certain distinguished poet, Verginius Rufus, an elderly friend of Pliny the Younger, was known for his erotic poems. These, however, are no longer extant.

In Imperial Rome, the professors of grammar and of rhetoric, two of the basic subjects taught to young Romans, used many Greek and Roman authors in bowdlerized versions. In the case of the lyric poets in particular, the suggestive and erotic elements were minimized or excised.

During the Imperial Age of Rome, writers appeared at intervals who were cumulatively known asscriptores erotici—writers on love themes. Their tales, elaborately expanded and decked out with circumstantial details, were concerned with the amatory adventures of mythological personalities, among them, for instance, Acontius and Cydippe.

The Roman epigrammatist Martial (c. 40 A.D.–c. 104) claimed that, despite his obscene verses, his own personal life was unstained. He produced a large body of epigrams and occasional poems dealing, to a very considerable extent, with erotic and sexual topics: perversions, sodomy and incest, adultery and pederasty. His pieces mention actual contemporary figures, and thus present a realistic and intimate picture of Roman salacious aberrations at all levels of society, as well as the erotic degeneration of the age.

The Emperor Nero, with all his inhuman and vicious traits and bloody crimes, was a versatile poet. He was the author of sportive and also erotic pieces, none of which, however, are now extant.

Among the rites practiced by the Romans with respect to the cult of Priapus, there was the custom of the bride who, seated before the phallic image, made at least a symbolic contact, and most commonly an actual one, with a view to encourage later marital fecundity. It was at the same time an apotropaic measure as well. Married women were included in this ritual, and participated in similar practices. These rites, described in violently condemnatory terms, are mentioned by St. Augustine and Lactantius and Arnobius, who take occasion to point out the Roman pagan abominations in sexual matters.

With respect to the cult of Bacchus, the god himself had in his service women as priestesses. In the fanes dedicatedto the phallic god, these priestesses celebrated nocturnal mystic rites. This practice is described in some detail by Petronius, the author of the remarkable Roman picaresque novel entitled theSatyricon:

We had resolv’d to keep out of the broad streets, and accordingly took our walk thro’ that quarter of the city where we were likely to meet least company; when in a narrow winding lane that had not passage thro’, we saw somewhat before us, two comely matron-like women, and followed them at a distance to a chappel, which they entred, whence we heard an odd humming kind of noise, as if it came from the hollow of a cave: Curiosity also made us go in after them, where we saw a number of women, as mad as they had been sacrificing to Bacchus, and each of them an amulet, the ensign of Bacchus, in her hand. More than that we could not get to see; for they no sooner perceived us, that they set up such a shout, that the roof of the temple shook agen, and withal endeavored to lay hands on us; but we scamper’d and made what haste we could to the inn.

Nor had we sooner stuff’d our selves with the supper Gito had got for us, when a more than ordinary bounce at the door, put us into another fright; and when we, pale as death, ask’d who was there, ’twas answered, “Open the door and you’ll see.” While we were yet talking, the bolt drop’d off, and the door flew open, on which, a woman with her head muffl’d came in upon us, but the same who a little before had stood by the country-man in the market: “And what,” said she, “do you think to put a trick upon me? I am Quartilla’s maid, whose sacred recess you so lately disturb’d: she is at the inn-gate, and desires to speak with ye: not that she either taxes your inadvertency, or has a mind to so resent it, butrather wonders, what gods brought such civil gentlemen into her quarters.”

We were silent as yet, and gave her the hearing, but inclin’d to neither part of what she had said, when in came Quartilla her self, attended with a young girl, and sitting down by me, fell a weeping: nor here also did we offer a word, but stood expecting what those tears at command meant. At last when the showre had emptied it self, she disdainfully turn’d up her hood, and clinching her fingers together, till the joints were ready to crack, “What impudence,” said she, “is this? or where learnt ye those shamms, and that sleight of hand ye have so lately been beholding to? By my faith, young-men, I am sorry for ye; for no one beheld what was unlawful for him to see, and went off unpunisht: and verily our part of the town has so many deities, you’ll sooner find a god than a man in’t: And that you may not think I came hither to be revenged on ye, I am more concern’d for your youth, than the injury ye have done me: for unawares, as I yet think, ye have committed an unexpiable abomination.”

