(Then the tall Galli, and the one-eyed priestess with her sacred rattle, instil terror of the gods that make men’s bodies swell, unless three times at dawn you have eaten the prescribed head of garlic).
Whether this passage affords any direct proof would seem doubtful, inasmuch as the inflare corpus (to make the body swell) properly speaking only refers to the abdomen. To this also the eating of the allium (garlic), which no doubt first won its magic significance on account of its carminative properties, appears to point.
However another explanation is possible. Referring back to the passage of Porphyrius quoted above on p. 254., the tumores Coracinus had contracted in consequence of his general incontinence with women, which incontinence had at last brought him as a senex? (old man) to such a condition of weakness that nothing was left him but the vice of cunnilingere to satisfy his still unexhausted lubricity. A side light in this case may be thrown on the matter by Horace’s description of the Anus libidinosa (The lecherous old woman) in Epodes VIII. 9. 19.:
(Flabby belly and skinny thigh joined with swollen calves,—A tool, that requires you, in order to call it up from the supercilious groin, to work it with the mouth). Casaubon in his commentary on the passage of Persius is for connecting this, as well as the Tumores Syrii, with ἕλκεα Συριακὰ (Syrian sores), and—as quoted on p. 253 above—to regard them as a consequence of the wrath of the Dea Syria (Syrian goddess). No doubt as a matter of fact the tumores were a result of debauchery, one that was prevalent in Syria and was disseminated thence to Rome, for they attacked a cunnilingue no less than other debauchees; but this brings us no nearer to a knowledge of their nature. We should perhaps be inclined to regard them as swellings of the tonsils or of the lympathic glands of the throat, having the same significance as the inguinal buboes in affections of the genitals.
But what are the Berecynthii furores (Berecynthian frenzies)? Possibly nocturnal pains in the bones, that torment a patient to the pitch of frenzy? The metaphor, drawn from the nocturnal rites of Cybelé, must be admitted to be a happy one. Still, however acceptable conjectures of the sort may be to many, we cannot take them seriously. It appears to us most judicious to regard the Syrii tumores as being ulcerations that covered the body of Coracinus, and by their violent itching reduced him to a state of frenzy. Our view as stated is confirmed by Epigram 108. of Ausonius:
In scabiosum Polygitonem.
(To the scabby Polygiton.—If any man caught sight of Polygiton on the seat of the Thermae bathing the sores on his limbs all rotten with scab, he preferred so entertaining a spectacle to all the games. First he beats the air with twittering, whining noises, and utters broken sounds in imitation of the wanton embraces of harlots, and completes the symphony of his foul-minded lechery. Then he twirls his arms about like a Maenad under the god’s afflatus; breast, legs, flank, belly, thighs, groin, calves, back, neck, shoulders, cave of the bemired Symplegades,—i.e. hollow between buttocks,—in so many different places does the shooting torture fly, until he droops and faints in the warmth of the hot bath and the disease is soothed and gives a fatal respite. So it is said castrated eunuchs, when barren desire tries hard for embraces with women and for contests they cannot properly engage in, are consumed with empty transports on the tossed and tumbled bed,—till eventually their lust, tickled and tickled, flames high for a last moment, and completes the wanton act by applying the mouth and biting. So with Polygiton a final spasm relaxes his disfigured limbs, and the last sin-offerings of his life being due, thus makes himself ready for the waves of Phlegethon).
True the connexion with the vice of cunnilingere is apparently lost here, but this also may be preserved without any great straining of the words, as we shall see presently; and accordingly the Tumores Syrii can be quite well regarded as a consequence of the vice of the cunnilingus.
Ever since the so-called first appearance of Venereal Disease, most of the advocates of the antiquity of the complaint have made a point of bringing in Mentagra85 within the purview of the quotations they adduce to prove their contention, although strictly speaking they were never likely to succeed in a direct demonstration that the disease was really and truly connected with sexual excesses. Accordingly, to the present day the majority of them see in it nothing more than a form of Leprosy, particularly as Hensler86 and Sprengel were among those who decided in favour of its leprous character. Instead of giving a useless list of names of the different authors, who in former days declared for the one view or the other, we think it more expedient to quote first of all the capital authority, a passage in Pliny87, setting this down as it stands so as to be able afterwards to form a correct appreciation of its bearing:
Cap. I. “Sensit et facies hominum novos omnique aevo priore incognitos, non Italiae modo, verum etiam universae prope Europae morbos: tunc quoque non tota Italia, nec per Illyricum Galliasve aut Hispanias magnopere vagatos, aut alibi, quam Romae circaque: sine dolore quidem illos ac sine pernicie vitae: sed tanta foeditate, ut quaecunque mors praeferenda esset.