Among the Romans the symbol of satisfied and contented love was the myrtle branch, offered in sacrifice, along with milk and honey, to the obscene deity Priapus.

As a fetish, an apotropaic periapt, protective against all kinds of mishaps, the Romans made use of an amulet in the form of a fascinum. It was fashioned of various materials, often in the shape of a phallic symbol in high relief, on a plaque or medallion. The object was hung round children’s necks, on garden walls, on doors, or chariots, and on public buildings.

The Roman historian Julian Capitolinus, in his biographyof the Emperor Pertinax, mentions glass vessels, phallic-shaped, that were used by the Romans for drinking. These vessels were known as phallovitroboli.

The ithyphallic concept as the source of creation was so deeply ingrained in the Roman consciousness, that they attached the ithyphallic device on all manner of objects: stones, seals, rings, medals, and lamps. As an extension of this concept, the Romans engraved on their drinking vessels phallic designs, as well as lewd scenes that would create in the drinker violent erotic provocations.

Sextus Pompeius Festus was a Roman lexicographer of the second century A.D., who describes a shrine in Rome dedicated to the obscene deities Mutunus and Tutunus. In this religious cult the suppliants were women. With head veiled, they came to offer sacrifice to the phallic powers.

The lewd rites of the phallic god Bacchus were celebrated by the Romans in a sacred wood near the River Tiber. Originally open to women only, the ceremonies were later on extended to men also, particularly to young men not over twenty years of age. At the nocturnal rituals there was clashing of cymbals, beating of drums. After an interval of excessive wine drinking, there ensued wild scenes of sexual promiscuity and perversions unlimited. Those initiates who seemed to have any scruples were sacrificed, and their bodies were thrown into the depths of a cavern. Men and women went frantic, shrieking their exultation to the deity, performing abandoned dance sequences. Sinister plots and furtive machinations also formed part of the aftermath of these tenebrous rites, malefic in their intentions, often fatal in their effects.

In addition to Priapus as the supreme generative deity, the Romans were dedicated to a number of other divinitiesendowed with analogous properties. Venus herself was worshipped at Rome in four temples.

A late Latin poem, entitled Pervigilium Veneris,The Vigil of Venus, the date and authorship of which are unknown, is dedicated to Venus and her spring festival. The poem itself is full of vernal descriptions. The theme is a paean to erotic passion. Its amatory refrain, the sense of which pervades the entire poem, runs:

Cras amet qui numquam amavit,Quique amavit cras amet.He who has never loved will love tomorrow.And he who has loved will love tomorrow.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit,Quique amavit cras amet.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit,

Quique amavit cras amet.

He who has never loved will love tomorrow.And he who has loved will love tomorrow.

He who has never loved will love tomorrow.

And he who has loved will love tomorrow.

A still older deity was Flora, associated with the blossoming of plants and hence with cosmic generation. At her festival, held during the month of April, lewd farces were performed, all implicitly generative and genesiac in intent.

One of the most mysterious and libidinous cults in Rome was that of the Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, to which women only had access. An annual ceremonial was held in her honor, when a sow was sacrificed to her.

Juvenal, the satiric poet, describes the excesses of the initiates. Frenzied with intoxication, overwhelmed with deafening and clamorous music, these women practiced the most salacious dances. In their lubricity they were athirst for erotic conflict, and were even willing, adds the poet, to submit to bestial caresses.

Among the Roman deities associated with marriage rites and connubial consummations were: Stimula, who aroused the male erotic urges: Strenia, who furnished vigor: Virginiensis, who detached the bride’s zona or girdle: Volupia, who excited voluptuous sensations: Iugatinus, who unitedthe marital partners. Also Domiducus, who conducted the bride to her new home: Munturnae, who presided over her settlement in her new position: and, more intimately involved in the physiological performance, Liber and Libera, Pertunda, Prema, and Subigus.