Cap. II. “Gravissimum ex his lichenas appellavere Graeco nomine: Latine, quoniam a mento fere oriebatur, ioculari primum lascivia (ut est procax natura multorum in alienis miseriis) mox et usurpato vocabulo, mentagram: occupantem in multis totos utique vultus, oculis tantum immunibus, descendentem88 vero et in colla pectusque ac manus, foedo cutis furfure89.
Cap. III. “Non fuerat haec lues apud maiores patresque nostros. Et primum Tiberii Claudii, Caesaris principatu medio irrepsit in Italiam, quodam Perusino equite Romano Quaestorio scriba, quum in Asia apparuisset inde contagionem eius importante. Nec sensere id malum feminae aut servitia, plebesque humilis, aut media: sed proceres veloci transitu osculi maxime: foediore multorum qui perpeti medicinam toleraverant, citatrice, quam morbo. Causticis90 namque curabatur, ni usque in ossa corpus exustum esset, rebellante taedio. Advenerunt ex Aegypto, genitrice talium vitiorum, medici, hanc solam operam afferentes, magna sua praeda. Siquidem certum est, Manilium Cornutum, e Praetoriis legatum Aquitanicae provinciae, H.S. CC. elocasse in eo morbo curandum sese.”
(Ch. I. Moreover the human face experienced new diseases, and such as had been unknown in any former age not merely to Italy but to the whole of Europe very nearly, and these not widely diffused over Italy generally, or through Illyricum or the provinces of Gaul or of Spain, or indeed anywhere else but just in Rome and its neighbourhood. They were painless, it is true, and did not involve loss of life, but were of such a horrible nature that death in any form would have been preferable.
Ch. II. The most serious of these diseases they called lichenes,—scabs, a Greek name; in Latin, as the malady generally showed itself first on the chin, it was known as mentagra,—chin-bane, scab or tetter of the chin, at the first by way of jest and mockery—for it is the nature of the multitude to make merry at others’misfortunes,—but soon this became the recognized word. In many persons it covered absolutely the whole countenance, the eyes alone being left unaffected, with a horrible scurf of the skin, going down sometimes to the neck as well, and breast, and hands.
Ch. III. This plague had not existed among our ancestors or fathers. For the first time it crept into Italy in the middle of the reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, a certain Perusinius, a Roman knight and Quaestorian secretary, after a period of service in Asia, importing the contagion from there. But women did not suffer from the malady, or slaves, nor yet common folk of humble or middle-class station; but nobles, and this particularly by the rapid infection of an embrace. In many cases the scar, where patients had submitted to medical treatment, was more horrible than the disease itself. For indeed it was curable by caustics, except when the body had been consumed to the very bones, the slowness of the treatment defeating its own end. Physicians arrived from Egypt, mother-land of such taints, practising this cure exclusively, to their own great profit. If, that is, it is true that Manilius Cornutus, of the Praetorians and governor of the Province of Aquitania, offered 200,000 sesterces for his cure when attacked by this disease).