The Romans represented the male and female genitalia in the shapes of their wheaten-flour loaves. The epigrammatist Martial, in Book 9, 2, alludes to this priapic custom:

Illa siligineis pinguescit adultera cunnis.

The Roman poet Ovid (32 B.C.–17 A.D.) presents the ancient witch Medea in action. She invokes aid in concocting a potion to refurbish old age and induce youthful vigor:

Ye spells and arts that the wise men use; and thou, O Earth, who dost provide the wise men with thy potent herbs; ye breezes and winds, ye mountains and streams and pools; all ye gods of the groves, all ye gods of the night; be with me now. With your help I stir up the calm seas by my spell; I break the jaws of serpents with my incantations. I bid ghosts to come forth from their tombs. Now I have need of juices by whose aid old age may be renewed and may turn back to the bloom of youth and regain its earthly years.

The Roman elegiac poet Tibullus (c. 48 B.C.–19 B.C.) addresses Delia, the girl who scorned him. He has employed magic means to regain her love:

Thrice I with Sulphur purified you round,And thrice the Rite, with Songs th’Enchantress bound:The Cake, by me thrice sprinkled, put to flightThe death-denouncing Phantoms of the Night,And I next have, in linen Garb array’d,In silent Night, nine Times to Trivia pray’d.

Thrice I with Sulphur purified you round,

And thrice the Rite, with Songs th’Enchantress bound:

The Cake, by me thrice sprinkled, put to flight

The death-denouncing Phantoms of the Night,

And I next have, in linen Garb array’d,

In silent Night, nine Times to Trivia pray’d.

In one of the Eclogues of the Roman poet Nemesianus, who flourished in the third century A.D., there is a dialogue between two shepherds who discuss their amatory affairs and love spells:

Mopsus: What does it benefit me that the mother of rustic Amyntas has purified me thrice with fillets, thrice with a sacred bough, thrice with the vapour of frankincense, burning the crackling laurels with live sulphur, and pours the ashes out into the stream with averted face, when thus wretched I am every way inflamed for Meroë?

Lycidas: These same things the many-colored threads have done for me, and Mycale has carried round me a thousand unknown herbs. She has chanted the charm, by which the moon swells, by which the snake is burst, the rocks run and standing corn removes, and a tree is plucked up. Lo! My handsome Iollas is nevertheless more, is more to me.

Horace, the Roman poet (65 B.C.–8 B.C.) depicts, in hisSatires, a scene in which a love philtre is prepared.