Here if ever, it particularly behoves us to begin with an elucidation of the meaning of the name given to the malady under discussion. Gruner91 long ago called attention to the divergence of opinion as to the signification of λειχῆνες (scabs) among the writers of Antiquity, but without success in putting the actual facts in a clear light. We must try if we can be more fortunate. An old etymologist says: λειχὴν παρὰ τὸ λείχω, καὶ γὰρ φάσιν ἐκ τοῦ λείχειν τὸ πάθος ἐπαίρεται92, (λειχὴν comes from λείχω,—I lick, because they say the complaint is set up by licking). On this we may say.—there is no doubt λειχῆνες and λιχῆνες are derived from λείχειν or λίχειν, but the explanation Kraus gives of the reason in his Lexicon we cannot think conceivable, viz. “because Lichen, the same as a parasitic plant does, or a skin-disease in animals, always creeps round further and further (see Herpes,—creeping eruption), or as it were licks its way,” for λείχειν is not so much lambere, λάπτειν,—to lick over, lick along, as lingere, ligurire93,—to lick up, lick up greedily. At the same time it is true the word (lambere) was used by the Romans in a somewhat similar sense, so perhaps we ought not to refer to lambit flamma (a flame licks), but rather to Plautus’expression (Pers. prolog. 5.), “quorum imagines lambunt hederae sequaces” (whose images creeping ivy-tendrils lick, i.e. entwine). Most probably there are two different stems underlying the word. Of these one is λέγειν,—to lay, etc., hence λέγνη, the edging, the border, λίγνυς, soot (depositing itself on the edge), together with the bye-forms λέχω, λίχω with which in fact λιχὴν, moss94, so far as it forms on the edge, the surface, fringes it, would be connected. The other stem will be λίγω, or λείγω (comp. λίβω and λείβω), λείχω and λείχην, λίγγω, λίζω, to which would have to be referred also λίγυς and λιγυρὸς,—clear, shrill (ligurire, lingere,—to lick greedily, to lick), in all of which the underlying sense is of licking, and the noise connected with it.
It is plain that later on the derivatives of these stems suffered manifold variations and corruptions; but how much of all this is to be attributed to speakers and writers among the Greeks themselves, and how much to subsequent transcribers and editors of their work, it might be difficult to decide. But every day we have occasion to note a number of words, to which accident or other circumstances have given an ambiguous character. These, used quite unsuspectingly by the ignorant, make the better informed person blush, or else extort a smile from him that often enough causes the speaker no little embarrassment to know the reason. Undoubtedly it was the same with the Greeks and Romans, and so confusions between λίχω and λείχω, λιχὴν and λειχὴν, might have easily arisen, from which people were subsequently unable to extricate themselves. Originally perhaps λείχω, equally with lingo and ligurio (to lick), may have had the simple sense of licking, and only through later accretions to the meaning, have acquired an ambiguous character; soon however this got transferred to it to the exclusion of all others, and we find it used preferentially as the regular word for cunnilingere. The correctness of our conclusion would seem to follow above all from the passage of Aristophanes95 given below, where it is the additional words that narrow down the meaning of λείχω (I lick), and definitely bring out the special signification. The words are said of Ariphrades, who reminds us of the ἀποφρὰς (unmentionable), the name Lucian appropriates to Timarchus:
(Nor yet utterly villainous is he, but he has discovered yet another device; for he polluted his own tongue with foul delights, in the stews licking up the abominable dew, defiling the hair on the upper lip, and tumbling the girls’nymphae).
In the following Epigram96 of an unknown author λείχω is found used absolutely, without any supplementary words:
(Χείλων,—a proper name, also means of the lips,—and λείχων,—licking,—have the like letters; now what does this point to? Chilon licks lips, whether lips like his own, or whether unlike). In explanation of this Epigram Forbiger says (loco citato p. 326.): “Lusus in Chilonem cunnilingum. Hunc ait iure quodam suo lingere, qui vel nomine iisdem literis constante prae se fert lingentem et lingentem quidem tum labra oris, ut labris ligentis similia, tum cunni, ut dissimilia.” (Pun on the name of Chilon, a cunnilingue. The poet says he (Chilon) licks by a sort of inherent right of his own, who even in his name, made up of the same letters, proclaims himself as licking, and licking now the lips of the mouth, which are like the lips of the licker, now those of the female organ, which are unlike). Χεῖλος was in fact used also of the lips of a woman’s organ, the nymphae; the Scholiast on τὰς ἐσχάρας (the nymphae) in the passage from Aristophanes given a little above, interprets this word by τὰ χείλη τῶν γυναικείων αἰδοίων (the lips of the female privates). According to Schneider in his Lexicon χείλων (adj.) signifies thick-lipped. Perhaps it was this very Epigram that led Lambert Bosius to make the statement that χείλων arose by a mere transposition of the letters from λείχον.