As thus the boy in wild distressBewail’d, of bulla stripp’d and dress,So fair, that ruthless breasts of ThraceHad melted to behold his face,Canidia, with dishevell’d hairAnd short crisp vipers coiling there,Beside a fire of Colchos stands,And her attendant hag commandsTo feed the flames with fig-trees tornFrom dead men’s sepulchres forlorn,With dismal cypress, eggs rubb’d o’erWith filthy toads’ unvenom’d gore,With screech-owl’s plumes, and herbs of bane,From far Iolchos fetch’d and Spain,And fleshless bones by beldam witchSnatch’d from the jaws of famish’d bitch.And Sagana, the while, with gownTucked to the knees, stalks up and down,Sprinkling in room and hall and stairHer magic hell-drops, with her hairBristling on end, like furious boar,Or some sea-urchins wash’d on shore;Whilst Veia, by remorse unstay’d,Groans at her toil, as she with spadeThat flags not digs a pit, whereinThe boy imbedded to his chin,With nothing seen save head and throat,Like those who in the water float,Shall dainties see before him set,A maddening appetite to whet,Then snatch’d away before his eyes,Till famish’d in despair he dies;That when his glazing eyeballs shouldHave closed on the untasted food,His sapless marrow and dry spleenMay drug a philtre-draught obscene.Nor were these all the hideous crew,But Ariminian Folia, too,Who with unsatiate lewdness swells,And drags by her Thessalian spellsThe moon and stars down from the sky,Ease-loving Naples’ vows, was by;And every hamlet round aboutDeclares she was, beyond a doubt.Now forth the fierce Canidia sprang,And still she gnawed with rotten fangHer long sharp unpared thumb-nail. WhatThen said she? Yea, what said she not?“O Night and Dian, who with trueAnd friendly eyes my purpose view,And guardian silence keep, whilst IMy secret orgies safely ply,Assist me now, now on my foesWith all your wrath celestial close!Whilst, stretch’d in soothing sleep, amidTheir forests grim the beasts lie hid,May all Suburra’s mongrels barkAt yon old wretch, who through the darkDoth to his lewd encounters crawl,And on him draw the jeers of all!He’s with an ointment smear’d, that isMy masterpiece. But what is this?Why, why should poisons brew’d by meLess potent than Medea’s be,By which, for love betray’d, beguiled,On mighty Creon’s haughty childShe wreaked her vengeance sure and swift,And vanish’d, when the robe, her gift,In deadliest venom steep’d and dyed,Swept off in flames the new-made bride?No herb there is, nor root in spotHowever wild, that I have not;Yet every common harlot’s bedSeems with some rare Nepenthe spread,For there he lives in swinish drowse,Of me oblivious, and his vows!He is, aha! protected wellBy some more skilful witch’s spell!But, Varus, thou (doom’d soon to knowThe rack of many a pain and woe!)By potions never used beforeShalt to my feet be brought once more.And ’tis no Marsian charm shall beThe spell that brings thee back to me!A draught I’ll brew more strong, more sure,Thy wandering appetite to cure;And sooner ’neath the sea the skyShall sink, and earth upon them lie,Than thou not burn with fierce desireFor me, like pitch in sooty fire!”On this the boy by gentle tonesNo more essay’d to move the crones,But wildly forth with frenzied tongueThese curses Thyestean flung.“Your sorceries, and spells, and charmsTo man may compass deadly harms,But heaven’s great law of Wrong and RightWill never bend before their might.My curse shall haunt you, and my hateNo victim’s blood shall expiate.But when at your behests I die,Like the Fury of the Night will IFrom Hades come, a phantom sprite—Such is the Manes’ awful might.”

As thus the boy in wild distress

Bewail’d, of bulla stripp’d and dress,

So fair, that ruthless breasts of Thrace

Had melted to behold his face,

Canidia, with dishevell’d hair

And short crisp vipers coiling there,

Beside a fire of Colchos stands,

And her attendant hag commands

To feed the flames with fig-trees torn

From dead men’s sepulchres forlorn,

With dismal cypress, eggs rubb’d o’er

With filthy toads’ unvenom’d gore,

With screech-owl’s plumes, and herbs of bane,

From far Iolchos fetch’d and Spain,

And fleshless bones by beldam witch

Snatch’d from the jaws of famish’d bitch.

And Sagana, the while, with gown

Tucked to the knees, stalks up and down,

Sprinkling in room and hall and stair

Her magic hell-drops, with her hair

Bristling on end, like furious boar,

Or some sea-urchins wash’d on shore;

Whilst Veia, by remorse unstay’d,

Groans at her toil, as she with spade

That flags not digs a pit, wherein

The boy imbedded to his chin,

With nothing seen save head and throat,

Like those who in the water float,

Shall dainties see before him set,

A maddening appetite to whet,

Then snatch’d away before his eyes,

Till famish’d in despair he dies;

That when his glazing eyeballs should

Have closed on the untasted food,

His sapless marrow and dry spleen

May drug a philtre-draught obscene.

Nor were these all the hideous crew,

But Ariminian Folia, too,

Who with unsatiate lewdness swells,

And drags by her Thessalian spells

The moon and stars down from the sky,

Ease-loving Naples’ vows, was by;

And every hamlet round about

Declares she was, beyond a doubt.