Now if λείχην,—for we consider it should be thus accented,—is derived from λείχω (I lick), we cannot but regard it as meaning: something produced by licking, a complaint brought on by licking, and particularly by the licking of the cunnilingue! Surely the Greeks could hardly have expressed themselves more clearly. Then the fact that the name came from the mouth of the common people is the very best reason for its not having been understood by the educated. Yet all the while an entirely similar form of expression has grown up in the mouth of the German common people, the real meaning of which very few have fathomed, but which most certainly arose in the same way as the Greek λείχην. No doubt many of my readers have again and again heard it said of some one with an eruption round the mouth, that is, someone suffering from Herpes labialis (Creeping eruption of the lips): “Well! you have been licking!”—for which educated people substitute the obviously insufficient, “You have been picking!” Very commonly again one may hear: “You have been licking greben, or picking greben; and this word greben is understood as being identical with grieben,—greaves in English, i.e. the remnants of lard that has been cut up into pieces and fried, because the separate pustules of the herpes labialis resemble in appearance the greaves. So people sometimes also say still more explicitly, “You have been licking, or picking, greaves; and one of them has been left sticking to your mouth, to prove your greediness!”
This explanation may seem a very likely one to many; nevertheless we incline to believe the word to be of later origin, and to have arisen from ignorance of the actual facts. We consider it more probable that greben owes its origin to some corruption of language growing out of gremium, the bosom. We have been led to this conjecture by a statement of Adelung’s in his Dictionary, Article “Grieben”, where he says: “In middle-Latin grieben, (greaves), were called, in accordance with a common interchange change of the letters b. and m. gremium”,—though indeed we cannot regard the word as solely and entirely mediæval Latin, for it is found occurring as early as Pliny (Hist. Nat. XII. 19.) and Columella (Res Rust. XII. 19. 3.), and is evidently connected with cremare (to burn). So just as in this case cremium and gremium may have been used interchangeably, has grebe grown out of greme in German, and the latter come to be used as a synonym of griebe,—the latter words according to this having as little in common with one another as the former. However those better practised in the science of word formation must here decide!
Now as to the word Mentagra (Tetter, Scab). This was evidently a word first framed by the Romans, as is distinctly stated not alone by Pliny, but by Galen as well (De compos. medic. secundum locos Bk. V., edit. Kühn Vol. XII. p. 839.). The latter says: Ἐκδόριον λειχήνων· ταύτῃ Πάμφιλος χρησάμενος ἐπὶ Ῥώμης πλεῖστον ἐπορίσατο ἐπικρατούσης ἐν τῇ πόλει τῆς μεντάγρας λεγομένης. (Blister for Lichenes (Scabs); in this way Pamphilus in his practise at Rome made most headway against the Mentagra as it was called, then prevalent in the city). It is usually considered to be formed on the analogy of Podagra, Chiragra (gout of the feet, gout of the hands) etc. from mentum, the chin, and ἄγρα, the act of catching, seizing hold of,—so a disease that attacks the chin. But more probably all these words are compounded not with ἄγρα at all, but with ἄλγος (suffering). That is to say just as ἀλγαλέος, by Attic interchange of letters, becomes ἀργαλέος (grievous), κεφαλαλγία becomes κεφαλαργία (head-ache), and ληθαλγία, ληθαργία (drowsiness, lethargy), so from ποδαλγία we get ποδαργία, and then by metathesis ποδάγρα (gout). (Comp. Doederlein “Lateinische Synonyme und Etymologien”,—Latin Synonyms and Etymologies Pt. 4. p. 424.). The remark Pliny adds however “ioculari primum lascivia” (at first by way of jesting mockery) evidently points to some ambiguity underlying the word. But whether this consists in the recognition of the likeness in sound between mentum, the chin, and menta, or mentula, the virile member, or is to be looked for in the ἄγρα, it might be difficult to determine. Still it seems probable, but without wishing to entirely exclude the former hypothesis, that the latter is the case, as will appear directly.
Galen97 distinguishes between λειχὴν ἁπλοῦς and λειχὴν ἄγριος (simple lichen, and malignant lichen) in his enumeration of Skin-diseases, and still more plainly in another place98 he says: “λειχὴν is likewise a Skin-disease; there are two forms of it, ὁ μὲν ἥμερος καὶ πρᾳότερος, ὁ δὲ ἄγριος καὶ χαλεπώτερος (the one benignant and milder, the other malignant and more serious). But in both of them minute scales are detached from the skin, and the part of the skin underneath the scales is reddened and almost ulcerated. The affection arises from a salt phlegmatic humour (φλέγματος ἁλμυροῦ) and yellow gall, hence the scales fall from the skin as in glazed pottery-ware (? ἐπὶ τῶν ἁλμῶν τῶν κεραμίων). The affection is cured by internal phlegmagogues and external embrocations.” We have already on p. 139. above, in the footnote on ἄγριος (wild, savage) and χαλεπός (hard, harsh), noted how these words are used with special reference to the vice of paederastia, but they are also applied generally to the vice, the different forms of which we have been examining here. This follows from Plato99 and Plutarch100, at any rate so far as ἄγριος is concerned, which indeed we may conveniently render by vicious. The original meaning being overlooked, λείχην and λιχὴν had been taken as synonymous,—possibly the Latin lichenos first led to the mistake; then naturally enough an appropriate epithet was sought, to signify the lichen which was the result of licking in a vicious fashion. But this according to the already existing mode of speech could be nothing else than ἄγριος101 again,—λειχὴν ἄγριος, with which λειχὴν ἁπλοῦς, lichen insons, (simple, innocent lichen) was naturally contrasted.
Yet while Criton, as cited in Aëtius, simply and quite correctly interpreted Mentagra by ἄγριος λειχὴν (fierce, malignant lichen), Galen appears to have been still ignorant of the special meaning. This is shown by the words ἥμερος and πρᾳότερος (gentle, benignant,—milder), which obviously are correct opposites of ἄγριος only if the latter is understood, as it is in Celsus, as equivalent to ferus (fierce, malignant), but in no way account for the ἁπλοῦς (simple, innocent), which Galen no doubt found already established as distinguishing epithet of λιχὴν. How little he fathomed the nature of the evil, is proved by his ætiology of it, which makes the complaint result from the φλέγμα ἁλμυρὸν (salt phlegmatic humour) and the χολὴ ξανθὴ (yellow gall). The unprofessional Martial had a better word to say on the subject when he wrote his sordidique lichenes (filthy, squalid-looking lichens). Similarly it would seem the agra in Mentagra should be taken as pointing to ἄγριος (fierce, malignant). Can it be perhaps that in this way the μολύνων τὴν ὑπήνην (polluting the hair on the upper lip) of Aristophanes, the Latin barbam inquinare (to pollute the beard), have come to be used as synonyms for cunnilingere? Martial seems to imply it by his triste mentum, mentum periculosum (disfigured chin, perilous chin). Perhaps too the Sycosis menti (Sycosis,—fig-like eruption, of the chin) of Celsus and the later Greek medical writers should likewise be regarded as coming under this head. At a matter of fact, Archigenes says so in so many words, as cited in Galen (De comp. med. secundum locos. Bk. V. edit. Kühn Vol. XII. p. 847.), ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν συκωδῶν τῶν ἐπὶ τοῦ γενείου, λεγομένων δὲ μενταγρῶν, ὑπὸ δέ τινων λειχήνων ἀγρίων, ποιεῖ κ. τ. λ. (but in the case of the sycotic, or fig-like, eruptions on the chin, which are called mentagrae, and by others malignant lichens, he proceeds as follows, etc.), and calls the affection of the chin, as do other Physicians, generally ἐξανθήματα ἐν τοῖς γενείοις (efflorescences, eruptions on the chin),—p. 824.
If we have thus succeeded in establishing the meanings of lichens and mentagra, the rest of the passage of Pliny will admit of easy explanation. The disease in many cases it seems invaded the whole face, in the same way as the atra lues (black contagion) in the passages quoted above from Martial under fellation. Perhaps all of these,—indeed, Pliny also says lues,—are the be referred, as is actually done by Farnabius in his notes, to mentagra, seeing that the disease could perfectly well, though certainly much seldomer, arise equally from the practise of fellation. The double entendre between mentum (the chin) and menta or mentula (the virile member) would so acquire all the more point.