Now forth the fierce Canidia sprang,

And still she gnawed with rotten fang

Her long sharp unpared thumb-nail. What

Then said she? Yea, what said she not?

“O Night and Dian, who with true

And friendly eyes my purpose view,

And guardian silence keep, whilst I

My secret orgies safely ply,

Assist me now, now on my foes

With all your wrath celestial close!

Whilst, stretch’d in soothing sleep, amid

Their forests grim the beasts lie hid,

May all Suburra’s mongrels bark

At yon old wretch, who through the dark

Doth to his lewd encounters crawl,

And on him draw the jeers of all!

He’s with an ointment smear’d, that is

My masterpiece. But what is this?

Why, why should poisons brew’d by me

Less potent than Medea’s be,

By which, for love betray’d, beguiled,

On mighty Creon’s haughty child

She wreaked her vengeance sure and swift,

And vanish’d, when the robe, her gift,

In deadliest venom steep’d and dyed,

Swept off in flames the new-made bride?

No herb there is, nor root in spot

However wild, that I have not;

Yet every common harlot’s bed

Seems with some rare Nepenthe spread,

For there he lives in swinish drowse,

Of me oblivious, and his vows!

He is, aha! protected well

By some more skilful witch’s spell!

But, Varus, thou (doom’d soon to know

The rack of many a pain and woe!)

By potions never used before

Shalt to my feet be brought once more.

And ’tis no Marsian charm shall be

The spell that brings thee back to me!

A draught I’ll brew more strong, more sure,

Thy wandering appetite to cure;

And sooner ’neath the sea the sky

Shall sink, and earth upon them lie,

Than thou not burn with fierce desire

For me, like pitch in sooty fire!”

On this the boy by gentle tonesNo more essay’d to move the crones,But wildly forth with frenzied tongueThese curses Thyestean flung.“Your sorceries, and spells, and charmsTo man may compass deadly harms,But heaven’s great law of Wrong and RightWill never bend before their might.My curse shall haunt you, and my hateNo victim’s blood shall expiate.But when at your behests I die,Like the Fury of the Night will IFrom Hades come, a phantom sprite—Such is the Manes’ awful might.”

On this the boy by gentle tones

No more essay’d to move the crones,

But wildly forth with frenzied tongue

These curses Thyestean flung.

“Your sorceries, and spells, and charms

To man may compass deadly harms,

But heaven’s great law of Wrong and Right

Will never bend before their might.

My curse shall haunt you, and my hate

No victim’s blood shall expiate.

But when at your behests I die,

Like the Fury of the Night will I

From Hades come, a phantom sprite—

Such is the Manes’ awful might.”

The Roman poet Vergil (70 B.C.–19 B.C.) depicts, in one of his pastoral Eclogues, a love episode that involves magic rites for the purpose of winning the love of Daphnis:

Scarce had night’s cold shade parted from the sky, just at the time that the dew on the tender grass is sweetest to the cattle, when leaning on his smooth olive wand Damon thus began:

Rise, Lucifer, and usher in the sky, the genial sky, while I, deluded by a bridegroom’s unworthy passion for my Nisa, make my complaint, and turning myself to the gods, little as their witness has stood me in stead, address them nevertheless, a dying man, at this very last hour. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

Maenalus it is whose forests are ever tuneful, and his pines ever vocal; he is ever listening to the loves of shepherds, and to Pan, the first who would not have the reeds left unemployed. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

Mopsus has Nisa given him; what may not we lovers expect to see? Matches will be made by this between griffins and horses, and in the age to come hounds will accompany timid does to their draught. Mopsus, cut fresh brands for to-night; it is to you they are bringing home a wife. Fling about nuts as a bridegroom should; it is for you that Hesperus is leaving his rest on Oeta. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

O worthy mate of a worthy lord! There as you look down on all the world, and are disgusted at my pipe and my goats, and my shaggy brow, and this beard that I let grow, and do not believe that any god cares aught for the things of men. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

It was in our enclosure I saw you gathering apples with the dew on them. I myself showed you the way, in company with my mother—my twelfth year had just bidden me enter on it. I could just reach from the ground to the boughs that snapped so easily. What a sight! what ruin to me! what a fatal frenzy swept me away! Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

Now know I what love is; it is among savage rocks that he is produced by Tmarus or Rhodope, or the Garamantes at earth’s end; no child of lineage or blood like ours. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

Love, the cruel one, taught the mother to embrue her hands in her children’s blood; hard too was thy heart, mother. Was the mother’s heart harder, or the boy god’s malice more wanton? Wanton was the boy god’s malice; hard too thy heart, mother. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

Aye, now let the wolf even run away from the sheep; let golden apples grow out of the tough heart of oak; let narcissus blossom on the alder; let the tamarisk’s bark sweat rich drops of amber; rivalry let there be between swans and screech-owls; let Tityrus become Orpheus—Orpheus in the woodland, Arion among the dolphins. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus.

Nay, let all be changed to the deep sea. Farewell, ye woods! Headlong from the airy mountain’s watchtower I will plunge into the waves; let this come to her as the last gift of the dying. Cease, my pipe, cease at length the song of Maenalus.

Thus far Damon; for the reply of Alphesiboeus, do ye recite it, Pierian maids; it is not for all of us to have command of all.

Bring out water and bind the altars here with a soft woolen fillet, and burn twigs full of sap and male frankincense, that I may try the effect of magic rites in turning my husband’s mind from its soberness; there is nothing but charms wanting here. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

Charms have power even to draw the moon down from heaven; by charms Circe transformed the companions of Ulysses; the cold snake as he lies in the fields is burst asunder by chanting charms. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

These three threads distinct with three colours I wind round the first, and thrice draw the image round the altar thus; heaven delights in an uneven number. Twine in three knots, Amaryllis, the three colours; twine them, Amaryllis, do, and say, ‘I am twining the bonds of Love.’ Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

Just as this clay is hardened, and this wax melted, by one and the same fire, so may my love act doubly on Daphnis. Crumble the salt cake, and kindle the crackling bay leaves with bitumen. Daphnis, the wretch, is setting me on fire; I am setting this bay on fire about Daphnis. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

May such be Daphnis’ passion, like a heifer’s, when, weary of looking for her mate through groves and tall forests, she throws herself down by a stream of water on the green sedge, all undone, and forgets to rise and make way for the fargone night—may such be his enthralling passion, nor let me have a mind to relieve it. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

These cast-off relics that faithless one left me days ago, precious pledges for himself, them I now entrust to thee, Earth, burying them even on the threshold; they are bound as pledges to giveme back Daphnis. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

These plants and these poisons culled from Pontus I had from Moeris’ own hand. They grow in plenty at Pontus. By the strength of these often I have seen Moeris turn to a wolf and plunge into the forest, often call up spirits from the bottom of the tomb, and remove standing crops from one field to another. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

Carry the embers out of doors, Amaryllis, and fling them into the running stream over your head, and do not look behind you. This shall be my device against Daphnis. As for gods or charms, he cares for none of them. Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis.

Look, look! the flickering flame has caught the altar of its own accord, shot up from the embers, before I have had time to take them up, all of themselves. Good luck, I trust! Can I trust myself? Or is it that lovers make their own dreams? Stop, he is coming from town; stop now, charms, my Daphnis!

A renewal of vigor by magic means is described in Ovid’sMetamorphoses. The scene involves the witch Medea, her lover Jason, and Jason’s aged father, Aeson:

Unaccompanied, she stepped uncertainly through the still silence of midnight. Deep slumber had relaxed men and birds and wild beasts. Without a sound, the hedges, the motionless branches lay still. The dewy air was still. Lonely, the stars glimmered. Thrice extending her arms, she turned toward them.Thrice, taking some water, she copiously bedewed her locks. Thrice she uttered howls from her lips. Then, on bent knee, touching the hard ground, she said:

“O night, most propitious for mysteries, and you, golden stars, that, along with the moon, follow the fiery day, and you, triple Hecate, who, aware of our undertaking come forth to help in incantation and magic art, and you, Earth, who teach magicians the potency of herbs, and you, zephyrs and winds and hills and streams and lakes, and all you gods of the groves, be my aid. By your aid, when I so willed, the streams returned to their springs to the astonishment of the river banks, and by your aid I stay the upturned waters and upheave the stagnant straits by spells, and I drive away the clouds and bring them back, and banish and summon the winds and break the jaws of snakes with my words and spells, and move natural rocks and trees uprooted from the ground and forests and I bid the mountains tremble and the ground rumble, and the spirits of the dead arise from the tomb. You also, O Moon, I draw down, and Helios’ chariot too pales at my incantation. The Dawn grows pale with my poisons. All of you have quenched the flames of the oxen for me and pressed their necks, reluctant for the task, under the crooked plough. You brought wars upon the serpent-born warriors and sleep upon the grim guardian.

Now there is need of juices whereby old age revived may bloom once more, and regain its former years. And you deities will grant this request—for not in vain is the chariot at hand, drawn by winged dragons.”

There was the chariot, sent from high heaven. No sooner had she mounted and soothed the frenzied necks of the dragons and shaken the reins lightly with her hands than she was whisked off aloft, and beheld the herbs growing on Mount Ossa and lofty Pelion and Othrys and Pindus and Olympus greater than Pindus. She plucked out suitable herbs by the root, and some she cut away with the curved blade of a bronze sickle. The herbs that grew thick on the banks of the Apidanus caught her fancy too and those on the banks of the Amphrysus. Nor were you overlooked, Enipeus: and the Peneus and the waters of the Spercheus contributed their quota, and the reedy banks of the Boebeis. Medea gathered too the sturdy grasses in Euboean Anthedon. And now when the ninth day had seen her traversing all the fields in her winged-dragon chariot, she returned.

As she advanced, she halted at the threshold and the gate, and stood under the sky. And she shunned contacts with men: and set up two altars of turf, on the right of Hecate, on the left of Youth. After she had wreathed them with vervain and wild foliage, close by she made a sanctuary by means of two ditches, and pierced the throat of a black ram with the sacrificial knife, and soaked the wide ditches in the blood.

Then she poured over it a beaker of flowing wine and a bronze beaker of warm milk and at the same time murmured words over it, and called upon the divinities of the earth, and begged the King of the Lower Regions and his stolen wife not to hasten to rob the limbs of the aged soul.

When she had propitiated them with prayer and many a chant, she bade that the exhausted body of Aeson be carried out of doors, and on the strewn herbs she extended the lifeless shape, relaxed by incantationin deep slumber. She bade Aeson’s son stand clear away, and the attendants too, and she admonished them to withdraw their profane sight from the mysteries. So bidden, they scattered in different directions. With disheveled hair, like a Bacchante, Medea encircled the blazing altars. She dipped finely split torches in the dark pool of gore, and lighted the bloody brands on the two altars. Thrice she encircled the aged body with fire, thrice with water, thrice with sulphur.

Meanwhile the potent drug boiled in the bronze kettle and leapt and whitened in the swelling froth. She threw in roots cut in Thessalian valley and seeds and blossoms and pungent spices. She added pebbles secured from the remote East and sands washed by the refluent Ocean stream. She added too the frost caught in the full moon and the baleful wings of a screech-owl together with the flesh itself, and the entrails of a werewolf wont to change its animal form into a man. Nor was there lacking the scaly skin of a water-serpent, the liver of a living stag. In addition, she threw in the head of a crow nine centuries old. By these and a thousand other unspeakable means she planned to delay the destined function of Tartarus. With a dry twig of long softened olive she stirred all the ingredients together, turning them over from top to bottom.

Behold now the old twig stirring in the boiling kettle first turned green, and presently put forth leaves, and suddenly became loaded with heavy olives. But wherever the fire belched out foam from the hollow kettle and the drops fell hot on the ground, the soil grew fresh, and flowers and soft grass sprang up.

As soon as she beheld this sight, with drawn sword Medea pierced the aged man’s throat and,allowing the old blood to exude, filled the spot with juices. After Aeson had drunk them, either with his lips or through his wound, his beard and hair, shedding their greyness, quickly assumed a dark color. The emaciation vanished, and the pallor and decay disappeared, and the hollow wrinkles were filled up in the fresh body, and the limbs grew rapidly.

Aeson stood amazed, recalling that this was how he was forty years back.

Petronius, who belongs in the first century A.D., produced a remarkable novel entitledThe Satyricon, in which he describes an instance of renewed virility by means of witchcraft:

“This is the custom, Sir,” said she, “and chiefly of this City, where the women are skill’d in Magick-charms, enough to make the Moon confess their power, therefore the recovery of any useful Instrument of Love becomes their care; ’tis only writing some soft tender things to my Lady, and you make her happy in a kind return. For ’tis confest, since her Disappointment, she has not been her self.”

I readily consented, and calling for Paper, thus addrest myself:

“’Tis confest, Madam, I have often sinned, for I’m not only a Man, but a very young one, yet never left the Field so dishonorably before. You have at your Feet a confessing Criminal, that deserves whatever you inflict: I have cut a Throat, betray’d my Country, committed Sacrilege; if a punishment for any of these will serve, I am ready to receive sentence. If you fancy my death, I wait you with my Sword; but if a beating will content you, I fly naked to your Arms. Only remember, that ’twas not theWorkman, but his Instruments that fail’d: I was ready to engage, but wanted Arms. Who rob’d me of them I know not; perhaps my eager mind outrun my body; or while with an unhappy haste I aim’d at all; I was cheated with Abortive joys. I only know I don’t know what I’ve done: You bid me fear a Palsie, as if the Disease cou’d do greater that has already rob’d me of that, by which I shou’d have purchas’d you. All I have to say for my self, is this, that I will certainly pay with interest the Arrears of Love, if you allow me time to repair my misfortune.”

Having sent back Chrysis with this Answer, to encourage my jaded Body, after the Bath and Strengthening Oyles, had a little rais’d me, I apply’d my self to strong meats, such as strong Broths and Eggs, using Wine very moderately; upon which to settle my self, I took a little Walk, and returning to my Chamber, slept that night without Gito; so great was my care to acquit my self honourably with my Mistress, that I was afraid he might have tempted my constancy, by tickling my Side.

The next day rising without prejudice, either to my body or spirits, I went, tho’ I fear’d the place was ominous, to the same Walk, and expected Chrysis to conduct me to her Mistress; I had not been long there, e’re she came to me, and with her a little Old Woman. After she had saluted me, “What, my nice Sir Courtly,” said she, “does your Stomach begin to come to you?”

At what time, the Old Woman, drawing from her bosome, a wreath of many colours, bound my Neck; and having mixt spittle and dust, she dipt her finger in’t, and markt my Fore-head, whether I wou’d or not.

In Rome the inns—thetabernae, thepopinae, and theganea—were virtually, in addition to their primary purpose in serving drink, houses of prostitution and assignation.

In wedding celebrations among the Romans, ribald and licentious songs played no mean part. These songs were known as Fescennini Versus, and were believed to have apotropaic significance, while they also recalled the primary purpose of the nuptial union.

At harvest festivals similar lewd verses were exchanged between masked performers.

As visual guides to the lupanaria in ancient Rome, there were lighted lamps, of phallic shape, near the doors. Seneca the philosopher refers to this custom. Also the poet Juvenal in the sixth satire:

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