The expression foedo cutis furfure (with a horrible scurf of the skin) appears to have led a number of authors to believe that this was the capital characteristic of the complaint, and that the distinction between λιχὴν and λείχην was merely one of degree. This view was advocated in particular by Willian102, who ascribes it also to Paulus Aegineta103 as well as to Oribasius104 though both of these authors limit themselves to saying that the moderately siccative remedies are of no benefit in λείχην ἄγριος (malignant lichen), whereas the more violent ones aggravate it, and that for this reason it was called ἄγριος. Hence Willian’s Lichen agrius (malignant lichen) has nothing in common with the lichen of the Greeks and Romans but the mere name, for it follows clearly from the words foediore cicatrice (with a more horrible scar) that occur a little further down in Pliny, that a process of skinning over by ulceration was part of the disease, and did not owe its existence solely to the caustic remedies employed.
The immunity of women105 equally admits of easy explanation, for in the first place women were not likely to have readily conceived the idea of acting after the manner of a cunnilingue106, and even if fellation is admitted to be an occasionally concurrent cause of mentagra, still it would seem, as already stated, to supervene much less often as a consequence of the latter vice; while in cases where it does, it is of a milder form and it is rather the internal parts of the mouth that are imperilled. Besides, it is to be remembered that women generally speaking suffer less frequently from pustulous disorders of the cutaneous glands affecting the face than men do, as is well seen at the present day with Acne. In the parts neighbouring on the genitals this is exactly reversed. Still this immunity of women must not be insisted on too far, as those persons of the female sex who used to practise fellation, the Summoenianae (women of the suburbs) lay too completely outside the range of Pliny’s observation.
As to the servi (slaves) and Plebs humilis (Commons of humble station), these were surely unlikely, however little restraint they may have put on their sensual appetites, to have readily fallen into suchlike forms of vice,—forms which spring as a rule from the brain of unoccupied, rich idlers. We have only to appeal to modern experience to substantiate this. How many individuals of the lowest and middle classes have the records of forensic medicine to show as having been paederasts and so on? Wild aberrations in morals have at no period begun with the common man! So we see it was the Proceres (Nobles) who were in an especial degree attacked by the mentagra.
At the same time the most conspicuous cause of mentagra, the practice of cunnilingere was by no means the only way of getting it, for the malady, like condylomata on the genital organs, was evidently connected with a contagion,—a fact which is clearly enough brought out by the layman Pliny, whereas the Physicians say nothing about this. Accordingly the disorder was capable of being disseminated by kissing from one individual to another. But it was not the velox transitus osculi (swift transmission of a kiss) that was instrumental in spreading the disease, but rather the basium (wanton kiss),—which depended on some yet unidentified lascivious device107, sucking, playing with the tongue or the like. Still we must remember that at the very time the mentagra was spreading with such terrible rapidity, a perfect mania for kissing had broken out at Rome. Martial describes this admirably in the two following Epigrams, which are of the very highest importance in connection with our subject:
Book XII. Epigram 59:
De importunis basiatoribus.
(Of pestilent Kissers: Rome bestows more kisses on you, on your return to her after fifteen years’ absence, than ever Lesbia gave Catullus. The whole neighbourhood kisses you, and the hirsute countryman presses you in his goaty embrace. One side the weaver is upon you, the other the fuller, here the cobbler who but now kissed his leather; here comes the owner of a perilous chin, here the one-eyed man and here the blear, and the fellator, and the cunnilingue fresh from work. Now surely to return was not of such importance to you as all this.)
Book XI. Epigram 98:
Ad Bassum.
(To Bassus: Escape the kissers, no! it is not to be done, Bassus. They set upon you, wait for you, pursue you, meet you, here, there, and everywhere, in every street, at every corner. Neither acrid ulcer nor shiny pustules, neither disfigured chin nor foul scabs, nor lips anointed with pink salve, nor the drop at the tip of a frozen nose will save you. They kiss a man sweating with heat and starving with cold, nay! even a man keeping his lips pure for the nuptial kiss. A head muffled in hoods will not exempt you, nor a litter guarded with rug and curtain, nor the sedan kept closed most of the time get you off. The kisser will in by every chink. Not the very consulship, not the tribuneship, not the stern fasces and threatening rod of the shouting lictor will keep away the kisser. Though you sit exalted on the high tribunal, or give laws to the people from the curule seat, both to one and the other the kisser will climb up. He will kiss a man shaking with fever, and drivelling with cold. He will give a kiss to a man gaping, to a man swimming, even to a man shitting! The one and only cure for the plague is to make a real friend, whom you will not need to kiss).
Now we shall be in a position to explain to our satisfaction what Martial meant by basia lasciva (wanton kisses),—XI. 24.—basia maligna (pestilent kisses),—XII. 55.—and Petronius (ch. 23.) by his conspuere aliquem basio immundissimo (to beslobber anyone with a most filthy kiss); and we shall be in no way surprised at the fact that mentagra not only attacked the Roman nobles as a virtual epidemic, but that the velox transitus osculi (the swift transmission of a kiss) was alleged by Pliny as a reason of its communication.
Finally as to the historical factor in connection with mentagra,—it is implied in the account Pliny gives that it was only at Rome it was regarded as a new disease. It must have been already known to the Greeks, for they possessed the name Lichen for it. The Greek physicians, of whom several of the ones quoted by Galen lived some considerable time before Claudius, know nothing about the disease being a new one, while Galen himself says simply, ἐπικρατούσης ἐν τῇ πόλει τῆς μεντάγρας λεγομέμης, (when the mentagra as it was called was prevalent in the city). Plutarch again, though he (Symposiaca bk. VIII. Quaest. 9.) wrote a special Chapter on new diseases, with particular reference to Elephantiasis, never mentions mentagra at all. He represents it as having been introduced into Rome from Asia, and it was from Egypt, the Genetrix talium vitiorum (Mother-land of suchlike abominations), the Physicians108 were imported who understood how to cure the disorder. We have more than once noted that Asia was the breeding place of sexual excesses, and described how vice spread from thence over different countries and how as a result of these practices the affections of the parts naturally concerned that arose first in Asia subsequently passed on to these same countries. For Rome this was in an especial degree the case with Egypt, where the undermining of morality had gone farthest; Martial109 spoke justly when he said “Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis,” (No other land knows better how to produce finished rascality). But the intercourse with Asia and Egypt arose mainly in the time of Pompey, and became from that period ever more active, while concurrently luxury was on the increase and the old Virtus (manly virtue) of the Romans disappearing more and more every day,—above all when Tiberius by his own example elevated every form of vice into a sort of fancy article demanded by fashion.
Not that the Emperor went unpunished, for he himself probably suffered from mentagra. Julian110 says of him, that when Romulus had invited to the feast of the Saturnalia all gods and Caesars, Tiberius appeared with the rest, “but when he turned round to take his seat, on his back could be seen in thousands scars, marks of burnings and scrapings, indurated weals and callosities, results of his excesses and wild lusts, cankers and scabs as it were burnt in”. Nay! according to Suetonius111 his face itself bore crebri et subtiles tumores (a multitude of minute swellings); and Tacitus112 says of him: Praegracilis et incurva proceritas, nudus capillo vertex, ulcerosa facies, ac plerumque medicaminibus interstincta, (Tall and of a most graceful, albeit bowed, figure; the head bald, the face covered with ulcers, and generally patched with medical plasters). When Galen113 mentions a τροχίσκος πρὸς ἕρπητας ὁ Τιβηρίου Καίσαρος (a lozenge for creeping eruptions, Tiberius Caesar’s), this does not in any way necessarily imply that this was prescribed as a remedy against eruptive symptoms on the face, for Tiberius, as we see from the passage quoted from Julian, suffered from eruptions on all the other parts of his body. Even if an affection of the face was intended, the expression ἕρπης (creeping eruption), in view of the marked tendency of the disease to spread to neighbouring parts, was not at all an unnatural one to be used; and we may say, speaking generally, that the view which holds the Greeks to have indicated by the word ἕρπης any one definite and distinct form of eruption is entirely mistaken. Bertrandi114 indeed endeavours to show that mentagra was a form of malignant tetter. That the application of plasters as a remedy in mentagra was frequently recommended and employed is shown both by Galen and Aëtius115.
But in proportion as the exciting cause grew ever more and more common, the cunnilingue being now no longer contented with girls, but employing for the satisfaction of his shameful mania women and even pregnant women as well, and at last actually women during menstruation, the resulting consequences were bound to occur not only more frequently but also in a more dangerous form. At first it was merely single pustules, which appeared round the mouth and took possession of the chin, and which were confounded with Sycosis menti (Sycosis,—fig-like eruption of the chin), a complaint liable to arise from other causes as well and one long since familiar, without attracting particular attention as anything uncommon. Later on when neither morbid vaginal phlegm nor yet menstrual blood repelled the cunnilingue any longer, there was set up a diseased process in the cutaneous glands, the resulting secretion rapidly drying formed a white crust or scurf, and this was detached in flakes resembling bran. All this could not fail to arouse remark, and accordingly the Romans, little practised in medical diagnosis, saw in it a new disease, which in turn received a new name. Just as in more modern times the introduction of Venereal disease was attributed to a leprous Knight from the Holy Land, so now at Rome Perusinus, eques Romanus, Quaestorius scriba (Perusinus, a Roman knight, a secretary in the Quaestorian office) was held responsible for bringing mentagra from Asia. As a matter of fact he probably got his mentagra in Asia in exactly the same manner in which it was acquired in Rome,—if indeed we are on general grounds to give any weight to this part of the story. At any rate modern times have given us many examples of how much credence mankind is ready to give to an account of the introduction of a disease by one definite individual. But the disease did not stop at the cutaneous glands, the hair-glands were also involved, the hair fell away, and ulcers formed, which spread around with destructive virulence, as was particularly the case in Martial’s day. On the other hand it is true deep-seated ulceration never supervened, but the disease rather extended on the surface from the face onwards, spreading more or less over the whole of the rest of the body116, and thus assumed the form of Psora (Itch) or Lepra (Leprosy),—a phænomenon we shall have to return to once more later, its right appreciation being of the utmost importance for the History of Venereal Disease.
Now, since on the one hand every cunnilingue is not attacked by mentagra, while on the other sometimes ulcers of the inner portion of the mouth, sometimes mentagra, and the latter sometimes local, sometimes of wide extent, are noted, the following question calls for an answer. What circumstances conditioned these phænomena and, generally, the special frequency of mentagra in Italy? Leaving out of account a variety of other considerations, we are bound in this place to call in along with other factors of our explanation some special and particular influence of the Genius epidemicus (the aggregate of epidemical conditions at large), which just at that time favoured the rise of skin complaints. However slight the material Antiquity affords us on this point, and especially so far as concerns the time a little before and after Our Lord’s birth, still we do find a datum for Italy at any rate which we certainly ought not to leave unutilized. This is the statement of Pliny (ch. 5. and Bk. XX. ch. 52.) to the effect that it was in the time of Pompey the Great, or according to Plutarch (loco citato) in that of Asclepiades, that elephantiasis first showed itself in Italy. It follows that at that period favourable external circumstances also were in existence in connection with the conditions of disease at large,—as indeed the ready extension of mentagra from the chin onwards to the rest of the body proves even more clearly.
But it must not for a moment be supposed that therefore mentagra was of epidemic origin. Without at all wishing to embark on the consideration of the ætiological factors of elephantiasis, we may just mention the fact that according to Pliny’s account this disease too, equally with mentagra, would seem to have always begun with the face117. The conjecture is all but unavoidable, that very possibly in either case it was the practices of the cunnilingue that supplied the exciting cause for the misfortune; and this would also probably explain how it was elephantiasis came to be connected in men’s minds with the Morbus phoeniceus (Phoenician disease). Still, as already explained, this would only be equivalent to making it responsible in individual cases,—cases that tend inevitably to render the proper understanding of the action of elephantiasis, as well as of its history, considerably more difficult. May it not also be to some extent the case that under the general name of elephantiasis forms of disease of very different sorts have been confounded? The views held by the Ancients on this and on the other skin diseases still remain in too much obscurity for anyone to be able to give a decisive judgement on the point. For the rest most probably the atra lues and scelerata lues (black contagion, abominable contagion), spoken of above, likewise come under the category of mentagra. This we have felt ourselves constrained to ascribe not solely to the practise of the vice of the cunnilingue as a cause, but to fellation also,—only that in the latter case, as we have pointed out, it is rather the inner, in the former rather the external parts, that became affected.
Several of the commentators on Horace, and particularly Laevinus Torrentius118 have referred the much-discussed Morbus Campanus119 to the head of mentagra; accordingly this will be no inappropriate place at any rate to mention it, though without aiming at a complete explanation. Horace represents two buffoons, Messius and Sarmentus, as rallying each other for the amusement of the company: