Philodemos shows diversity and inclusion in love for women

In ancient and medieval Europe, learned scholars expressed men’s ardent love for women. Shrewd, career-striving scholars now tend to claim that men hate women and always have. Misunderstanding diversity and inclusion seems to have driven this expressive flip from love to hate. Writing in the middle of the first century BGC, the eminent philosopher and poet Philodemos exemplifies the more reasonable, more loving understanding of diversity and inclusion.

Philodemos profoundly, passionately, and personally appreciated diversity and inclusion in love for women. Philodemos loved a woman named Flora, a name superficially associated with rusticity and simplicity. His epigram in love for Flora shows great literary learning. It’s also intensely, personally expressive:

Oh foot, oh calve, oh (I’m rightly done for)
those thighs! Oh buttocks, oh vulva, oh flanks,
oh shoulders, oh breasts, oh slender neck!
Oh hands, oh eyes (I’m going mad),
oh most lascivious postures, oh outstanding
tonguings, oh (slay me) her exclamations!
If she’s an Oscan and a Flora and doesn’t sing Sappho’s songs —
well, even Perseus fell in love with Indian Andromeda.

{ ὢ ποδός, ὢ κνήμης, ὢ τῶν (ἀπόλωλα δικαίως)
μηρῶν, ὢ γλουτῶν, ὢ κτενός, ὢ λαγόνων,
ὢ ὤμοιν, ὢ μαστῶν, ὢ τοῦ ῥαδινοῖο τραχήλου,
ὢ χειρῶν, ὢ τῶν (μαίνομαι) ὀμματίων,
ὢ κακοτεχνοτάτου κινήματος, ὢ περιάλλων
γλωττισμῶν, ὢ τῶν (θῦέ με) φωναρίων·
εἰ δ’ Ὀπικὴ καὶ Φλῶρα καὶ οὐκ ᾄδουσα τὰ Σαπφοῦς,
καὶ Περσεὺς Ἰνδῆς ἠράσατ’ Ἀνδρομέδης. }[1]

Philodemos sees the diversity in a Flora’s body parts, and each different part thrills him. She isn’t an immobile object, but a living woman apparently dancing naked. She’s turning so that he can see the beauty of her front (vulva, breasts, mouth, eyes) and back (calves, buttocks). She isn’t silent like a man being berated for his toxic masculinity — she exclaims, adding her voice to her beauty. Contrary to the modern demonic myth of the male gaze, men desire to see a woman’s face. Philodemos sees Flora’s face. In his passionate love for her, he also appreciates her across the diversity of her personal qualities.

Pompeii Yakshi: statuette of beautiful, naked woman-goddess; made in India and brought to Pompeii about two thousand years ago

In addition to Flora’s personal diversity, Philodemos loves Flora across gender, race, culture, and class. Philodemos is a man. Flora is a woman. Despite that gender difference, he loves her. Moreover, Flora was a dark-skinned woman like the Indian / Ethiopian princess Andromeda. Philodemos loves persons who are both women and black:

Didyme captured me with her eye. Oh, I but
melt like wax by a fire when I see her beauty.
If she’s black — so what? Coals are too, but when we
heat them, they glow like rosebuds.

{ Τὠφθαλμῷ Διδύμη με συνήρπασεν· ὤμοι, ἐγὼ δὲ
τήκομαι ὡς κηρὸς πὰρ πυρὶ κάλλος ὁρῶν.
εἰ δὲ μέλαινα, τί τοῦτο; καὶ ἄνθρακες· ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε κείνους
θάλψωμεν, λάμπουσ᾽ ὡς ῥόδεαι κάλυκες. }[2]

Further categorical differences exist. Flora is an Oscan, meaning she belongs to the Italian-speaking ethnicity of the Compania region in southern Italy. The Romans considered the Oscans to be culturally unsophisticated. The highest status culture and language on the Italian peninsula was Greek. Among the most esteemed representatives of Greek culture was the famous Greek woman poet Sappho, particularly notable for her gender-defying lover for her brothers. Like most persons today, Flora couldn’t perform from memory Sappho’s poetry. Thus even more than the love of the Greek hero Perseus for the Indian princess Andromeda, Philodemos’s love for Flora encompassed what learned scholars today call “intersectionality.”

More sophisticated intersectionality theory recognizes that persons are not only multi-characteristic, but also dynamic. Unlearned persons might say, “I prefer blondes,” or “I prefer raven-haired lovelies.” An intersectionality theorist would then intersect hair-color categories with race, gender, colonial status, etc. But categories of exclusion and oppression, which are socially constructed through time, should be recognized as contingent, ambiguous, and fluid. A poet closely associated with Philodemos lovingly explained to a woman:

Whether I see you with shining black hair,
lady-lord, whether another time with blond,
from both equal charm gleams. Very truly so
Eros will dwell in your hair even when it’s gray.

{ Εἴτε σε κυανέῃσιν ἀποστίλβουσαν ἐθείραις,
εἴτε πάλιν ξανθαῖς εἶδον, ἄνασσα, κόμαις,
ἴση ἀπ’ ἀμφοτέρων λάμπει χάρις. ἦ ῥά γε ταύταις
θριξὶ συνοικήσει καὶ πολιῇσιν ῎Ερως. }[3]

Loving across identity categories is a loving form of diversity and inclusion.

Greek hero Perseus attacks the monster Cetus while the Ethiopian princess Andromeda watches: painting on ancient amphora

Philodemos didn’t understand diversity and inclusion to exclude him loving his wife in a special way. Philodemos lived with his wife Xantho. They had a servant woman named Philainis. Philodemos excluded Philainis from witnesses him having sex with his wife:

Philainis, with dewy oil soak the lamp,
silent confidant of not-to-be-spoken intercourse,
then leave! Sexual desire doesn’t welcome a living
witness. And close the door tight, Philainis.
Now you, Xantho, come to me — and you, O lover-loving wife,
learn the rest the Love goddess has for us.

{ τὸν σιγῶντα, Φιλαινί, συνίστορα τῶν ἀλαλήτων
λύχνον ἐλαιηρῆς ἐκμεθύσασα δρόσου,
ἔξιθι: μαρτυρίην γὰρ Ἔρως μόνος οὐκ ἐφίλησεν
ἔμπνουν καὶ πηκτὴν κλεῖε, Φιλαινί, θύρην.
καὶ σύ, φίλη Ξανθώ, με — σὺ δ᾽, ὦ φιλεράστρια κοίτη,
ἤδη τῆς Παφίης ἴσθι τὰ λειπόμενα. }[4]

Sometimes excluding a person is appropriate even if in general one strongly supports diversity and inclusion.

Aphrodite Pandemos depicted in 19th-century painting

Philodemos’s support for diversity and inclusion in love encompassed sex workers. He respectfully engaged with women sex workers. He embraced mutuality while recognized the different interests of sex worker and client in their fair-dealing commercial transaction. That’s evident in his conversation with a sex worker:

“Hello.” — “And hello to you.” — “What should I call you?” — “And me, you?” — “Not
yet. You’re too eager for intimate friendship.” — “You, too.” — “Do you have anyone?” —
“Always do. The one who loves me.” — “Would you dine with me
today?” — “If you wish.” — “Excellent! How much for your company?” —
“Don’t pay me anything in advance.” — “That’s strange.” — “Instead, pay what
you think right once you’ve slept with me.” — “That’s fair.
Where will you be? I’ll send for you.” …

{ Χαῖρε σύ. — καὶ σύ γε χαῖρε. — τί δεῖ σε καλεῖν — σὲ δέ — μήπω
τοῦτο· φιλόσπουδος. — μηδὲ σύ. — μή τιν᾽ ἔχεις —
αἰεί· τὸν φιλέοντα. — θέλεις ἅμα σήμερον ἡμῖν
δειπνεῖν — εἰ σὺ θέλεις. — εὖ γε· πόσου παρέσῃ —
μηδέν μοι προδίδου. — τοῦτο ξένον. — ἀλλ᾽ ὅσον ἄν σοι
κοιμηθέντι δοκῇ, τοῦτο δός. — οὐκ ἀδικεῖς.
ποῦ γίνῃ; πέμψω. … }[5]

A modern commonplace is that the best exemplar of delusion is the man who believes that a whore loves him. Nonetheless, the sex worker Philainion credibly loved Philodemos:

Philainion is small and dark, but her hair is
more curled than celery, her skin more tender than down,
her voice more magical than the enchanting girdle, and she gives
all of herself and often refrains from asking for anything.
May I love such a Philainion until I find,
O golden Love goddess, another who is more perfect.

{ Μικκὴ καὶ μελανεῦσα Φιλαίνιον, ἀλλὰ σελίνων
οὐλοτέρη καὶ μνοῦ χρῶτα τερεινοτέρη
καὶ κεστοῦ φωνεῦσα μαγώτερα, καὶ παρέχουσα
πάντα καὶ αἰτῆσαι πολλάκι φειδομένη.
τοιαύτην στέργοιμι Φιλαίνιον ἄχρις ἂν εὕρω
ἄλλην, ὦ χρυσέη Κύπρι, τελειοτέρην. }[6]

Philodemos wasn’t a bird-brain or nonsensical person in thinking about men’s relationships with women sex workers. He expressed intemperate outrage at one man’s sexual foolishness:

Mr. X gives five gold coins to Mrs. Y for one go,
and he fucks shivering with fear and by god, she’s not even pretty.
I give Lysianassa five silver coins for twelve sessions,
and I not only fuck a better woman, but openly besides.
Either I am completely out of my mind, or after such stupidity,
one should remove that man’s testicles with an axe.

{ πέντε δίδωσιν ἑνὸς τῇ δει̃να ὁ δει̃να τάλαντα,
καὶ βινει̃ φρίσσων καὶ, μὰ τὸν, οὐδὲ καλὴν·
πέντε δ᾽ ἐγὼ δραχμὰς τω̃ν δώδεκα Λυσιανάσσῃ,
καὶ βινω̃ πρὸς τῳ̃ κρείσσονα καὶ φανερω̃ς.
πάντως ἤτοι ἐγὼ φρένας οὐκ ἔχω ἢ τό γε λοιπὸν
τοὺς κείνου πελέκει δει̃ διδύμους ἀφελει̃ν. }[7]

Terribly entrenched in European civilization, castration culture must be recognized as always wrong. No circumstances justify destroying the source of human seminal blessing.[8] Despite Philodemos’s vigorous action in support of diversity and inclusion, he wasn’t a morally perfect person. None of us are.

Greek hero Perseus rescues Indian princess Andromeda

Philodemos’s epigram celebrating Flora embraces a beautiful and ardently loving understanding of diversity and inclusion. That understanding was fruitful in the ancient Roman world. A scholar aptly summarized:

Philodemus’ epigram concerns the poet’s infatuation with a dancer who has an Oscan/Latin name, Flora, and who cannot sing the Greek poetry of Sappho, a surely particularly grating feature for a poet who, according to his treatise On Poems, valued poetry where sound was firmly wedded to ideas. But despite this touch of Hellenic condescension, Philodemus’ epigram reveals a poet interacting with the linguistic and cultural diversity of Campanian society in the late Roman Republic. … as Philodemus’ Flora offers an inclusive, generous view of Campanian multiculturalism, so Flora in Ovid’s Fasti offers not a univocal view of Augustan identity and culture but a generous and capacious one, which Martial builds upon in his imperial expansion of epigram. Philodemus’ Oscan Flora thus provided the invitation for later Roman crosscultural and crosslinguistic play in a Rome that, like Republican Campania, was a new melting pot of cross cultural contact and experiment. [9]

Christian scholars working within the relatively broad-minded, tolerant, and intellectually developed medieval European world valued, copied, and circulated Philodemos’s epigrams. Those epigrams are a precious gift to our more narrow-minded, bigoted, and intellectually stunted age. Without appreciating Philodemos’s brilliant understanding of diversity and inclusion in love, advocates of diversity and inclusion would at best lead us to an irrational and hateful future.

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Notes:

[1] Greek Anthology {Anthologia Graeca} / Palatine Anthology {Anthologia Palatina} 5.132, Philodemos (Philodemus) of Gadara {Φιλόδημος ὁ Γαδαρεύς}, epigram, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from Paton & Tueller (2014). This epigram is number 12 (Sider 12) in Sider (1997). Subsequent epigrams from the Greek Anthology are similarly sourced.

An ancient editor misleadingly entitled this epigram, “On the same Xanthippe; a surprising poem, full of madness {εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν Ξανθίππην· μανίας μεστὸν καὶ θαυμαστικόν}.” This epigram is clearly about Flora, not Xanthippe.

In this epigram, Sider translated the interjection “ὢ κτενός” as “O bush.” The ancient Greek word κτείς means “comb.” It also has a metaphorical meaning:

a woman’s comb, that is to speak euphemistically and mystically, a woman’s genital part

{ κτεὶς γυναικεῖος, ὅς ἐστιν, εὐφήμως καὶ μυστικῶς εἰπεῖν, μόριον γυναικεῖον }.

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks / Protrepticus {Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας} 2.18, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Butterworth (1919). Metaphorically extending the shape of a hair comb, κτείς means protruding, jagged parts associated with the external appearance of the prepuce, clitoris, and labia majora for many but not all women. Similar metaphorical thinking apparently generated a rooster’s “comb.” Nearly contemporaneous Latin literature also supports such an understanding:

The skillful masseur presses his fingers on her “crest”
and causes a shriek from the top of his lady-lord’s thigh.

{ callidus et cristae digitos inpressit aliptes
ac summum dominae femur exclamare coegit. }

Juvenal, Satires 6.443-4, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Braund (2004). Translating κτείς as “bush,” which emphasizes hair, is thus misleading in Philodemos’s epigram.

Relevant context for interpreting difficult words in Philodemos’s epigram on Flora comes from Automedon’s epigram praising a woman dancer from Asia:

The dancer from Asia who moves through lascivious
postures, quivering from her tender fingertips,
I praise, not because she expresses all passions,
not because she moves her tender hands tenderly this way and that,
but because she knows how to dance around my worn-out rod
and doesn’t run away from an old man’s wrinkles.
She tongues, she tickles, she hugs. And when she kicks up her leg,
she can bring back my staff from the dead.

{ Τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀσίης ὀρχηστρίδα, τὴν κακοτέχνοις
σχήμασιν ἐξ ἁπαλῶν κινυμένην ὀνύχων,
αἰνέω, οὐχ ὅτι πάντα παθαίνεται οὐδ’ ὅτι βάλλει
τὰς ἁπαλὰς ἁπαλῶς ὧδε καὶ ὧδε χέρας,
ἀλλ’ ὅτι καὶ τρίβακον περὶ πάσσαλον ὀρχήσασθαι
οἶδε καὶ οὐ wεύγει γηραλέας ῥυτίδας.
γλωττίζει, κνίζει, περιλαμβάνει⋅ ἢν δ’ ἐπιρίψῃ
τὸ σκέλος, ἐξ ᾅδου τὴν κορύνην ἀνάγει. }

Greek Anthology 5.129, Automedon {Αὐτομέδων}. The editorial heading is “On a prostitute dancer {εἰς πόρνην ὀρχηστρίδα}.” The epigram itself clearly specifies a woman dancing. “Rod” and “staff” are euphemisms for Audomedon’s penis. Men’s penises can comfort women. The alternate translation for κορύνη, “club,” falls within the despicable literary tradition of brutalizing men’s penises. The concluding verse’s reference to Automedon’s staff returning from the dead plausibly alludes ironically to Persephone’s returning from Hades. Höschele (2006).

Both Automedon’s epigram and Philodemos’s epigram embrace ethnic diversity in love for women with their appreciation for an Asian dancer and the Oscan Flora, respectively. Automedon’s epigram shares with Philodemos’s epigram a reference to “lascivious postures {κακότεχνα σχήματα}.” That shared description suggests that Philodemos’s Flora was a dancer. It also suggests that Philodemos’s interjection “oh outstanding tonguings {ὢ περιάλλων γλωττισμῶν}” refers to Flora’s skill in providing oral sex. Booth (2011) pp. 58-60. Such skill was important to Automedon, who suffered from the epic disaster of men’s impotence. See Greek Anthology 11.29. For Philodemos’s epigram, Sider’s translation, “O fabulous kisses,” failed to recognize this important context and is clearly inferior. Sider (1997) pp. 104, 107-8.

The name Flora is rooted in ancient Latin and Oscan and transliterated into ancient Greek as Φλῶρα. Romans typically regarded Oscans as “rustics who were closely connected with the rude and lewd Atellan farces.” Newlands (2016) p. 116 (para. 7). However, Flora was a “major indigenous agricultural deity” in both Latin-speaking and Oscan-speaking areas of the Roman Republic. Id. pp. 118-9 (paras. 11-2). The name Flora has long been associated with flowers and beauty. In medieval Latin literature, Flora often was a name for a beautiful, beloved young woman. The Roman statesman and general Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) as a youth consorted with a high-class courtesan named Flora. Id. p. 117 (para. 9). Newlands insightfully stated:

The Oscan girl’s naming as “Flora” therefore is pivotal in Philodemus’ poem, for the name bridges the cultural divide between Oscan and Roman, between courtesan and goddess, and between the physical world of erotic dance and the polished text. The name Flora beautifully encapsulates the dynamic trilingualism of late Republican Campania.

Id. p. 120 (para. 14). Flora is no “mere Flora.” Id. p. 120 (para. 13), criticizing Sider’s “mere Flora” translation. For an example of interplay between Latin and Oscan in the elite poetry of Catullus, Hawkins (2012).

The final two verses of Philodemos’s Flora epigram present motifs that can be traced from Theocritus through Ovid. Those motifs are 1) foreign woman, 2) with dark complexion, 3) like Perseus and Andromeda, and 4) in relation to Sappho. Courtney (1990). Ancient Greco-Roman authors commonly conflated India and Ethiopia / Africa. Suggesting the relative insignificance of skin color in men’s love for women, European painters rarely depicted Andromeda having darker skin than Perseus. Eddimedes Murphes in a modern adaptation of Aristophanes’s Parliament of Women bluntly expressed men’s embrace of diversity in love for women, with a minor exception.

Perseus, with the help of Eros / Cupid, rescues the enchained Princess Andromeda

Philodemos’s description of Flora’s diverse attributes proceeds upwards along her body (ascending bottom to top). As a literary motif, the “description of a young woman {descriptio puellae}” typically proceeds downwards (descending top to bottom), such as in Ovid, Amores 1.5.17-26. This ancient descriptive practice reached the height of its literary sophistication in medieval Europe.

The descriptio puellae degenerated after the end of the Middle Ages. For example, sixteenth-century French literature produced the blason anatomique. That literary form typically involves continual praise of a particular feminine body part. In 1535 under the patronage of Duchess Renée de France and her circle, the poet Clément Marot composed the leading work: an epigram called “Le beau tétin {The beautiful breast}.” Other poets quickly recognized the value of such poetry. Blasons anatomiques du corps féminin, published in 1543, shows the rapid dissemination of the form. A mirror poetic form, contreblasons, soon arose. It disparaged a feminine body part. Marot’s contreblason, “Le laid tétin {The ugly breast},” caused a huge uproar in which Marot was harshly condemned. Patterson (2015). For an anti-meninist analysis of the blason anatomique within the high anxiety that anti-meninism generates, Persels (2002).

Automedon’s and Philodemos’s epigrams, and many other epigrams in the Greek Anthology, represent learned, sophisticated poetry. Nonetheless, a scholar recently characterized these epigrams as “a lower and more debased class of poetry” and suggested that Horace alluded to:

the common circulation of that text, with its lewd content, to an uncritical and coarse public. … In the form in which Automedon’s closely contemporary epigram was circulating in Horace’s time, the physical artefact presented to readers was anything but a lepidum novum libellum (Catull. 1.1) – a curated, polished edition; rather, the epigram seems to have been preserved as a carelessly copied product that might be compared, in modern terms, to a badly edited, throwaway paperback published for consumption by an idle, undiscriminating audience seeking raunchy entertainment.

Werner (2023) p. 17, n. 31; p. 18. Such a claim indicates astonishing ignorance of the literary tradition of Hellenistic epigrams.

Philodemos, also spelled Philodemus in the Latin tradition, was born about 110 BGC in the city of Gadara in present-day Jordan. Probably because of battles between Greek and Jewish armies, Philodemos left Gadara and went to Athens. There he studied with Zenon of Sidon, then the head of the Epicurean school of philosophy. By 55 BGC, Philodemos lived in Rome and was well-known as a close friend of the Epicurean philosopher L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law of Julius Caesar. Fain (2010) pp. 184-7.

Along with other leading Roman writers, Philodemos resided near the Bay of Naples, probably between the 60s and 40s BGC. Many of his writings were discovered preserved in the ashes of the Villa dei Papyri at Herculaneum. Philodemos’s friend and patron Piso probably owned that villa. Philodemos apparently knew Virgil and probably Cicero. He influenced many important Latin writers, including Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and even the great early medieval Latin poet Maximianus. Fielding (2016). On Philodemos’s influence on Horace, Propertius, and Ovid, Keith (2021).

[2] Greek Anthology 5.210, which attributes the epigram to Asclepiades {Ἀσκληπιάδης}. This epigram is editorially entitled, “On Didyme {εἰς Δίδυμην}.” On Asclepiades’s support for diversity and inclusion in this epigram, Snowden (1991).

[3] Greek Anthology 5.26. This anonymous epigram follows an epigram of Philodemos and seems closely associated with Philodemos’s epigrams. It’s not attributed to Philodemos in Sider (1997). Its editorial title is “On a beautiful young woman {εἰς κόρην εὔμορφον}.” Here’s an alternate English translation. Philodemos wrote a highly sophisticated epigram in praise of the sixty-year-old courtesan Charito. Greek Anthology 5.13 (Sider 9), “On Charito, a courtesan, in wonder {εἰς ἑταίραν τινὰ Χαριτὼ θαυμάσιον}.”

[4] Greek Anthology 5.4 (Sider 7), an epigram by Philodemos. It’s editorially titled “On the younger Philaenis {εἰς Φιλαινίδα τὴν νεωτέραν}.” The epigram is actually primarily about Xantho / Xanthippe, who is Philodemos’s wife. A woman named Xanthippe was Socrates’s wife.

Showing his sexual desire for his wife Xanthippe and his concern for her sexual consent, Philodemos wrote:

I am an apple. The one who sends me loves you. Nod your consent,
Xanthippe. Both you and I are wasting away.

{ Μῆλον ἐγώ· πέμπει με φιλῶν σέ τις. ἀλλ᾽ ἐπίνευσον,
Ξανθίππη· κἀγὼ καὶ σὺ μαραινόμεθα. }

Greek Anthology 5.80 (Sider 2). Apples have long been regarded as love charms. Sider attributes seven epigrams (Sider 1 to 7) to Philodemos concerning his wife Xantho / Xanthippe.

[5] Greek Anthology 5.46 (Sider 20), an epigram by Philodemos. It’s editorially titled “A conversation with a courtesan, proceeding by question and answer {πρὸς ἑταίραν· κατὰ πεῦσιν καὶ ἀπόκρισιν}.”

[6] Greek Anthology 5.121 (Sider 17), an epigram by Philodemos. It’s editorially titled “Surprising praise for Philainion, a courtesan {εἰς Φιλαίνιον ἑταίραν ἔπαινος θαυμάσιος}.” Philaenis (Philainion) of Samos was thought to have lived in the fourth century BGC and to be the author of an ancient sex manual. On Philaenis, Agnolon (2013).

[7] Greek Anthology 5.126 (Sider 22), an epigram by Philodemos. It’s editorially titled “A mocking poem on a spent lover who still pays dearly for courtesans {τωθαστικὸν ἐπί τινι ἐρῶντι σαπρῷ καὶ πολλὰ παρεχομένῳ ταῖς ἑταίραις}.” A modern editor noted, “The lemmatist misreads the poem; the indications are rather that the first lover has sex with a married woman.” Paton & Tueller (2014) note 1. Those categories aren’t disjunctive. A man might have sex with a married woman who’s also a courtesan.

Horace documented Philodemos’s respectful but no-nonsense approach to women sex-workers:

“A little later,” “yet more gifts,” “if my husband has left” —
a woman who speaks like this is for Galli, so says Philodemos, who for himself
asks for a woman who is neither high-priced nor slow to come when bidden.

{ illam “post paulo,” “sed pluris,” “si exierit vir,”
Gallis, hanc Philodemus ait sibi, quae neque magno
stet pretio neque cunctetur cum est iussa venire. }1.2.120-2.

Horace, Satires 1.2.120-2, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Fairclough (1926).

[8] In Greek Anthology 5.126, Philodemos associated castration with a courtesan acting as a dominating lady-lord. That figure echoes the figure of Cybele, the Dindymenean mother whom castrated priests (Galli) served. Catullus picked up this figure in Catullus 63, It’s a structuring figure throughout Catullus’s poems. A scholar explained:

Therefore on its face value the pun is obvious — it underscores, especially from the point of view of a Gallus, that aspect of Cybele’s worship that is most bizarre, her demand for castration; she has all power and ownership over one’s testicles. The pun is likewise clear and powerful, if we read the poem not in literal terms, but as an allegory of Catullus’ own emasculation before Lesbia and the Roman state: Catullus’ manhood and virility are no longer his own, but possessed by others. Both in the sexual and social realm he is a slave.

Holmes (2012) pp. 279-80. Classicists generally have failed to take sufficient notice of the oppressive effects of castration culture.

[9] Newlands (2016) p. 113 (para. 2).

[images] (1) Pompeii Yakshi. Small ivory sculpture of beautiful, naked woman-goddess made in India and brought to Pompeii about two thousand years ago. Philodemos lived about the Bay of Naples between the 60s and 40s BGC and thus lived near Pompeii. Source image by Dan Diffendale. A modified version is presented above under the fair use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Wikimedia Commons includes many photographs of this sculpture. It’s preserved as inventory # 149425 in Naples National Archaeological Museum (Naples, Campania, Italy).

The Pompeii Yakshi was earlier called the Pompeii Lakshmi according to the belief that the statuette represented the goddess Lakshmi. The most widely accepted scholarly judgment currently is that the statuette represents a Yakshi, also called a Yakshini, which is a female nature spirit in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain cultures.

Made in India, the Pompeii Yakshi was preserved in Pompeii when Pompeii was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 GC. From about 300 BGC to 700 GC, the western Indian Ocean was a major trading zone. Seland (2014). In Roman culture, India was associated with luxuries:

India emerges as an origin of choice: it would be no exaggeration to say, in general, that Indian origins of any particular item, whether real or imagined, added value to it in Roman eyes.

Parker (2002) p. 55.

(2) Greek hero Perseus attacks the monster Cetus {Κῆτος,} while the Indian princess Andromeda watches. Corinthian black-figure amphora from Cerveteri, Italy. Painted between 575 BGC and 550 BGC. Preserved as inventory # F 1652 in Antikensammlung Berlin, Altes Museum. Source image via Wikimedia Commons. Here are many more images of Andromeda.

(3) Aphrodite Pandemos (goddess of love for all the people) riding a goat as her son Eros flies away. A satyr holding a torch pulls on the goat by its beard. Goats have long been associated with ardent sexual desire. Oil on canvas painted by Charles Gleyre in 1852. Image via Wikimedia Commons. More information about this painting.

(4) Greek hero Perseus rescues Indian princess Andromeda from the monster Cetus. Oil on panel painting (cropped slightly) painted by Piero di Cosimo about 1510-1515. Preserved as accession # 1536 in the Uffizi Gallery (Florence, Italy). Perseus is shown flying through the air (top righ), slaying the monster Cetus (center), and celebrating his marriage to Andromeda (bottom right). The partially nude, enchained Andromeda is a well-established motif. Source image via Wikimedia Commons.

(5) Greek hero Perseus, with the help of Eros / Cupid, rescues the enchained Indian princess Andromeda. Engraving made about 1655 following the design of Abraham van Diepenbeeck. From Marolles (1655), between pp. 306-7. Source image via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Agnolon, Alexandre. 2013. “Filênis, de Belle de Jour à Alcoviteira: Matéria Erótica na Antologia Grega.” Classica – Revista Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos. 26 (1): 51–66.

Booth, Joan. 2011. “Negotiating with the epigram in Latin love elegy.” Chapter 4 (pp. 51-65) in Alison Keith, ed. Latin Elegy and Hellenistic Epigram: A Tale of Two Genres at Rome. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Volume introduction.

Butterworth, G. W., ed. and trans. 1919. Clement of Alexandria. The Exhortation to the Greeks. The Rich Man’s Salvation. To the Newly Baptized. Loeb Classical Library 92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Braund, Susanna Morton, trans. 2004. Juvenal and Persius. Loeb Classical Library 91. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Courtney, Edward. 1990. “Ovid and an Epigram of Philodemus.” Liverpool Classical Monthly. 15 (8): 117-118.

Fain, Gordon L. 2010. Ancient Greek Epigrams: Major Poets in Verse Translation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Fairclough, H. Rushton, trans. 1926. Horace. Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry. Loeb Classical Library 194. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Fielding, Ian. 2016. “A Greek Source for Maximianus’ Greek Girl: Late Latin Love Elegy and the Greek Anthology.” Pp. 323-339 in McGill, Scott, and Joseph Pucci, eds. Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag.

Hawkins, Shane. 2012. “On the Oscanism salaputium in Catullus 53.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (TAPA). 142 (2): 329–53.

Holmes, Daniel. 2021. “Philodemus, Catullus, and the Domina Di(n)dymi.” Classical Philology. 116 (2): 276–82.

Höschele, Regina. 2006. “Dirty Dancing. A Note on Automedon AP 5.129.” Mnemosyne. 59 (4): 592–95.

Keith, Alison. 2021. “Philodemus and the Augustan Poets.” Pp. 145-166 in Thea S. Thorsen, Iris Brecke, and Stephen Harrison, eds. Greek and Latin Love: The Poetic Connection. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Marolles, Michel de. 1655. Tableaux du Temple des Muses: Representant les Vertus et les Vices, sur les plus Illustres Fables de l’Antiquité. Paris: Chez Pierre Mariette le fils.

Newlands, Carole E. 2016. “Trilingual Love on the Bay of Naples: Philodemus AP 5. 132 and Ovidian Elegy.” Eugesta. 6: 112-128.

Paton, W. R., ed and trans., rev. by Michael A. Tueller. 2014. The Greek Anthology with an English Translation. Original (1916-18) printed London: William Heinemann (vol. I, bks. 1-6; vol. II, bks. 7-8; vol. III, bk. 9; vol IV, bks. 10-12; vol. V, bks. 13-16).

Parker, Grant. 2002. “Ex Oriente Luxuria: Indian Commodities and Roman Experience.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 45 (1): 40–95.

Patterson, Jonathan. 2015. “Clément Marot and the blason anatomique: Vile Body-Objects and Their Villainous Creators.” Paper presented at the conference “Vile Beings, Bodies and Objects in Early Modern France (1500-1700),” Renaissance Society of America, July 9-11, 2015.

Persels, Jeffery. 2002. “Masculine Rhetoric and the French Blason anatomique.” Pp. 19-35 in Kathleen P. Long, ed. High Anxiety: Masculinity in Crisis in Early Modern France. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press.

Seland, Eivind Heldaas. 2014. “Archaeology of Trade in the Western Indian Ocean, 300 BC-AD 700.” Journal of Archaeological Research. 22 (4): 367–402.

Sider, David, ed. and trans. 1997. The Epigrams of Philodemos. Introduction, Text, and Commentary. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Review by Kathryn Gutzwiller.

Snowden, Frank M., Jr. 1991. “Asclepiades’ Didyme.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 32 (3): 239–53.

Werner, Shirley. 2023. “Two Unnarrated Stories in Horace’s Roman Odes ( Carm. 3.2.1–12 and 3.6.21–32): Echoes of Vergil’s Unfinished Aeneid and a Lowlife Epigram.” Antichthon. 57: 80–101.

Ismenodora kidnapped and married her student Bacchon

About two millennia ago in Thespiae at the foot of Mount Helicon, the widow Ismenodora was advising the young man Bacchon about marriage. She was about 30 years old, and he, about 19. Known as “the beautiful man {ὁ καλός},” he was the son of her dear and close woman-friend. She was counseling him to marry a young woman who was one of her relatives. Through her many and long conversations with young Bacchon, Ismenodora fell in love with him.

Ismenodora and Bacchon had a very unequal relationship. In addition to their significant differences in age and experience, she was very wealthy and noble. He had much lower social status and much less wealth. She advising him on marriage essentially positioned her as his teacher, and him, her student.[1] Current sex regulations at most colleges and universities prohibit love affairs between teachers and students.

mummy portrait of a wealthy women from Fayum, Egypt in the second century GC: plausible stand-in for Ismenodora.
Mummy portrait of a young man from Egypt about 190-210 GC: a plausible stand-in for Bacchon

Ismenodora was regarded as a person who adhered to norms of proper behavior. Her love for Bacchon was thus interpreted favorably:

She intended to do nothing dishonorable, but to marry publicly Bacchon and live with him as wife and husband.

{ διενοεῖτο μηδὲν ποιεῖν ἀγεννές, ἀλλὰ γημαμένη φανερῶς συγκαταζῆν τῷ Βάκχωνι. }[2]

Ismenodora never explicitly stated this intention. It seems merely to have been attributed to her as a well-regarded woman. However, even well-regarded men sometimes act wrongly. The same is surely true for women.

As has often happened for women and men throughout history, persons close to Bacchon were to decide whether he would marry Ismenodora. Belief that an individual within a familial and social void chooses “freely” whom to marry is a modern myth. Family and friends have always shaped persons’ marital choices. So it was for the young man Bacchon:

The situation itself appeared extraordinary. Bacchon’s mother had misgivings that the dignity and splendor of Ismenodora’s household were too grand to suit her loved one. … Bacchon was still a minor, and he himself felt shy about marrying a widow. Nevertheless, he ignored the other men and left the decision to Pisias and Anthemion. Anthemion was his older cousin, while Pisias was the most sober of the men who loved him.

{ παραδόξου δὲ τοῦ πράγματος αὐτοῦ φανέντος, ἥ τε μήτηρ ὑφεωρᾶτο τὸ βάρος τοῦ οἴκου καὶ τὸν ὄγκον ὡς οὐ κατὰ τὸν ἐραστόν … ᾐδεῖτο γὰρ ἔφηβος ἔτ᾿ ὢν χήρᾳ συνοικεῖν. οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ τοὺς ἄλλους ἐάσας παρεχώρησε τῷ Πεισίᾳ καὶ τῷ Ἀνθεμίωνι βουλεύσασθαι τὸ συμφέρον, ὧν ὁ μὲν ἀνεψιὸς αὐτοῦ ἦν πρεσβύτερος, ὁ δὲ Πεισίας αὐστηρότατος τῶν ἐραστῶν· }

Bacchon allowing others to arrange whether he would marry Ismenodora might be interpreted as indicating his passivity. That’s a regrettably prevalent ideological construct. The mother of the Byzantine Emperor typically arranged his marriage even though he was active enough to engage in vicious Byzantine politics and lead armies in battle. The woman now called Saint Cecilia apparently married to satisfy her family and friends. She was a strong, independent woman within marriage. Bacchon’s decision to allow Pisias and Anthemion to decide whether he would marry Ismenodora doesn’t imply that Bacchon was characteristically passive.

Like many academics today, Pisias focused on domination and subordination. He interpreted the inequality of Ismenodora and Bacchon to imply domination and subordination within their proposed marriage:

I must say that the young man must beware of the lady’s wealth. If we were to plunge him into such grandeur and luster, we might unwittingly make him disappear, as tin disappears when mixed with copper. It would be boastworthy if a young man of his age were to marry a simple, unassuming woman and yet keep his quality unchanged in the union, like wine mixed with water. But as for this woman, we can see her determination to command and to dominate. Otherwise, she would hardly have rejected so many eminent, noble, and wealthy suitors to woo a lad who has not yet discarded his military cloak, a young man who still needs a teacher.

{ ὅτι τῆς γυναικὸς ὁ πλοῦτός ἐστι φυλακτέος τῷ νεανίσκῳ, μὴ συμμίξαντες αὐτὸν ὄγκῳ καὶ βάρει τοσούτῳ λάθοιμεν ὥσπερ ἐν χαλκῷ κασσίτερον ἀφανίσαντες. μέγα γὰρ ἂν ἐλαφρᾷ καὶ λιτῇ γυναικὶ μειρακίου συνελθόντος εἰς ταὐτὸν ἡ κρᾶσις οἴνου δίκην ἐπικρατήσῃ· ταύτην δ᾿ ὁρῶμεν ἄρχειν καὶ κρατεῖν δοκοῦσαν· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἀπορρίψασα δόξας καὶ γένη τηλικαῦτα καὶ πλούτους ἐμνᾶτο μειράκιον ἐκ χλαμύδος, ἔτι παιδαγωγεῖσθαι δεόμενον. }[3]

In an ancient Greek tragedy, a husband had an unloving wife. She apparently had much money. He said to her:

You hate me? I can lightly bear your hate
and make material gain in my dishonored state.

{ μισεῖς; ἐγὼ δὲ ῥᾳδίως μισήσομαι,
πρὸς κέρδος ἕλκων τὴν ἐμὴν ἀτιμίαν. }[4]

Material gain and hate is certainly better than material loss and hate. Moreover, learned men in the ancient world recognized that even base-born, impecunious women can come to dominate their husbands:

We know that many men have been abject slaves of impecunious, low-status women. Samian flute-girls, banquet dancers, and women like Aristonicae, Oenanthê with her tambourine, and Agathoclea have trampled on the crowns of kings.

{ ταύταις ἴσμεν οὐκ ὀλίγους αἴσχιστα δουλεύσαντας. αὐλητρίδες δὲ Σάμιαι καὶ ὀρχηστρίδες, Ἀριστονίκα καὶ τύμπανον ἔχουσ᾿ Οἰνάνθη καὶ Ἀγαθόκλεια διαδήμασι βασιλέων ἐπέβησαν. }

In the classical Islamic world, almighty caliphs were subordinate to their beloved slave girls. Consider also Semiramis in ancient Assyria. She was a concubine to a house servant of King Ninus the Great, reputedly the founder of the Assyrian capital Nineveh. When Ninus saw Semiramis, he fell in love with her. He thus effectively lost his head:

She grew to have such power and such contempt for him that she asked to be allowed to direct the affairs of state, crowned and seated on his throne, for one day. He granted this. He issued orders for everyone to serve and obey her just as they would himself. At first her commands were moderate while she was testing the guards. Then, when she saw that there was no opposition or hesitation on their part, she ordered Ninus to be seized, put in chains, and finally put to death.

{ οὕτως ἐκράτησε καὶ κατεφρόνησεν ὥστ᾿ ἀξιῶσαι καὶ μίαν ἡμέραν αὐτὴν περιιδεῖν ἐν τῷ θρόνῳ καθεζομένην ἔχουσαν τὸ διάδημα καὶ χρηματίζουσαν. δόντος δ᾿ ἐκείνου καὶ κελεύσαντος πάντας ὑπηρετεῖν ὥσπερ αὑτῷ καὶ πείθεσθαι, μετρίως ἐχρῆτο τοῖς πρώτοις ἐπιτάγμασι, πειρωμένη τῶν δορυφόρων· ἐπεὶ δ᾿ ἑώρα μηδὲν ἀντιλέγοντας μηδ᾿ ὀκνοῦντας, ἐκέλευσε συλλαβεῖν τὸν Νῖνον εἶτα δῆσαι, τέλος δ᾿ ἀποκτεῖναι· }[5]

In marriage, a person is always at risk of spousal domination. That risk is highest for persons obsessed with dominance and subordination.

Ancient Greek authorities offered common-sense advice on how to avoid dominance in marriage. The ancient Greek iambic poet Hipponax declared:

The best marriage for a sensible man is to get
a woman’s good character as a wedding gift.
This dowry alone preserves the household.
But a man who marries a spoiled woman

That other man, instead of a despot, has a loyal
helper, steadfast throughout his whole life.

{ γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι
τρόπον γυναικὸς χρηστὸν ἕδνον λαμβάνειν·
αὕτη γὰρ ἡ προὶξ οἰκίαν σῴζει μόνη.
ὅστις δὲ †τρυφερῶς† τὴν γυναῖκ᾿ ἄγει λαβών

συνεργὸν οὗτος ἀντὶ δεσποίνης ἔχει
εὔνουν, βεβαίαν εἰς ἅπαντα τὸν βίον. }[6]

The ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch explained:

Through his self-control, wisdom, and by not being overwhelmed by anything about her, a husband must make himself his wife’s equal and not enslaved by her.

{ ἑαυτὸν ἐγκρατείᾳ καὶ φρονήσει καὶ τῷ μηθὲν ἐκπεπλῆχθαι τῶν περὶ ἐκείνην ἴσον παρέχειν καὶ ἀδούλωτον }

Marriage of course is challenging in practice for young spouses:

Young persons find it difficult to fuse and blend well with each other, and only with much time do they let go of their arrogance and self-assertion. At first they storm and struggle — and even more so if erotic love arises. Just as a high wind upsets a boat without a pilot, so erotic love makes stormy and chaotic a marriage of two people who both cannot command and neither will obey.

{ δύσμικτα γὰρ τὰ νέα καὶ δυσκέραστα καὶ μόλις ἐν χρόνῳ πολλῷ τὸ φρύαγμα καὶ τὴν ὕβριν ἀφίησιν, ἐν ἀρχῇ δὲ κυμαίνει καὶ ζυγομαχεῖ καὶ μᾶλλον ἂν Ἔρως ἐγγένηται καθάπερ πνεῦμα κυβερνήτου μὴ παρόντος ἐτάραξε καὶ συνέχεε τὸν γάμον οὔτ᾿ ἄρχειν δυναμένων οὔτ᾿ ἄρχεσθαι βουλομένων. }[7]

Completely avoiding dominance in marriage isn’t easy. One spouse may be on top at a particular moment, and another spouse on top at another moment. Maintaining a strictly side-by-side position is burdensome and tedious. In practice, all but the most ideologically committed spouses are open to experiencing dynamically and generously a variety of positions.

Plutarch was willing to accept Bacchon being subordinate to Ismenodora in marriage. He explained:

No one is without a ruler. No one is self-determining. What is terrible about a sensible older woman piloting the life of a young man? She will be useful because of her superior intelligence. She will be sweet and affectionate because she loves him.

{ οὐδεὶς δ᾿ ἄναρκτος οὐδ᾿ αὐτοτελής, τί δεινὸν εἰ γυνὴ νοῦν ἔχουσα πρεσβυτέρα κυβερνήσει νέου βίον ἀνδρός, ὠφέλιμος μὲν οὖσα τῷ φρονεῖν μᾶλλον ἡδεῖα δὲ τῷ φιλεῖν καὶ προσηνής }

That same is true, but cannot be said, for an older man piloting the life of a younger woman. Rigid gender-equality dogma impedes beneficial unions. Don’t expect to hear that classical wisdom from today’s classicists.

Anticipating her love for him being rejected, Ismenodora kidnapped Bacchon and apparently raped him. Society commonly functions as an accomplice for women’s sexual crimes. So it was for Ismenodora in relation to Bacchon:

Ismenodora was convinced, it seems, that although Bacchon had no personal antipathy to the marriage, he was embarrassed by its detractors. She accordingly resolved not to let the young man escape. She summoned male friends who were the most vigorous and most sympathetic to her passion, together with the closest of her women friends. She organized them into a disciplined group and waited intently for the hour when Bacchon habitually left the wrestling school and walked orderly by her house. This time he, freshly oiled, approached with two or three companions. Ismenodora met him by her door. She had only to touch Bacchon’s cloak when her friends seized beautifully the beautiful one in his military cloak and sword, together carried him into the house, and immediately locked the doors. Simultaneously the women inside snatched off his military cloak and put on him a wedding garment. The servants scurried about and wreathed the doors with olive and laurel — not only Ismenodora’s doors, but Bacchon’s also. A flute-girl went out and piped her way down the lane.

{ Ἡ γὰρ Ἰσμηνοδώρα, ὡς ἔοικεν, αὐτὸν μὲν οὐκ ἀηδῶς ἔχειν οἰομένη τὸν Βάκχωνα πρὸς τὸν γάμον, αἰσχύνεσθαι δὲ τοὺς ἀποτρέποντας, ἔγνω μὴ προέσθαι τὸ μειράκιον. τῶν οὖν φίλων τοὺς μάλιστα τοῖς βίοις νεαροὺς καὶ συνερῶντας αὐτῇ καὶ τῶν γυναικῶν τὰς συνήθεις μεταπεμψαμένη καὶ συγκροτήσασα παρεφύλαττε τὴν ὥραν, ἣν ὁ Βάκχων ἔθος εἶχεν ἀπιὼν ἐκ παλαίστρας παρὰ τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτῆς παρεξιέναι κοσμίως. ὡς οὖν τότε προσῄει μετὰ δυοῖν ἢ τριῶν ἑταίρων ἀληλιμμένος, αὐτὴ μὲν ἐπὶ τὰς θύρας ἀπήντησεν ἡ Ἰσμηνοδώρα καὶ τῆς χλαμύδος ἔθιγε μόνον, οἱ δὲ φίλοι καλὸν καλῶς ἐν τῇ χλαμύδι καὶ τῇ διβολίᾳ συναρπάσαντες εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν παρήνεγκαν ἀθρόοι καὶ τὰς θύρας εὐθὺς ἀπέκλεισαν. Ἅμα δ᾿ αἱ μὲν γυναῖκες ἔνδον αὐτοῦ τὸ χλαμύδιον ἀφαρπάσασαι περιέβαλον ἱμάτιον νυμφικόν· οἰκέται δὲ περὶ κύκλῳ δραμόντες ἀνέστεφον ἐλαίᾳ καὶ δάφνῃ τὰς θύρας οὐ μόνον τὰς τῆς Ἰσμηνοδώρας ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς τοῦ Βάκχωνος· ἡ δ᾿ αὐλητρὶς αὐλοῦσα διεξῆλθε τὸν στενωπόν. }

Describing the assailants as having seized “beautifully the beautiful one {καλός καλῶς}” suggests approval of this crime. Bacchon’s older cousin Anthemion regarded Ismenodora as a strong woman in love:

Anthemion remarked, “Such a bold stroke is certainly a strong action, really Lemnian — we can admit it since we’re by ourselves. It shows the hand of a woman very much in love. … it truly seems that some divine impulse, overpowering her human reasoning, has taken hold of the merely human woman.”

{ Ὁ δ᾿ Ἀνθεμίων, “νεανικὸν μέν,” ἔφη, “τὸ τόλμημα καὶ Λήμνιον ὡς ἀληθῶς, αὐτοὶ γάρ ἐσμεν, σφόδρ᾿ ἐρώσης γυναικός. … ἔοικε θεία τις ὄντως εἰληφέναι τὴν ἄνθρωπον ἐπίπνοια καὶ κρείττων ἀνθρωπίνου λογισμοῦ.” }

Others explained away Ismenodora’s violence against Bacchon:

Soclarus asked with a little smile, “Do you really think that it’s a case of kidnapping and rape? Isn’t it instead the plausible counter-stratagem of a sensible young man who has slipped from the clutches of his male lovers and deserted to the arms of a wealthy and beautiful woman?”

{ Καὶ ὁ Σώκλαρος ὑπομειδιῶν, “οἴει γὰρ ἁρπαγήν,” ἔφη, “γεγονέναι καὶ βιασμόν, οὐκ ἀπολόγημα Dκαὶ στρατήγημα νεανίσκου4 νοῦν ἔχοντος, ὅτι τὰς τῶν ἐραστῶν ἀγκάλας διαφυγὼν ἐξηυτομόληκεν εἰς χεῖρας καλῆς καὶ πλουσίας γυναικός” }

In short, Soclarus declared that Bacchon desired and arranged for himself to be kidnapped and (fake) raped. Today that would be regard as an outrageous claim, if he were a woman.[8] Supporters and opponents of Ismenodora’s action argued fiercely in front of her door. As a woman in gynocentric society, Ismenodora prevailed. After kidnapping Bacchon, she married him. She even publicly celebrated her marriage to him.

The widow Ismenodora loved Bacchon in the way of both Aphrodite and Eros. Love in the way of Aphrodite means sexual intercourse. In the ancient world, widows were regarded been desperately full of sexual desire. Ismenodora, however, didn’t merely desire the beautiful young man Bacchon for sex. She also loved him in the way of Eros. That means she regarded him as a beautiful person in body and mind, and she passionately desired an ongoing intimate relationship with him. In short, she wanted to marry him.

Ismenodora kidnapping and apparently raping Bacchon shows the power of love inspired by both Aphrodite and Eros. Plutarch didn’t regard Aphrodite (sexual desire) alone as sufficient to prompt major life choices:

Let us recognize that the work of Aphrodite, if Eros is not present, can be bought for a small amount of money. … Weak and easily sated is Aphrodite’s delight if Eros has not inspired it.

{ ὅτι τῆς Ἀφροδίτης τοὔργον ἔρωτος μὴ παρόντος ὤνιόν ἐστι δραχμῆς … ἀσθενὴς καὶ ἁψίκορός ἐστιν ἡ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης χάρις, Ἔρωτος μὴ ἐπιπνεύσαντος. }

Subtly undermining disparagement of men’s sexuality, Plutarch associated the (female) moon with Aphrodite and the (male) sun with Eros in a metaphor implying the feebleness of sexual intercourse without a passionate, ongoing relationship:

The moon is both earthly and heavenly, a place where the immortal is blended with the mortal. She is ineffective by herself, and she is without illumination when the sun is not shining on her, just as Aphrodite is nothing without the presence of Eros.

{ χθονία καὶ οὐρανία καὶ μίξεως χώρα τοῦ ἀθανάτου πρὸς τὸ θνητόν, ἀδρανὴς δὲ καθ᾿ ἑαυτὴν καὶ σκοτώδης ἡλίου μὴ προσλάμποντος, ὥσπερ Ἀφροδίτη μὴ παρόντος Ἔρωτος. }[9]

Love inspired by both Aphrodite and Eros can produce extraordinary acts. Camma of Galatia, with lengthy, sophisticated planning, killed the man who killed her husband. Empona of Gaul spent many nights in an underground cave with her husband when the Roman Emperor was persecuting him.[10] The powerful love of Camma and Empona — love inspired by both Eros and Aphrodite — seems to have been the type of love inspiring Ismenodora to kidnap and apparently rape Bacchon.

Kidnapping and rape should be regarded as serious wrongs even when the perpetrator is a woman and the victim is a man. Ismenodora kidnapped and apparently raped Bacchon within an ancient Greek society that strongly disfavored men marrying upwards in status and wealth. Women engaging in hypergamy, in contrast, typically isn’t a matter of social opprobrium. In addition to illustrating the power of love inspired by both Aphrodite and Eros, Ismenodora deserves credit for fostering public understanding of true gender equality.

* * * * *

Read more:

Notes:

[1] The story of Ismenodora and Bacchon exists only in Plutarch’s Moralia, Amatorius / Erotikos {Ἐρωτικός} / Dialogue on Love. All the details of the story above are from Amatorius. The story has realistic details. Ismenodora and Bacchon probably were actual persons. Tsouvala (2008) Chapter 2.

Verbal conversation over time created Ismenodora’s love for Bacchon. Her love for Bacchon wasn’t love at first sight, or love at any particular sight. Campos Daroca & Romero Mariscal (2020) pp. 75-7. Id. goes as far as to claim that Ismenodora had “complete disregard for the image of her beloved.” Id. p. 77. That claim isn’t warranted. Bacchon was widely regarded as physically beautiful. As soon as Ismenodora kidnapped Bacchon, she had him dressed in a wedding garment and arranged to marry him. Her first concern wasn’t to spend many weeks talking with him. She didn’t use words to allay his reluctance to marry her. She scarcely had time for many words with him before consummating her marriage to him. The whole of Amatorius includes no words from Bacchon or Ismenodora.

[2] Plutarch, Amatorius, section 2 (Stephanus 749E), Greek text and English translation (modified) from Minar, Sandbach & Helmbold (1961). For aid in reading the ancient Greek, Hayes & Nimis (2011). Characterizing Bacchon as “the beautiful man {ὁ καλός}” is similarly from Amatorius 2 (749A).

In the translation of Minar, Sandbach & Helmbold (1961), Ismenodora intended to be Bacchon’s “companion for life.” The Greek text specifies only marriage. Even in the ancient world, divorce might occur.

Ismenodora’s love for Bacchon prompts a dialogue on the relative merits of men loving women and older men loving young men. The same debate structures the pseudo-Lucian Erotes {Ἔρωτες} / Amores / Affairs of the Heart; Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon {Λευκιππην και Κλειτοφωντα} 2.35-38; and al-Jahiz, Inside, Outside & Back to Front / Risalah fi tafdil al-batn ‘ala al-zahr. The classical Arabic work is characteristically the most sexually oriented.

Plutarch’s Amatorius is set during the celebration of the Festivals of Eros / Erotidia {Ἐρωτίδεια} on Mount Helicon. The Erotidia, held every four years, celebrated Eros and the Muses. Mount Helicon was understood to be the home of the Muses. Thespiae, the principal city of Boeotia, was at the foot of Mount Helicon.

The dialogue of the Amatorius is plausibly set about 75 GC:

Flacelière 8–10 places composition of the Amatorius in the last ten years of Plutarch’s life and argues that he may have died as late as 127. Since the visit to Thespiae took place when Plutarch was first married and before the birth of his son (749b), and since Plutarch’s birth can be placed about 45 A.D., it is reasonable to set the occasion of the dialogue about 75 A.D.

Gutzwiller (2004) p. 404, n. 64. The text itself was probably written c. 120 GC and surely after the end of the Flavian dynasty in 96 GC. Georgiadou (2019) p. 280. On the social and historical context of the Amatorius, Tsouvala (2008).

Amatorius draws significantly on Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium. But it develops an understanding of love significantly different from that of Plato. Brenk (2022).

All quotes from Plutarch’s Amatorius are similarly sourced. Subsequent quotes above are from Amatorius 2 (749E) (The situation itself appeared extraordinary…), 7 (752E-F) (I must say that the young man must beware…), 4 (750E) (You hate me? …), 9 (753D) (We know that many men have been abject slaves…), 9 (753D-E) (She grew to have such power and such contempt for him…), 9 (754B) (Through his self-control, wisdom…), 9 (754C-D) (Young persons find it difficult to fuse and blend well…), 9 (754D) (No one is without a ruler…), 10 (754E-755A) (Ismenodora was convinced…), 11 (755C-E) (Anthemion remarked…), 11 (755C-D) (Soclarus asked with a little smile…), 16 (759E) (Let us recognize that the work of Aphrodite…), 19 (764D) (The moon is both earthly and heavenly…).

[3] Modern scholars haven’t taken seriously Pisias’s sensible, contextually grounded concern about Ismenodora dominating Bacchon. Consider this interpretative approach:

Pisias feared that Ismenodora’s wealth and age will dominate and ultimately elide Bacchon’s sense of self, when the correct relation between husband and wife is precisely the opposite. In this sense, conjugality is a gendered status-relation of inferiority and submission.

Warren (2022) p. 137. As the Amatorius makes clear, conjugality for Plutarch wasn’t “a gendered status-relation of inferiority and submission.” That’s the “correct relation” not for Ismenodora and Bacchon, but only in a tedious, totalizing ideology of gender.

[4] Plutarch quotes these verses of tragic poetry. Their author or the play in which they were used isn’t known.

[5] For an alternate account of Semiramis, Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library / Bibliotheca historica {Βιβλιοθήκη Ἱστορική} 2.20.3ff. Semiramis is the title figure in a poem written in eleventh-century Rouen.

[6] Hipponax, Fragment 182, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from Gerber (1999). The text is apparently defective and discontinuous. My minor modifications try to make fairly fluent, plausible sense of the surviving Greek text.

[7] According to Plutarch’s son Autobulus, tension between Plutarch’s parents and his wife Timoxena’s parents brought the newly married Plutarch and Timoxena to the Erotidia:

A long time ago, before I was born, when my father had only recently married my mother, he rescued her from a dispute that had broken out between their parents. That dispute was so hotly contested that my father came here to sacrifice to Eros. He brought my mother to the festival. In fact, she herself was to make the prayer and the sacrifice.

{ Ὁ γὰρ πατήρ, ἐπεὶ πάλαι, πρὶν ἡμᾶς γενέσθαι, τὴν μητέρα νεωστὶ κεκομισμένος ἐκ τῆς γενόμένης τοῖς γονεῦσιν αὐτῶν διαφορᾶς καὶ στάσεως ἀφίκετο τῷ Ἔρωτι θύσων, ἐπὶ τὴν ἑορτὴν ἦγε τὴν μητέρα· καὶ γὰρ ἦν ἐκείνης ἡ εὐχὴ καὶ ἡ θυσία. }

Plutarch, Amatorius 2 (749B). Perhaps reflecting his personal experience, Plutarch is quite sensitivity to personal difficulties at the beginning of a marriage. He advised his friend Zeuxippus of Lacedaemon:

Do not, my dear Zeuxippus, be afraid of sharp pain that comes at the beginning of marriage. Don’t fear it as though it were a wound or a bite. And even if there’s a wound, it’s not terrible when the union is with a good woman. It’s like trees united though grafting.

{ Τὸ δ᾿ ἐμπαθὲς ἐν ἀρχῇ καὶ δάκνον, ὦ μακάριε Ζεύξιππε, μὴ φοβηθῇς ὡς ἕλκος ἢ ὀδαξησμόν· καίτοι καὶ μεθ᾿ ἕλκους ἴσως οὐδὲν δεινὸν ὥσπερ τὰ δένδρα συμφυῆ γενέσθαι πρὸς γυναῖκα χρηστήν. }

Plutarch, Amatorius 24 (769E). Plutarch also explained:

Just as with the mixing of two liquids, love between a woman and man seems at first to cause some effervescence and agitation. Then the mixture, over time settling down and subsiding, produces the most stable disposition.

{ ὥσπερ ὑγρῶν πρὸς ἄλληλα συμπεσόντων ποιεῖν τινα δοκεῖ ζέσιν ἐν ἀρχῇ καὶ τάραξιν ὁ Ἔρως, εἶτα χρόνῳ καταστὰς καὶ καθαιρεθεὶς τὴν βεβαιοτάτην διάθεσιν παρέσχεν. }

Plutarch, Amatorius 24 (769F). That metaphor seems to be figuratively autobiographical. It plausibly represents Plutarch’s view of his own marriage to Timoxena.

Amatorius also presents a abstract view of a good marriage:

a good marriage must be contracted between two sensible, capable individuals at the right stage of life, and it must be bound together by ties of mutual erotic attraction, which in turn foster philia and virtue.

Beneker (2008) p. 698.

[8] On hearing that Ismenodora had kidnapped Bacchon, Zeuxippus laughed and recited a verse from the tragic poet Euripides. Amatorius 11 (755B). Zeuxippus’s trivialization of Ismenodora’s crime represents a much more general social pattern.

In the ancient Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hades abducted Persephone according to her father’s Zeus’s plan for Hades to marry her. Persephone’s mother Demeter was enraged at Hades’ abduction of Persephone. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter doesn’t indicated that Hades raped Persephone. Nonetheless, classicists commonly refer to Hades’s “rape” of Persephone. See note [1] in my post on Demeter’s rage.

Almost no classicists have taken seriously Soclarus’s implicit view that others within the story regard Ismenodora as having raped Bacchon. One even misread it to mean that Bacchon was kidnapped “though not against his will (755CD).” Georgiadou (2019) p. 286. Moreover, scholars don’t refer to the story of Ismenodora and Bacchon as “The Rape of Bacchon.” One scholar deserves credits for at least a parenthetical question:

Brenk (n. 4), 50, suggests that in the Amatorius ‘the dispute is largely decided by an exemplum’ (namely, first Ismenodora’s ‘kidnapping’ — or should we say ‘rape’, as in Rape of the Sabines? [she certainly gets his cloak off pretty fast, 755A] — then the wedding itself).

Rist (2001) p. 575, n. 48. Brenk elsewhere noted ‘the importance of the literary “frame” of Ismenodora’s “rape” of Bacchon.’ Brenk (1988) p. 461. Brenk then betrayed the moral seriousness of rape by ignoring Ismenodora’s apparent rape of Bacchon. He, however, worried that study of women and sexuality “risks betrayal in male hands.” Id. Classicists refusing to recognized men being raped reflects much more general social injustice against men in defining crimes.

Classicists’ treatment of gender has been grotesquely gender-biased. Classicists have considered at length whether Plutarch adheres to feminism, or was a precursor to feminism. “Plutarch’s attitudes to women foreshadow some of the most essential aspects of modern feminism.” Nikolaidis (1997) p. 88. However, Plutarch shows “incomplete feminism.” Kondo (2024). In contrast to such gynocentric analysis, classicists have ignored gender injustices against men and have refused to consider how to improve men’s social position.

[9] Ancient Roman religion associated the female divinity Luna and the male divinity Sol with the moon and sun, respectively. Early Christians associated the sun with Jesus and the moon with Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Plutarch disparaged both sexless marriages and emotionally frigid marriages:

So marriage is to be a loveless union, devoid of god-given friendship! Yet we observe that an alliance, when erotic persuasion and charm have departed, can scarcely be held together by yokes and bridles of shame and fear.

{ ἀλλὰ τοῖς γάμοις ἀνέραστον ἐπάγων καὶ ἄμοιρον ἐνθέου φιλίας κοινωνίαν, ἣν τῆς ἐρωτικῆς πειθοῦς καὶ χάριτος ἀπολιπούσης μονονοὺ ζυγοῖς καὶ χαλινοῖς ὑπ᾿ αἰσχύνης καὶ φόβου μάλα μόλις συνεχομένην ὁρῶμεν. }

Amatorius 5 (752C-D). Medieval Christianity attached such great importance to sex within marriage that it developed doctrines concerning “conjugal debt,” meaning spouses’ obligation to have sex with each other.

In Plutarch’s view, sexual intercourse alone was a matter of only temporary pleasure:

And regarding those appetites for women, however well they are realized, they have for net gain only an accrual of pleasure in the enjoyment of a ripe physical beauty. To this Aristippus bore witness when he replied to the man who denounced Laïs to him for not loving him. He didn’t imagine, he said, that wine or fish loved him either, yet he partook of both with pleasure.

{ ταῖς δὲ πρὸς γυναῖκας ἐπιθυμίαις ταύταις, ἂν ἄριστα πέσωσιν, ἡδονὴν περίεστι καρποῦσθαι καὶ ἀπόλαυσιν ὥρας καὶ σώματος, ὡς ἐμαρτύρησεν Ἀρίστιππος, τῷ κατηγοροῦντι Λαΐδος πρὸς αὐτὸν ὡς οὐ φιλούσης ἀποκρινάμενος ὅτι καὶ τὸν οἶνον οἴεται καὶ τὸν ἰχθὺν μὴ φιλεῖν αὐτόν, ἀλλ᾿ ἡδέως ἑκατέρῳ χρῆται. }

Amatorius 4 (750D-E). Plutarch further explained:

Sexual intercourse without Eros is like hunger and thirst, which can be sated, but never achieve a noble end. With Eros the goddess Aphrodite removes the cloying effect of pleasure and creates affection and fusion.

{ ἀνέραστος γὰρ ὁμιλία καθάπερ πεῖνα καὶ δίψα πλησμονὴν ἔχουσα πέρας εἰς οὐδὲν ἐξικνεῖται καλόν· ἀλλ᾿ ἡ θεὸς Ἔρωτι τὸν κόρον ἀφαιροῦσα τῆς ἡδονῆς φιλότητα ποιεῖ καὶ σύγκρασιν. }

Amatorius 13 (756E).

[10] On Camma of Galatia, Amatorius 22 (768B-D). Plutarch provides a more elaborate account of Camma at Moralia, Bravery of Women / Mulierum Virtutes 20 (257E-258C). Plutarch’s story of Camma reappears in Polyaenus, Strategemata 8.39. On Empona of Gaul, Amatorius 25 (770D-771C). On Plutarch’s use of love stories and his possible literary influence on Apuleius, Costantini (2018).

[images] (1) Mummy portrait of a wealthy women from Fayum, Egypt, early in the second century GC. The woman is wearing earrings and a necklace containing pearls and emeralds. Preserved as accession # 32.5 in The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, USA). Credit: Acquired by Henry Walters, 1912. With admirable public spirit, the Walters supplied the source image with a Creative Commons Zero license.

(2) Mummy portrait of a young man from Egypt about 190-210 GC. The young man apparently has a surgical cut under his right eye. Preserved as object # 09.181.4 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA). Credit: Rogers Fund, 1909. With admirable public spirit, The Met dedicated the source image to the public domain. I have made minor, non-substantive modifications to the background of the face.

References:

Beneker, Jeffrey. 2008. “Plutarch on the Role of Eros in a Marriage.” Pp. 689-699 in Anastasios G. Nikolaides, ed. The Unity of Plutarch’s Work: Moralia Themes in the Lives, Features of the Lives in the Moralia. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Brenk, Frederick E. 1988. “Plutarch’s Erotikos: The Drag down Pulled Up.” Illinois Classical Studies. 13 (2): 457–71.

Brenk, Frederick E. 2022. “Plutarch: Expanding the Horizons of Platonic Love. ” Chapter 5 (pp. 83-110) in Carl Sean O’Brien and John M. Dillon. Platonic Love from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Campos Daroca, Javier, and Lucía P. Romero Mariscal. “At First Sight or by Words of Mouth. Experiencing Love in Plutarch’s Amatorius and the Novel.” Pp. 71-80 in Josep Antoni Clúa Serena, ed. Mythologica Plutarchea: Estudios Sobre Los Mitos En Plutarco: XIII Simposio Internacional de La Sociedad Española de Plutarquistas (Universidad de Lleida, 4-5-6 de Octubre de 2018). Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas.

Costantini, Leonardo. 2018. “Love Stories as a Narrative Trope in Plutarch’s Amatoriae Narrationes and Mulierum Virtutes, and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses 7 and 8.” Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica. 146 (2): 489–504.

Gerber, Douglas E, ed and trans. 1999. Archilochus, Semonides, Hipponax. Greek Iambic Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Loeb Classical Library 259. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Georgiadou, Aristoula. 2019. “Marriage, Cult and City in Plutarch’s Erotikos.” Chapter 17 (pp. 280-294) in Delfim Ferreira Leão and Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, eds. A Man of Many Interests: Plutarch on Religion, Myth, and Magic: Essays in Honor of Aurelio Pérez Jiménez. Leiden: Brill.

Gutzwiller, Kathryn J. 2004. “Gender and Inscribed Epigram: Herennia Procula and the Thespian Eros.” Transactions of the American Philological Association. 134 (2): 383–418.

Hayes, Evan, and Stephen A. Nimis. 2011. Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love: An Intermediate Greek Reader. Oxford, OH: Faenum Publishing. Alternate source. Review by Thomas R. Keith.

Kondo, Tomohiko. 2024. “Incomplete Feminisms of Plutarch and Musonius Rufus.” Chapter 24 (pp. 352-365) in Katarzyna Jazdzewska and Filip Doroszewskim eds. Plutarch and His Contemporaries: Sharing the Roman Empire. Leiden: Brill.

Minar, Edwin L., F. H. Sandbach, and W. C. Helmbold, ed. and trans. 1961. Plutarch. Moralia, Volume IX: Table-Talk, Books 7-9. Dialogue on Love. Loeb Classical Library 425. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nikolaidis, Anastasios G. 1997. “Plutarch on Women and Marriage.” Wiener Studien. 110: 27–88.

Rist, John M. 2001. “Plutarch’s Amatorius: A Commentary on Plato’s Theories of Love?” The Classical Quarterly. 51 (2): 557–75.

Tsouvala, Georgia. 2008. The Social and Historical Context of Plutarch’s Erotikos. Ph.D. Thesis, City University of New York.

Warren, Lunette. 2022. Like a Captive Bird: Gender and Virtue in Plutarch. Ann Arbor, MI: Lever Press. Review by Lien Van Geel.

missing Persephone, raging Demeter sought to exterminate humanity

The eminent warrior Achilles raged at King Agamemnon for taking for himself Achilles’s beloved concubine Briseis. Achilles’s anger, wrath, and rage transformed the Trojan War.[1] Nonetheless, the goddess Demeter raged much more devastatingly at the god Zeus for arranging for their daughter Persephone to marry Hades. For that perceived relational wrong, Demeter sought to demean the immortal divinities or exterminate humanity. Classical scholars with their deeply entrenched misunderstanding of gender tend to ignore Demeter’s anger and instead emphasize her motherly grief. Demeter’s anger, wrath, and rage, as well as that of women and goddesses more generally, deserve to be better appreciated.

Hades abducting Persephone

Demeter hid her anger, wrath, and rage about Hades abducting Persephone for marriage. After Persephone’s abduction, Demeter assumed the character of a barren old woman and wandered to Eleusis. There she became the nurse to Demophon, son of Queen Metaneira and King Keleos of Eleusis. Demeter seemed to be a kindly old woman. She promised Metaneira she would take good care of Demophon:

Be joyful, woman, and may the gods give you blessings.
As for your little boy, I will gladly take him, as you request.
I will rear him, and I don’t expect that by any negligence of his nurse
a supernatural visitation or cutter of roots will harm him.
I know a powerful counter-cutter to beat the herb-cutter,
and I know a good inhibitor of baneful pestilence.

{ καὶ σύ, γύναι, μάλα χαῖρε, θεοὶ δέ τοι ἐσθλὰ πόροιεν.
παῖδα δέ τοι πρόφρων ὑποδέξομαι, ὥς με κελεύεις·
θρέψω, κοὔ μιν, ἔολπα, κακοφραδίηισι τιθήνης
οὔτ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἐπηλυσίη δηλήσεται οὔθ᾿ ὑποτάμνων·
οἶδα γὰρ ἀντίτομον μέγα φέρτερον ὑλοτόμοιο,
οἶδα δ᾿ ἐπηλυσίης πολυπήμονος ἐσθλὸν ἐρυσμόν. }[2]

Demeter nourished Demophon with ambrosia. At night she placed him within the hearth’s fire. His parents marveled, because “as he continually bloomed, he was like the gods in appearance {ὡς προθαλὴς τελέθεσκε, θεοῖσι δὲ ἄντα ἐώικει}.” Demeter in fact was making Demophon “ageless and immortal {ἀγήρως καί ἀθάνατος}.” Making a mortal into an immortal would challenge the privileged position of Zeus and the other immortal divinities.

Queen Metaneira unknowingly aborted Demophon becoming immortal. One night Metaneira saw Demeter placing him in the fire. Metaneira was alarmed and cried out:

Demophon, my child! The strange woman is hiding you
in the blazing fire! That is causing me grief and mournful anguish!

{ τέκνον Δημοφόων, ξείνη σε πυρὶ ἔνι πολλῶι
κρύπτει, ἐμοὶ δὲ γόον καὶ κήδεα λυγρὰ τίθησιν. }

Metaneira’s words angered Demeter. She took Demophon out of the fire and put him on the floor.[3] Then she castigated Queen Metaneira:

Ignorant and foolish humans unable to recognize
the difference between future good or ill.
And you are one of them irremediably misled by your folly!

{ νήϊδες ἄνθρωποι καὶ ἀφράδμονες οὔτ᾿ ἀγαθοῖο
αἶσαν ἐπερχομένου προγνώμεναι οὔτε κακοῖο·
καὶ σὺ γὰρ ἀφραδίηισι τεῆις νήκεστον ἀάσθης. }

Dropping her disguise, Demeter then declared her true name. Calling herself the greatest good to mortals and immortals, she instructed Queen Metaneira to have all the people of Eleusis build a huge temple for her. She said she would then instruct the people how to perform sacred rites pleasing to her.[4] Demeter’s anger at Zeus seems to have been temporarily redirected at Metaneira and the people of Eleusis.

Roman marble statue of Demeter standing

When the people of Eleusis instituted proper worship of Demeter, she directed her anger back at Zeus. She sat in her new temple at Eleusis and shunned the other immortals. To further hurt them, she acted to exterminate humanity:

She made the most terrible year for all mortals across the
nurturing earth, a most grievous year. The earth did not sprout
any seed, for fair-garlanded Demeter suppressed the seed.
Many oxen dragged curved plows over the fields, all in vain.
Many white barley seeds fell into the soil, all in vain.
Indeed, she would have destroyed humanity altogether
by grievous famine, thus depriving the immortal
dwellers of Olympus of their honors and sacrificial food.

{ αἰνότατον δ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν ἐπὶ χθόνα πουλυβότειραν
ποίησ᾿ ἀνθρώποις καὶ κύντατον· οὐδέ τι γαῖα
σπέρμ᾿ ἀνίει· κρύπτεν γὰρ ἐϋστέφανος Δημήτηρ·
πολλὰ δὲ καμπύλ᾿ ἄροτρα μάτην βόες εἷλκον ἀρούραις,
πολλὸν δὲ κρῖ λευκὸν ἐτώσιον ἔμπεσε γαίηι.
καί νύ κε πάμπαν ὄλεσσε γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
λιμοῦ ὕπ᾿ ἀργαλέης, γεράων τ᾿ ἐρικυδέα τιμήν
καὶ θυσιῶν ἤμερσεν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾿ ἔχοντας }

If Zeus wanted to exterminate humanity, he would kill them all directly with thunderbolts and storms. Indirect aggression is more characteristic of goddesses and women. Demeter sought to exterminate humanity through famine in order to deprive Zeus and all the other gods, including herself, of offerings from humans. Although scarcely expressed and motivating only indirect aggression, Demeter’s devastating rage didn’t even spare herself.

Noticing Demeter’s anger, wrath, and rage, all-knowing Zeus did whatever was necessary to mollify her. First he sent the goddess Iris to beg Demeter to come to Olympus. Demeter refused to come. Zeus then sent other immortals who offered Demeter gifts and honors if she would rejoin the divinities on Olympus. Demeter again refused to join the other immortals. Finally, Zeus sent Hermes to bring Persephone back from the Underworld. Hermes explained to Hades the urgent need:

Sable-haired Hades, lord of the dead,
Zeus the Father has ordered me to bring illustrious Persephone
back from the dark Underworld to those above, so that her mother
may set eyes on her and cease from her wrath and terrifying rage
against the immortals. For Demeter is intending a grave deed —
to destroy the feeble tribes of earth-born humans
by keeping the seed hidden under the soil. She thus would destroy
tribute to the immortals. Her wrath is terrifying. She refuses
to mingle with the gods, but stays apart, seated inside
her fragrant temple occupying Eleusis’s rugged citadel.

{ Ἅιδη κυανοχαῖτα καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσων,
Ζεύς με πατὴρ ἤνωγεν ἀγαυὴν Περσεφόνειαν
ἐξαγαγεῖν Ἐρέβεσφι μετὰ σφέας, ὄφρα ἑ μήτηρ
ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἰδοῦσα χόλου καὶ μήνιος αἰνῆς
ἀθανάτοις λήξειεν· ἐπεὶ μέγα μήδεται ἔργον,
φθεῖσαι φῦλ᾿ ἀμενηνὰ χαμαιγενέων ἀνθρώπων
σπέρμ᾿ ὑπὸ γῆς κρύπτουσα, καταφθινύθουσα δὲ τιμάς
ἀθανάτων. ἣ δ᾿ αἰνὸν ἔχει χόλον, οὐδὲ θεοῖσιν
μίσγεται, ἀλλ᾿ ἀπάνευθε θυώδεος ἔνδοθι νηοῦ
ἧσται, Ἐλευσῖνος κραναὸν πτολίεθρον ἔχουσα. }

Less strong-willed than Demeter, Hades readily agreed to having his beloved Persephone taken away from him and brought to her mother Demeter in Eleusis. Zeus assented to having Persephone spend two-thirds of the year with her mother Demeter and one-third of the year with her husband Hades.[5] That arrangement mollified Demeter. No longer in rage seeking to exterminate humanity, she enabled crops to grow.

Persephone returning from the Underworld with Hermes to Demeter

Goddesses and women deserve to be well-recognized for their devastating anger, wrath, and rage. In the ancient Greek-speaking world, a poet begin a hymn to Demeter in a telling way:

Sing, goddess, the wrath of Demeter of the splendid fruit.

{ Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Δημήτερος ἀγλαοκάρπου }[6]

That verse adapts the opening line of the Homeric Iliad:

Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.

{ Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος }[7]

Achilles’s anger, wrath, and rage has been recognized as “the demonic destructive power of a justified curse.” Demeter’s anger, wrath, and rage, in contrast, was arguably less justified and certainly more potentially destructive.[8] Moreover, Demeter’s rage follows the pattern of goddesses’ cosmos-ordering rage. For example, Zeus feared the wrath of the goddess Thetis, mother of Achilles. Hera controlled Zeus, and in her rages manipulated mortals’ fate. Many men have long regarded beloved mortal women to be goddesses, and men are justifiably wary of criticizing women. The anger, wrath, and rage of women and goddesses shape the world.

In contrast to assertions of gender supremacists, women and goddesses are equal to men and gods in propensity to anger, wrath, and rage. Women and goddess, however, are more socially adept in self-presentation and more skilled in indirect aggression. In addition, women and goddess have been unfairly deprived of credit for their anger, wrath, and rage. The rage of Achilles as represented in the Iliad has been enormously influential. The rage of Demeter deserves to be equally well known.

* * * * *

Read more:

Notes:

[1] In this post, anger, wrath, and rage refer to the Homeric Greek word μῆνις (transliterated as mênis) and closely related Homeric Greek words. For detailed philological study of μῆνις in relation to Achilles as represented in the Iliad, Muellner (1996). The book summary in the online version of Meullner’s book states:

He believes that notions of anger vary between cultures and that the particular meaning of a word such as menis needs to emerge from a close study of Greek epic. Menis means more than an individual’s emotional response. On the basis of the epic exemplifications of the word, Muellner defines the term as a cosmic sanction against behavior that violates the most basic rules of human society.

For all his close study of Homeric Greek, Muellner repeatedly asserts that Hades rapes Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. See, e.g. Muellner (1996) p. 34. That’s philologically incorrect. See note [1] in my post on Iambe / Baubo cheering Demeter.

Hades lustfully abducting naked Persephone

While carelessly and expansively using the term rape in relation to males victimizing females, Muellner focuses on the benefits of females victimizing males:

What has aroused Demeter’s mênis is the forceful (βίῃ), unwilling (ἀέκουσα), and inescapable (ἀναγκῃ) removal of her divine daughter (κούρη) from the surface of the earth to the world below. In contrast to the passionate upward thrust of the mortal warrior or the insubordinate Ares, and in contrast to the uplifting, willing seduction of mortal men by goddesses, the offensive, dangerous act here is unwilled and downward in the cosmic hierarchy: not a man’s seduction but a maiden’s rape, not the immortalization of a mortal but the relegation of an immortal to the land of the dead.

Muellner (1996) p. 25. Careful attention to the meaning of the word “rape” and concern to avoid gender bias in asserting that felony crime are a particularly important matter of social justice given the vastly gender disproportionate imprisonment of men.

Trivializing the actual central meaning of the word “rape” in current English language and current criminal law, Sowa redefines it to discuss the motif of “Rape” in relation to the Homeric hymns:

Rape, as we shall use the term, describes a violent abduction often carried out for sexual purposes.

Sowa (1984) p. 121. Personally redefining words to align them with prevailing anti-men gender bigotry in interpreting ancient Greek literature is bad philology. Hades violently abducted Persephone, with the consent of her father Zeus, in order to marry her. Marriage is much broader than a “sexual purpose.” As for violent abduction, men taken captive in war and other hostilities are never considered under a specially defined “Rape” motif. Many scholars, artists, and writers have uncritically followed bigoted assertions about the “Rape” of Persephone. See, e.g. Ginevra (2020).

Hades sexually assaulting Persephone

[2] Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymns 2, To Demeter {Εισ Δημητραν}), vv. 225-30, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from West (2003). Alternate English translations are those of Nagy (2018), Rayor (2004), Shelmerdine (1995), Foley (1994) and Evelyn-White (1914). Subsequent quotes from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter are similarly sourced.

In Egypt, Demeter was associated with the goddess Isis. In Latin literature, Demeter became associated with Ceres, and Hades and Persephone became Pluto / Dis and Proserpina.

Daughters of King Keleus of Eleusis told the disguised Demeter the names of the nominally leading men of Eleusis. These princesses knowingly declared women’s control:

The wives of all of them manage the houses.

{ τῶν πάντων ἄλοχοι κατὰ δώματα πορσαίνουσιν }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter v. 156. The houses seem to refer to royal residences in the past and religious temples in the present. Nagy (2018) n. 12. In any case, women controlled the core of ordinary life.

Subsequent quotes above from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter are vv. 241 (as he continually bloomed…), 242 (ageless and immortal), 248-9 (Demophon, my child…), 256-8 (Ignorant and foolish humans…), 305-12 (She made the most terrible year…), 347-56 (Sable-haired Hades, lord of the dead…).

[3] A similar story immortalizing / abusing a child developed in relation to the goddess Thetis, her son Achilles, and his father Peleus. See note [3] and related text in my post on Achilles and his foster-father Chiron.

[4] Demeter stated that her temple should be built in Eleusis:

above Kallichoron on a prominent hill

{ Καλλιχόρου καθύπερθεν ἐπὶ προύχοντι κολωνῶι· }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter v 272. Καλλιχόρου literally means “beautiful dancing.” Pausanias reported:

The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemus, of Artemis of the Portal, and of Poseidon Father, and a well called Kallichoron, where the Eleusinian women first danced and sang in praise of the goddess.

{ Ἐλευσινίοις δὲ ἔστι μὲν Τριπτολέμου ναός, ἔστι δὲ Προπυλαίας Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ Ποσειδῶνος Πατρός, φρέαρ τε καλούμενον Καλλίχορον, ἔνθα πρῶτον Ἐλευσινίων αἱ γυναῖκες χορὸν ἔστησαν καὶ ᾖσαν ἐς τὴν θεόν. }

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.17.2 (Attica), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Jones (1918). Demeter could thus look down on women dancing in her praise.

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, v. 154, refers to Eumolpus {Εὔμολπος}. He was known as one of Demeter’s first priests and a founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Eumolpus means literally “he who sings well.” In a cult context, singing well also implies dancing well. On Eumolpus, Nagy (2018) n. 12. Dancing, which both men and women did, was of central importance in ancient Greece.

[5] According to the hymn singer / narrator, before Hermes took Persephone away, Hades surreptitiously “gave her a honeysweet pomegranate seed to eat {ῥοιῆς κόκκον ἔδωκε φαγεῖν μελιηδέα λάθρηι}.” Homeric Hymn to Demeter, v. 372. Verses 387-40, which are significantly damaged in the sole surviving manuscript, apparently have Demeter saying fearfully that if Persephone ate any of Hades’s food, then she has to stay with him one-third of the year. Persephone then told her mother Demeter:

He put into me a pomegranate seed, honey-sweet food,
and forced me to eat it unwillingly.

{ ἔμβαλέ μοι ῥοιῆς κόκκον, μελιηδέ᾿ ἐδωδήν,
ἅκουσαν δὲ βίηι με προσηνάγκασσε πάσασθαι. }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter, vv. 372, 412-3. Honey-sweet pomegranate seeds historically were associated with fertility and marriage. Bezzant, (2019), which has a forced interpretation of the evidence.

Persephone saying that she was forced to eat the pomegranate seed deflects to Hades full responsibility for Persephone spending a third of the year in the Underworld. Ancient audiences surely would have had some doubt about Persephone’s claim of being forced to eat the pomegranate seed. Clay (1989) pp. 256-7. On the implicit audience, Hendriksma (2019). Id. follows anti-meninist orthodoxy in wrongly claiming that the Homeric Hymn to Demeter includes Hades raping Persephone.

[6] From Orphic Fragment / Orphicorum Fragmenta 48 in Kern (1922), English translation from Nickel (2003) p. 59. Fragment preserved in pseudo-Justin Martyr, Exhortation to the Greeks / Cohortatio ad Graecos {Λόγος παραινέτικος πρὸς Ἕλληνας} 17.1 (from the fourth century GC). The epithet “of splendid fruit {ἀγλαόκαρπος}” is used for Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, v. 4.

Orphic hymns probably from the third century GC praise Demeter and plead to her. See Orphic hymns 40 and 41 in Athanassakis & Wolkow (2013). Mentioning Demeter’s rage in such hymns would be incongruous. Orphic Fragment 48 might come from much older Orphic poetry. On the ancient Orphic tradition, West (1983).

[7] Homer, Iliad 1.1, ancient Greek text and my English translation. “Rage — Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles” is the translation of Fagles (1990). On the proem to the Iliad, Redfield (1979). The Chryses episode that takes up much of Book 1 of the Iliad might have been adapted from a preexisting Homeric hymn to Apollo. Faraone (2015). On parallels between Chryses and Demeter, Nickel (2003) pp. 73-4.

[8] The short quote “the demonic destructive power of a justified curse” is from Redfield (1979) p. 97. Demeter raged at Persephone’s father Zeus depriving Demeter of Persephone’s company. Such changes in child custody typically aren’t regarded as an acute wrong. Moreover, arranged marriages of various types and changes in household residence have been common for daughters and sons throughout history and across cultures. For example, in the first half of the fourth century BGC, Erinna lamented that her friend Baucis’s marriage brought forgetfulness:

When you went to a man’s bed, you forgot all
that you heard as a child from your mother,
dear Baucis. Aphrodite set forgetfulness in your heart.
Because of this, weeping for you, I leave behind other things.

{ ἁνίκα δ’ ἐς [λ]έξος [ἀνδρός ἔβας, τ]όκα πάντ’ ἐλέσασο
ἄσσ’ ἔτι νηπιάσα[σα] τ[εᾶς παρὰ] ματρὸς ἄκουσας,
Β]αῦκι φίλα· λάθα[ν ἄρ’] ἐ[νὶ φρεσὶ θῆκ’] Ἀφροδίτα.
τῶ τυ κατακλαίοισα τὰ [κάδεα νῦν] παραλείπω· }

Erinna, Distaff {Αλακατα} vv. 15-18, ancient Greek text ed. pr. Vitelli-Norsa, Papiri Greci e Latini, ix. 1929, no. 1090, English translation (modified) from Page (1941) p. 489. For a closer, more complete translation of the Distaff, as well as Erinna’s surviving epigrams, Rayor (1991) pp. 121-4. Freely available online are more interpretative translations by Josephine Balmer and by Michael R. Burch. Erinna’s circumstances were similar to Demeter’s, but Erinna apparently didn’t seek to exterminate humanity.

The story pattern of Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter is similar to the story pattern of Achilles in the Iliad: “the same story pattern – wrath, withdrawal, and return – serves as the principal organizational device of each poem’s narrative.” Nickel (2003) p. 59. For less extensive and less detailed analysis of the commonalities, Lord (1967) and Sowa (1984) Chapter 4.

[images] (1) Hades abducting Persephone. Painting on an Apulian red-figure volute-krater. Painted c. 340 BGC by the circle of the Darius Painter. Krater preserved as accession # Inv. 1984.40 in the Altes Museum (Berlin, Germany). Source image thanks to Bibi Saint-Pol and Wikimedia Commons.

(2) Roman marble statue of Demeter standing, with restored head. Preserved as Inv. 8546, Ludovisi Collection, in Museo nazionale romano di palazzo Altemps (Rome, Italy). Source image thanks to Marie-Lan Nguyen and Wikimedia Commons.

(3) Persephone returning from the Underworld with Hermes to Demeter. Painting on a terracotta bell-krater. Painted c. 440 BGC and attributed to the Persephone Painter. Preserved as object number 28.57.23 in the Metropolitan Museum (New York, USA). Credit line: Fletcher Fund, 1928. Alternate image.

(4) Hades lustfully abducting naked Persephone. This watercolor painting is titled “Nouvelle Mythologie Amoureuse {New Love Mythology}.” Painted by Gerda Wegener and published in the review Le Sourire, July 6, 1933. Source image via Wikimedia Commons. Numerous paintings from the early modern period to the present present the myth of the “Rape of Persephone.” See, for example, such a painting by Peter Paul Rubens.

(5) Hades sexually assaulting the naked Persephone. Print by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, based on the design of Rosso Fiorentino, as part of his collection Gli Amori Degli Dei {The Loves of the Gods}, printed c. 1527. Source image via Wikimedia Commons. Alternate image. On Caraglio’s Loves of the Gods, Turner (2007).

References:

Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, trans. 2013. The Orphic Hymns. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bezzant, Makayla. 2019. “Pomegranate Imagery: A Symbol of Conquest and Victory.” Studia Antiqua. 18 (1): 9-15.

Clay, Jenny Strauss. 1989. The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Review by Christian Werner.

Evelyn-White, Hugh G. 1914. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. London: William Heinemann Ltd.

Fagles, Robert, trans. and Bernard Knox, intro. and notes. 1990. The Iliad. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking.

Faraone, Christopher A. 2015. “On the Eve of Epic: Did the Chryses Episode in Iliad I Begin Its Life as a Separate Homeric Hymn?” Chapter 15 (pp. 397-428) in Ilya Kliger and Boris Maslov, eds. 2015. Persistent Forms: Explorations in Historical Poetics. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.

Foley, Helene P. 1994. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Review by William Thalmann.​

Ginevra, Riccardo. 2020. “The Poetics of Distress, the Rape of the Heavenly Maiden, and the Most Ancient Sleeping Beauty: Oralistic, Linguistic, and Comparative Perspectives on the (Pre-)Historical Development of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.” Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) Research Bulletin 8.

Hendriksma, Judith A. 2019. Text and Context: The Narrative Audience of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Cult at Eleusis. RMA Thesis, Utrecht University.

Jones, W. H. S., ed. and trans. 1918. Pausanias. Description of Greece. Volume I: Books 1-2. Loeb Classical Library 93. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kern, Otto. 1922. Orphicorum Fragmenta. Berolini Apud Weidmannos.

Lord, Mary Louise. 1967. “Withdrawal and Return: An Epic Story Pattern in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in the Homeric Poems.” The Classical Journal. 62 (6): 241–48.

Muellner, Leonard Charles. 1996. The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Alternate source. Review by Michael Lynn-George.

Nagy, Gregory. 2018. “Homeric Hymn to Demeter.” Online at The Center for Hellenic Studies.

Nickel, Roberto. 2003. “The Wrath of Demeter: Story Pattern in the Hymn to Demeter.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica. 73 (1): 59–82.

Page, Denys L., trans. 1941. Select Papyri, Volume III: Poetry. Loeb Classical Library 360. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rayor, Diane J. 1991. Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Rayor, Diane J. 2004. The Homeric Hymns: A Translation with Introduction and Notes. Updated edition, 2014. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rayor’s translation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymns 2). Review by Stephen Evans.

Redfield, James. 1979. “The Proem of the Iliad: Homer’s Art.” Classical Philology. 74 (2): 95–110.

Shelmerdine, Susan C., trans. 1995. The Homeric Hymns. Newburyport, MA: Focus Information Group. Review by Ingrid Holmberg.

Sowa, Cora Angier. 1984. Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns. Chicago: Bolchazy-Carducci. Excerpts.

Turner, James Grantham. 2007. “Caraglio’s Loves of the Gods.” Print Quarterly. 24 (4): 359–80.

West, Martin L. 1983. The Orphic Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

West, Martin L., ed. and trans. 2003. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer. Loeb Classical Library 496. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Review by R. Garner.

Iambe / Baubo with obscenity cheered despondent goddess Demeter

According to the ancient Greek Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the goddess of grain and fertility Demeter grieved that her younger brother Zeus, the nominal head god in charge of the cosmos, had arranged for hellish Hades to abduct their daughter Persephone. Hades took Persephone to the Underworld to be his wife. Demeter’s grief was not just the grief of a goddess mistreated by a younger brother with whom she had a daughter. Her grief was the grief of every mother separated from her daughter by her daughter’s marriage.

Demeter disguised herself as an old woman and forlornly wandered until she came to Eleusis. In ancient Greece, even princesses weren’t sequestered within the home. The daughters of Queen Metaneira and King Keleos of Eleusis were out fetching water when they came upon Demeter in her old-woman disguise. Calling herself Doso, Demeter claimed that she was fleeing from pirates who had captured her. She said that she was seeking work as a nurse and home-keeper. The princesses brought her back to their home, where their mother Queen Metaneira had agreed to hire her.

When Demeter entered the royal home, Queen Metaneira invited her to sit and offered her food and drink. Demeter was a sullen guest until the servant Iambe warmed her up with obscene jests:

She greeted no one with word or gesture,
but unsmiling, tasting neither food nor drink,
sat there pining for her low-waistbanded daughter,
until at last well-discerning Iambe with mocking and
many a jest diverted the holy lady so that
she smiled and laughed and became benevolent —
Iambe who ever since has pleased her in her moods.

{ οὐδέ τιν᾿ οὔτ᾿ ἔπεϊ προσπτύσσετο οὔτέ τι ἔργωι,
ἀλλ᾿ ἀγέλαστος ἄπαστος ἐδητύος ἠδὲ ποτῆτος
ἧστο, πόθωι μινύθουσα βαθυζώνοιο θυγατρός,
πρίν γ᾿ ὅτε δὴ χλεύηις μιν Ἰάμβη κέδν᾿ εἰδυῖα
πολλὰ παρασκώπτουσ᾿ ἐτρέψατο πότνιαν ἁγνήν
μειδῆσαι γελάσαι τε καὶ ἵλαον σχεῖν θυμόν·
ἣ δή οἱ καὶ ἔπειτα μεθύστερον εὔαδεν ὀργαῖς. }[1]

Offering and receiving hospitality properly were major ethical concerns in ancient Greece. Iambe personifies the ancient Greek Iambic tradition of using coarse words and low subjects to serve important ethical concerns. Iambe using obscenity in conversation with Demeter is attested in ancient Greek sources from no later than the third century BGC.[2]

Another literary tradition of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, called the Orphic tradition, has the woman Baubo in the place of Iambe and includes jesting with an obscene gesture. About 195 GC, Clement of Alexandria, a well-informed Christian scornful of the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Athenians, wrote:

And I will not leave unmentioned that Baubo, extending hospitality to Demeter, offers her the drink kykeon. When Demeter refuses it and does not want to drink because she is grieving, Baubo gets angry, perhaps for being disdained. Baubo then exhibits her private parts — she shows them to the goddess. Demeter is pleased with the sight. Delighted with the spectacle, she accepts the drink right away. These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians. And this is what Orpheus has written. I will quote for you the exact words by Orpheus, so that you will receive the testimony of impudence from the very originator of the mysteries:

Having said this, she drew up her robes, and showed
all the unseemly form of her body. The child Iacchus was there
and laughing, plunged his hands below her breasts.
And then the goddess smiled, in her heart she smiled,
and then she drank from the gleaming cup filled with kykeon.

{ καὶ δὴ (οὐ γὰρ ἀνήσω μὴ οὐχὶ εἰπεῖν) ξενίσασα ἡ Βαυβὼ τὴν Δηὼ ὀρέγει κυκεῶνα αὐτῇ· τῆς δὲ ἀναινομένης λαβεῖν καὶ πιεῖν οὐκ ἐθελούσης (πενθήρης γὰρ ἦν) περιαλγὴς ἡ Βαυβὼ γενομένη, ὡς ὑπεροραθεῖσα δῆθεν, ἀναστέλλεται τὰ αἰδοῖα καὶ ἐπιδεικνύει τῇ θεῷ· ἡ δὲ τέρπεται τῇ ὄψει ἡ Δηὼ καὶ μόλις ποτὲ δέχεται τὸ ποτόν, ἡσθεῖσα τῷ θεάματι. ταῦτ᾿ ἔστι τὰ κρύφια τῶν Ἀθηναίων μυστήρια. ταῦτά τοι καὶ Ὀρφεὺς ἀναγράφει. παραθήσομαι δὲ σοι αὐτὰ τοῦ Ὀρφέως τὰ ἔπη, ἵν᾿ ἔχῃς μάρτυρα τῆς ἀναισχυντίας τὸν μυσταγωγόν·

ὣς εἰποῦσα πέπλους ἀνεσύρετο, δεῖξε δὲ πάντα
σώματος οὐδὲ πρέποντα τύπον· παῖς δ᾿ ἦεν Ἴακχος,
χειρί τέ μιν ῥίπτασκε γελῶν Βαυβοῦς ὑπὸ κόλποις·
ἡ δ᾿ ἐπεὶ οὖν μείδησε θεά, μείδησ᾿ ἐνὶ θυμῷ,
δέξατο δ᾿ αἰόλον ἄγγος, ἐν ᾧ κυκεὼν ἐνέκειτο. }[3]

Iacchus was associated with the cult of Demeter and the Eleusinian Mysteries from no later than the sixth century BGC. The baby Iacchus apparently reached toward Baubo’s uncovered vulva. That gesture suggests that the sight of Baubo’s vulva cheered the goddess Demeter.[4]

anasyrma figurine from Egypt, second-first century BGC

Iacchus and the Eleusinian Mysteries were associated with obscene jesting. In Aristophanes’s play Frogs, performed in Athens in 405 BGC, a chorus of initiates in mock-Eleusinian Mysteries sings:

Just now in fact I stole a glance
at a young girl, a very pretty one too,
a playmate,
and where her dress was torn I saw
her titty peeking out.
Iacchus lover of choruses, escort me on my way.

{ καὶ γὰρ παραβλέψας τι μειρακίσκης
νυνδὴ κατεῖδον καὶ μάλ᾿ εὐπροσώπου,
συμπαιστρίας,
χιτωνίου παραρραγέντος
τιτθίον προκύψαν.
Ἴακχε φιλοχορευτά, συμπρόπεμπέ με. }[5]

The female exposure here in the presence of Iacchus is similar to that in Clement’s excerpt. This chorus also provides obscene jesting of the sort plausibly associated with Iambe / Baubo:

And I hear that Cleisthenes’s son
is in the graveyard, plucking
his asshole and tearing his mouth.
All bent over, he kept beating his head,
wailing and weeping
for Humpus of Wankton, whoever that may be.
And Callias, we’re told,
that son of Hippo-coitus,
fights at sea in a lionskin made of pussy.

{ τὸν Κλεισθένους δ᾿ ἀκούω
ἐν ταῖς ταφαῖσι πρωκτὸν
τίλλειν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ σπαράττειν τὰς γνάθους·
κἀκόπτετ᾿ ἐγκεκυφώς,
κἄκλαε κἀκεκράγει
Σεβῖνον ὅστις ἐστὶν Ἁναφλύστιος.
καὶ Καλλίαν γέ φασι
τοῦτον τὸν Ἱπποκίνου
κύσθου λεοντῆς ναυμαχεῖν ἐνημμένον. }

This jesting ridicules particular men’s sexuality with specific bodily references. Baubo lifting her robes to expose her vulva has similar bodily specificity. However, Demeter almost surely smiled and laughed sympathetically with Iambe / Baubo, not scornfully at another person.

Venus of Hohle Fels: prehistoric mammoth ivory figurine of a nude woman
Venus of Willendorf. Prehistoric limestone figurine of a nude woman.

Ancient Greek texts concerning women exposing their vulvas as communicative acts suggest that Demeter smiled and laughed in earthy appreciation for women gestating and birthing children. In one instance, a woman exposing her vulva to her husband is interpreted as an expression of contempt, perhaps by suggesting that her vulva is of no sexual interest to him.[6] Within an epic context, Lycian women lifted their robes to the demigod Bellerophon in pleading to him to prevent their land from being destroyed by a tidal wave.[7] Their plea suggests that men owe women special solicitude by virtue of women’s sex. A saying attributed to Spartan mothers shames men by communicating that if they flee from violence against men, they are not men but babies in their mothers’ wombs:

Another Spartan mother, when her sons had run away from battle and come to her, said, “Where have you come now in your cowardly flight, vile scoundrels? Do you intend to slink in here from where you came forth?” And with these words she pulled up her garment and showed them her vulva.

{ Ἄλλη, τῶν υἱῶν φυγόντων ἐκ μάχης καὶ παραγενομένων ὡς αὐτήν, “ποῦ,” φησίν, “ἥκετε δραπετεύσαντες, κακὰ ἀνδράποδα; ἢ δεῦρο ὅθεν ἐξέδυτε καταδυσόμενοι;” ἀνασυραμένη καὶ ἐπιδείξασα αὐτοῖς. }[8]

Similar action was attributed to Persian women:

When the Persian men under Cyrus were fighting against the Medes, Oebares the satrap fled from the battlefield. All the Persian men under his command followed him. The Persian women marched out in a body, and met the fugitive men. Lifting up their tunics, they called out to the men, “To where are you fleeing? Or will you hide yourselves again here, from where you came?” The women’s words shamed the Persian men. They returned to the battle and put the Medean men to flight.

{ Πέρσαι Μήδοις παρετάσσοντο. Περσῶν Κῦρος ἡγεῖτο. Κύρου σατράπης Οἰβάρης ἦρξε φυγῆς, καὶ ὅσων ἡγεῖτο Περσῶν, πάντες τῷ σατράπῃ συνέφευγον. ἔνθα δὴ αἱ Περσίδες ἀπαντώμεναι τοῖς φεύγουσιν, ἀνασυράμεναι τοὺς χιτωνίσκους ‘ποῖ’ ἔφασαν ‘φεύγετε; ἢ ὅθεν ἐξέδυτε, πάλιν ἐκεῖ καταδῦναι σπεύδετε;’ ὁ λόγος τῶν γυναικῶν ᾔσχυνε τοὺς Πέρσας καὶ ἀναστρέψαντες ἐπὶ τὴν μάχην τοὺς Μήδους ἐς φυγὴν ἐτρέψαντο. }[9]

anasyrma of Persian women shames retreating Persian men

These saying associate women’s vulvas with women’s socially privileged labor of gestating and birthing children. Demeter was a mother separated from her daughter Persephone by her daughter’s marriage to Hades. One might imagine the servant Iambe / Baubo lifting her robes, exposing her vulva, and saying to Demeter, “Do you want your daughter back here?” That question humorously subverts Demeter’s grief with bodily appreciation for passages, transitions, and the development of a human life from gestation to death.

Ordinary human lives are filled with complex tradeoffs of losses and gains. Demeter mourning separation from her daughter Persephone arose from Zeus arranging for their daughter Persephone to marry Hades.[10] Seeking to win Persephone’s affection, Hades told her:

I shall not make for you an unsuitable husband to have among the gods,
for I myself am a brother to your father Zeus. By being here,
you will be queen of everything that lives and moves,
and you will have the greatest honors among the gods.
Moreover, there will be punishment forever for those
who act unrighteously and fail to propitiate your fury with sacrifices,
performed with reverent rites and perfectly made with due offerings.

{ οὔ τοι ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀεικὴς ἔσσομ᾿ ἀκοίτης
αὐτοκασίγνητος πατρὸς Διός· ἔνθα δ᾿ ἐοῦσα
δεσπόσσεις πάντων ὁπόσα ζώει τε καὶ ἕρπει,
τιμὰς δὲ σχήσηισθα μετ᾿ ἀθανάτοισι μεγίστας,
τῶν δ᾿ ἀδικησάντων τίσις ἔσσεται ἤματα πάντα,
οἵ κεν μὴ θυσίηισι τεὸν μένος ἱλάσκωνται
εὐαγέως ἔρδοντες, ἐναίσιμα δῶρα τελοῦντες. }[11]

In short, marriage to Hades offered Persephone a life of extraordinary privilege. It would, however, be a marriage made in Hell. Ultimately, Persephone and Hades agreed that she would spend eight months a year with her mother Demeter up among other immortals, and four months a year with her husband Hades down in the Underworld.

Iambo / Baubo with obscenity cheering the despondent goddess Demeter is the comic heart of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. About six centuries after this hymn was first sung at an ancient Greek religious festival, the Christian gospels similarly intermixed high and low. The Christian gospels proclaimed that the god who created the heavens and the earth became incarnate in the womb of a lowly, young, provincial woman.[12] That god-man Jesus wandered about on foot, cured the sick in earthly ways, and raised Lazarus from death with outrageous comic drama. Obscenity seems incongruous in a sacred proclamation only for those who don’t appreciate human life and are unable to smile and laugh.

* * * * *

Read more:

Notes:

[1] Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymns 2, To Demeter {Εισ Δημητραν}), vv. 199-205, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from West (2003). Alternate English translations are those of Nagy (2018), Rayor (2004), Shelmerdine (1995), Foley (1994) and Evelyn-White (1914).

West (2003) and others translate the Homeric epithet βαθύζωνος as “deep-girt” (βαθύς {deep} – ζώνη {belt}). I’ve replaced that with the more explicit term “low-waistbanded.” That translation adapts Nagy (2018)’s adjectival clause “with the low-slung waistband.”

This Homeric Hymn to Demeter apparently was composed for recitation at Eleusis, the most important center of the cult of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. The hymn probably dates to the first half of the sixth century. West (2003) pp. 8, 9. From not later than the fourth century BGC, Eleusis regarded Orpheus as the founder and revealer of the Eleusinian mysteries. Id. p. 8.

The surviving collection of Homeric Hymns includes another hymn to Demeter, Homeric Hymns 13. That Demeter hymn consists of only three verses:

Of Demeter the lovely-haired, the august goddess first I sing,
of her and her daughter, beautiful Persephone.
I salute you, goddess: keep this city safe, and give my song its beginning.

{ Δήμητρ᾿ ἠΰκομον σεμνὴν θεὸν ἄρχομ᾿ ἀείδειν,
αὐτὴν καὶ κούρην περικαλλέα Περσεφόνειαν.
χαῖρε, θεά, καὶ τήνδε σάου πόλιν, ἄρχε δ᾿ ἀοιδῆς. }

Ancient Greek text and English translation from West (2003).

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter narrates effects of Zeus arranging for Hades to abduct Persephone to the Underworld to be his wife. Nowhere in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter does Hades rape Persephone. Hades abducts Persephone according to the ancient practice of bridal capture, in this case with the approval and aid of Persephone’s father Zeus. Here are the verses narrating Hades’s abduction of Persephone:

Persephone in amazement reached out with both hands
to take the pretty flower plaything. But the earth of many broad paths gaped open
on the plain of Nysa, and there the Hospitable Lord Hades rushed forth
with his immortal steeds, Cronos’s son whose names are many.
Seizing her by force, he put her on his golden chariot,
and drove off, with her wailing and screaming
as she called on her father Zeus, the highest and noblest.

{ ἣ δ᾿ ἄρα θαμβήσασ᾿ ὠρέξατο χερσὶν ἅμ᾿ ἄμφω
καλὸν ἄθυρμα λαβεῖν· χάνε δὲ χθὼν εὐρυάγυια
Νύσιον ἂμ πεδίον, τῆι ὄρουσεν ἄναξ Πολυδέγμων
ἵπποις ἀθανάτοισι, Κρόνου πολυώνυμος υἱός.
ἁρπάξας δ᾿ ἀέκουσαν ἐπὶ χρυσέοισιν ὄχοισιν
ἦγ᾿ ὀλοφυρομένην· ἰάχησε δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ὄρθια φωνῆι
κεκλομένη πατέρα Κρονίδην ὕπατον καὶ ἄριστον. }

Homeric Hymn to Demeter, vv. 15-21, sourced as previously. These verses cannot be reasonably interpreted as stating or implying that Hades raped Persephone. She clearly suffered violent abduction, not rape. Cf. Foley (1994) p. 32, commenting that “sexual consumption … is uncertain in this case.” On historical practices of bridal capture, see note [2] in my post on the Sabine women.

Reflecting deeply entrenched bias toward criminalizing men, scholars have assumed that Hades raped Persephone. Foley framed with rape her influential interpretive essay on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Foley’s essay begins and ends with a quote universalizing men raping women:

Each daughter, even in the millennia before Christ, must have longed for a mother whose love for her and whose power were so great as to undo rape and bring her back from death. And every mother must have longed for the power of Demeter, the efficacy of her anger, the reconciliation with her lost self.

Rich (1976) p. 240, quoted in Foley (1994) pp. 79, 169. Another quote that Foley included in her interpretive essay suggests what it means to “undo rape”:

For the male — and this is inherent in the essential opposition between masculine and feminine — marriage, as the matriarchate recognized, is primarily an abduction, an acquisition — a rape.

Neumann (1956) p. 56. In short, gods and men as husbands are inherently rapists. Hence “to undo rape” requires separating a wife from her husband, as was imperfectly done for Persephone in relation to Hades. Foley readily assumed that Hades raped Persephone and provided a detailed interpretation:

Yet the presence of other females and the physical separation of mother and daughter at the time of the rape suggest something more than a paternal intervention in a blissful infantile unity with the mother. The adolescent girl’s attraction to the seductive narcissus and the location of the rape in the flowery meadow (where such divine rapes typically occur) suggest Persephone’s readiness for a new phase of life (see the Commentary especially on lines 1-14 and 5-14, for further discussion).

Foley (1994) p. 127. Foley’s Commentary on the Hymn to Demeter, lines 1-14 , recognized “sexual consumption … is uncertain in this case.” Id p. 32. In socially constructed rape-culture culture, what actually happened doesn’t matter. Moreover, hateful gender bigotry not only passes without criticism but is honored as deep thought. That helps to explain the criminalization of men in relation to women and the vastly gender-disproportionate imprisonment of men.

[2] Writing early in the third century BGC, Philochorus of Athens stated:

Iambe: Some say that Iambe, the daughter of Echo and Pan, made the grieving Demeter laugh at her pranks, speaking lewdly and making obscene gestures.

{ Ἰάμβη: τινὲς ὅτι Ἰάμβη Ἠχοῦς καὶ Πανὸς θυγάτηρ τὴν Δήμητραν δὲ λυποῦσαν παίζουσα καὶ ἀχρηστολογοῦσα καὶ σχήματα ἄχρηστα ποιοῦσα έποίησε γελάσαι. }

Arans (1988) p. 15, citing “Philochorus, fr. 103 (Atthis II – FGH 328 ed. Jacoby).” The reference to “obscene gestures” suggests the anasyrma {ἀνάσυρμα} of Baubo, as reported by Clement of Alexandria. See subsequent discussion above.

Choeroboscus on Hesphaestion concerning the iambic meter noted that iambus was possibly derived from Iambe compelling Demeter to laugh. Hipponax, Fragments 183 in Gerber (1999). Nagy noted:

Iambē, as we shall now see, is a personification of the iambic tradition, which reflects a ritual discourse that provokes laughter and thereby promotes fertility. This discourse, which makes fun of its targets, is often obscene in nature. The obscenity, it goes without saying, is ritual obscenity.

Nagy (2018) note 18. For more on the ancient iambic tradition, Newman (1998). Iambe’s obscenity is surprising and insightful in the context of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Good iambic poetry, like good obscenity, is innovative, surprising, and consciousness-raising. It’s not ritualistic in the sense of conventional and formulaic.

Iambe’s jesting discourse in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter plausibly reflects obscene discourse associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries at the Kephisos River and the Stenia / Thesmophoria. On such obscene discourse and gestures, scholia to Lucian of Samosata, Dialogues of the Courtesans {Ἑταιρικοὶ Διάλογοι}, cited in Newman (1998) pp. 104-5; and Foley (1994) pp. 68, 72. Diodorus, an ancient Greek historian writing between 60 BGC and 30 BGC, noted:

And it is a custom for Sicilians in these days {of the Thesmophoria, a woman’s festival} to use obscene language during their conversations with one another, because the goddess Demeter, while grieving at the abduction of Persephone, laughed because of the obscene language.

{ ἔθος δ᾿ ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς ἐν ταύταις ταῖς ἡμέραις αἰσχρολογεῖν κατὰ τὰς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁμιλίας διὰ τὸ τὴν θεὸν ἐπὶ τῇ τῆς Κόρης ἁρπαγῇ λυπουμένην γελάσαι διὰ τὴν αἰσχρολογίαν. }

Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library / Bibliotheca historica {Βιβλιοθήκη Ἱστορική} 5.4.6, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from Oldfather (1939.

[3] Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks / Protrepticus {Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας} 2.18, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Butterworth (1919). This text is also known as Kern’s Orphic fragment 52. It’s included in Eusebius’s Preparation for the Gospel / Praeparatio evangelica {Εὐαγγελικὴ προπαρασκευή} 2.3.32-34. Clement literally refers to Deo {Δηώ}, which is another name for Demeter.

Baubo, not Queen Metaneira, is the host to Demeter in Clement’s account. In the Orphic Fragment 49 of Otto Kern, Baubo is the mother of Demophon, the son of Metaneira and Keleos of Eleusis in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Hesychius of Alexandria indicated “‘Baubô’: [. . .] it also means ‘womb,’ as in Empedocles {βαυβώ: [. . .] σημαίνει δὲ καὶ κοιλίαν ὡς παρ’ Ἐμπεδοκλεῖ}.” Laks & Most (2016) Empodocles, Testimonia, Doctrine, D160.

The drink kykeon {κυκεών} consisted of barley-meal, grated cheese and Pramnian wine. Butterworth (1919) p. 43, note a. Kykeon was a drink used in initiating persons into the Eleusinian mysteries. Clement of Alexander, Protrepticus 2.21.2, cited by Foley (1994) p. 68.

The Iambe passage from Clement of Alexander presents textual difficulties:

Variation in manuscripts and the variety of editorial conjectures/emendations indicate a certain degree of scholarly indecision as to what exactly happened in Eleusis between exhibitionistic Baubo, the impetuous child, and the smiling Demeter.

Arans (1988) pp.19-20, n. 34. For documentation of these textual differences, id. pp. 19-20, 25-26. Id. p. 26 provides the edited text, with English translation, of Marcovich (1986) p. 295. Differences between the text quoted above and Marcovich’s edition aren’t relevant to the points of this post.

Writing about a century after Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius of Sicca in present-day Tunisia wrote a Latin passage apparently in the tradition of Clement’s text on Demeter and Baubo:

At that time, five earth-born persons were inhabiting Eleusis. Their names were: Baubo, Triptolemus, Eumolpus, Eubuleus, and Dysaules. Triptolemus was a cow-herd. Dysaules watched over the goats. Eubuleus was a swineherd. Eumolpus tended the wool-growing sheep. From him originated and took its name the clan of Eumolpids, which is famous among the Ceropian race, the Athenians and all those who afterwards held the office of the caduce-carriers, hierophants and heralds. Baubo, whom we have said to be a dweller of Eleusinian country, extended hospitality to Ceres, who had been tired by manifold afflictions. She comforted Demeter with propitious treatment, begged her to attend to sustaining her body, and offered to her as a soothing of her feverish thirst that mixed potion, which Greece calls kykeon. But the mourning goddess turns against and rejects the ceremonies of humanity, for her immortal fortune allows her no concern with her own health. Baubo insisted on the contrary and entreated her, as is customary in such cases. She asked the goddess not to disdain her human nature. Yet Ceres persevered most rigidly and retained the strictness of her implacable defiance.

After this was repeated over and over again, and Baubo, with all her deference, proved unable to mitigate the stubborn attitude of her guest, Baubo changed tactics. She decided to exhilarate with a ludicrous show her guest, whom she had failed to appease in earnest. She had cleared from rather long negligence that part of her body, through which the female sex normally produces posterity and derives the very name of the feminine gender. She made it to appear cleaner and bearing an image of a little boy, still immature and pranky. She approached the grieving goddess. Among all the commonplaces of conventional utterance in consolation and comfort for bereaved persons, Baubo stripped herself, revealing her groin, and exhibited all those places of shame. The goddess fixed her eyes on Baubo’s pubic area, enjoying a unique kind of solace. Then, loosened with laughter, she took and drank the rejected potion. What Baubo’s piety had for a long time failed to achieve was thus brought about by a shameful act of obscenity.

If, by chance, someone suspects us of wicked calumny, let that person consult the books of the Thracian bard Orpheus. Those books, as you recall, have been passed on from divine antiquity. Let that person find that we neither have fabricated something craftily, nor are we looking for an occasion to make a mockery of the goddess, or to invent a fictitious account of the sacred tradition. Let us quote those very verses, which Orpheus the son of Calliope had uttered in Greek. Through perennial recitations he publicized for human judgment:

Saying so, she pulled up her clothes from the bottom,
and exposed to eyes what was fashioned on her groin.
Baubo tossed it up with her free hand — for down there was
a boyish face. She slaps and pulls it amusingly.
Now the goddess opens widely her august eyes and stares at the sight,
as she gradually lets go of her spirit’s troubles
and with laughter gladly empties the whole drink of kykeon.

{ Quinque illud temporis has partes incolebant terrigenae, quibus nomina haec fuerant: Baubo Triptolemus Eumolpus Eubuleus Dysaules: boum iugator Triptolemus, capellarum Dysaules custos, Eubuleus porcorum, gregis lanitii Eumolpus, a quo gens ecfluit Eumolpidarum et ducitur clarum illud apud Cecropios nomen et qui postea floruerunt caduceatores, hierophantae atque praecones. igitur Baubo illa, quam incolam diximus Eleusinii fuisse pagi, malis multiformibus fatigatam accipit hospitio Cererem, adulatur obsequiis mitibus,reficiendi corporis rogat curam ut habeat, sitientis ardori oggerit potionem cinni, cyceonem quam nuncupat Graecia: aversatur et respuit humanitatis official maerens dea nec eam fortuna perpetituur valetudinis meminisse. comis rogat illa atque hortatur contra, sicut mos est in huiusmodi casibus, ne fastidium suae humanitatis adsumat: obstinatissime durat Cere et rigoris indomiti pertinaciam retinet.

quod cum saepius fieret neque ullis quiret obsequiis ineluctabile propositum fatigari, vertit Baubo artes et quam serio non quibat allicere ludibriorum statuit exhilarare miraculis: partem illam corporis, per quam secus femineum et subolem producer et nomen solet adquirere generi, tum longiore ab incuria liberat, facit sumere habitum puriorem et in speciem levigari nondum duri atque histriculi pusionis. redit ad deam tristem et inter alia communia quibus moris est frangere ac temperare maerores retegit se ipsam atque omnia illa pudoris loca revelatis monstrat inguinibus. atque pubi adfigit oculos diva et inauditi specie solaminis pascitur: tum diffusior facta per risum aspernatam sumit atque ebibit potionem, et quod diu nequivit verecundia Baubonis exprimere propudiosi facinoris extorsit obscenitas.

calumniari nos improbe si quis forte hominum suspicatur, libros sumat Threicii vatis, quos antiquitatis memoratis esse divinae, et inveniet nos nihil neque callide fingere neque quo sint risui deum quaerere atque efficere sanctitates. ipsos namque in medio ponemus versus, quos Calliopae filius ore edidit Graeco et cantando per saecula iuri publicavit humano:

sic effata simul vestem contraxit ab imo
obiecitque oculis formatas inguinibus res:
quas cava succutiens Baubo manu – nam puerilis
ollis vultus erat – plaudit, contrectat amice.
tum dea defigens augusti luminis orbes
tristitias animi paulum mollita repoint:
inde manu poculum sumit risuque sequenti
perducit totum cyceonis laeta liquorem. }

Arnobius of Sicca, Against the pagans {Adversus nationes / Adversus gentes} 5.25-6, Latin text of Marchesi (1953) via Arans (1988) pp. 21-2, English translation (modified) from id. For an English translation of the full work, Bryce & Campbell (1871). Here are some related texts. From a strictly philological perspective, Arnobius’s testimony about Baubo, Iacchus, and Demeter has been judged to be “worthless.” Marcovich (1986) p. 301. From a historical perspective, Arnobius’s testimony usefully indicates what a Christian in northern Africa writing about 300 GC found plausible about Baubo, Iacchus, and Demeter.

Orpheus and the Eleusinian Mysteries are now understood to be deeply connected. Arans (1988) pp. 20-1, quoting West (1983) p. 263.

[4] As technical terms of anatomy, vulva refers to external female genitals, while vagina refers to the internal passageway to the cervix. The two are obviously connected. In ordinary language, vagina is commonly used to include the vulva. Vulva is used above because of the attention to display. The vagina is implicit in that display.

A woman lifting her garments to display her vulva is known by the ancient Greek term anasyrma {ἀνάσυρμα} / anasyrmos {ἀνασυρμός}. It apparently was an ancient claim to social privilege like a woman exposing her breasts. Fragments from the sixth-century BGC iambic poet Hipponax indicate that anasyrma was known to Hipponax, who used the word “self-exposer {ἀνασυρτόλις}.” The Suda explained:

Hipponax calls her ‘opening of filth’ as of one who is impure, from βόρβορος, ‘filth,’ and ‘self-exposer’ from ἀνασύρεσθαι ‘to pull up one’s clothes.’

{ Ἱππῶναξ δὲ “βορβορόπιν” ὡς ἀκάθαρτον ταύτην φησίν, ἀπὸ τοῦ βορβόρου, καὶ “ἀνασυρτό{πο}λιν” ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνασύρεσθαι. }

Hipponax, Fragments 135, 135a, 135b, ancient Greek text and English translation from Gerber (1999). Arans seems to have missed this evidence:

In Greece, there is no known custom of women pulling up their clothes; instead, such customs existed in Egypt. (Her. 2.60; Diod. Sic. 1.85.)

Arans (1988) p. 33. In Herodotus, Histories 2.69, women traveling on the Nile to the festival at Boubastis apparently mooned persons on the riverbanks. See note [15] in my post on sardonic medieval literature. In Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 1.85, women pulled up their garments to display their genitals to the sacred bull Apis in the sanctuary of Hephaestus at Memphis. For other evidence of ancient Greek women pulling up their clothes, see subsequent discussion above.

Women’s genitals were generally regarded much more favorably than men’s genitals. Men didn’t fear women’s genitals. To the contrary, men desired women’s genitals. Considerable implicit cultural continuity exists with ancient Mesopotamian views of women’s genitals.

[5] Aristophanes, Frogs / Ranae {Βάτραχοι} vv. 409-13, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Henderson (2002). The subsequent quote above is similarly from Frogs, vv. 422-30.

[6] The example of a women lifting her dress to express contempt for a man (in context plausibly her husband) comes from Artemidorus in the second century GC:

A man dreamed that his wife lifted up her clothes and showed him her genitals. His wife caused him much suffering, for she lifted up her dress as she would to a contemptible person.

{ ἔδοξέ τις ἀναστειλαμένην τὴν γυναῖκα ἐπιδεικνύειν αὐτῶι τὸ αἰδοῖον. πολλῶν κακῶν αἰτία ἐγένετο αὐτῶι ἡ γυνή· ὥσπερ γὰρ εὐκαταφρονήτωι ἀνεστείλατο. }

Artemidorus of Ephesus / Artemidorus Daldianus {Ἀρτεμίδωρος ὁ Δαλδιανός}, Oneirocritica {Ὀνειροκριτικὰ} 4.44, ancient Greek text from Pack (1963), English translation (modified insubstantially) from White (1975).

[7] The Corinthian demigod Bellerophon was the son of the sea-god Poseidon and the Corinthian queen Eurynome. He was unable to hold his position against Lycian women lifting their garments and showing him their vulvas:

Bellerophon waded into the sea and prayed to Poseidon that, as a requital against the Lycian king Iobates, the land might become sterile and unprofitable. After his prayer, he went back, and a wave arose and inundated the land. It was a fearful sight as the sea, following him, rose high in air and covered up the plain. The Lycian men besought Bellerophon to check it. When they could not prevail on him, the Lycian women, pulling up their garments, came to meet him. He then, for shame, retreated towards the sea again. The wave also, it is said, went back with him.

{ ὅθεν εἰς τὴν θάλατταν ἐμβὰς εὔξατο κατ᾿ αὐτοῦ τῷ Ποσειδῶνι τὴν χώραν ἄκαρπον γενέσθαι καὶ ἀνόνητον. εἶθ᾿ ὁ μὲν ἀπῄει κατευξάμενος, κῦμα δὲ διαρθὲν ἐπέκλυζε τὴν γῆν· καὶ θέαμα δεινὸν ἦν, ἑπομένης μετεώρου τῆς θαλάττης καὶ ἀποκρυπτούσης τὸ Bπεδίον. ἐπεὶ δέ, τῶν ἀνδρῶν δεομένων τὸν ελλεροφόντην ἐπισχεῖν, οὐδὲν ἔπειθον, αἱ γυναῖκες ἀνασυράμεναι τοὺς χιτωνίσκους ἀπήντησαν αὐτῷ· πάλιν οὖν ὑπ᾿ αἰσχύνης ἀναχωροῦντος ὀπίσω καὶ τὸ κῦμα λέγεται συνυποχωρῆσαι. }

Plutarch, Moralia, Bravery of Women, “The Lycian Women {Λυκιαι}” 9 (248a-b), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Babbitt (1931).

[8] Plutarch, Moralia, Sayings of Spartan Women, “Other Spartan Women to Fame Unknown” 4 (241b), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Babbitt (1931) pp. 460-1. More on Spartan mothers.

[9] Polyaenus {Πoλύαινoς}, Strategies in War / Strategemata {Στρατηγήματα} 7.45.2, ancient Greek text of Woelfflin & Melber (1887) via Attalus, English translation of Shepherd (1793) as adapted by Attalus. For similar accounts, see Plutarch, Moralia, Bravery of Women, “The Persian Women {Περσιδεσ}” 5 (246a-b); and Justin, Philippic Histories {Historiae Philippicae} / Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus {Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi} 1.6.

[10] Parents arranging marriages for their children has been common across cultures and throughout history. Mothers in actual practice probably dominated the arranging of marriages. Moreover, a marriage was unlikely to occur unless both woman and man consented to it within the actual circumstances of their lives.

[11] Homeric Hymn to Demeter, vv. 363-9, sourced as previously.

[12] Luke 1:26-38 (angel Gabriel announces to Mary her favor in bearing Jesus); Luke 1:48 (Mary declares her low estate). Mary’s social status was such that it was fitting for her to marry a carpenter. Mark 6:13, Matthew 13:55.

[images] (1) Anasyrma Isis figurine from Egypt, second-first century BGC. Preserved as item 206 in the Egyptian Museum, Universität Leipzig. Source image thanks to Einsamer Schütze and Wikimedia Commons. For similar anasyrma Isis figurines, see accession # 88.918 and museum # 1886,0401.1451 (both dates third-second centuries BGC) in the British Museum.

(2) Venus of Hohle Fels / Venus of Schelklingen. Mammoth ivory figurine of a nude woman. Found in a cave near Schelklingen, Germany. Figurine made between 42,000 and 40,000 years ago. Source image thanks to Ramessos and Wikimedia Commons.

(3) Venus of Willendorf. Limestone figurine of a nude woman. Found near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria. Figurine made between 26,000 and 24,000 years ago. Source image thanks to Captmondo and Wikimedia Commons. Another image of the Venus of Willendorf. Many such prehistoric naked woman figurines have been found.

(4) Anasyrma of Persian women shames retreating Persian men and compels them to return to battle against the Medean men. Painting by Otto van Veen between 1597 and 1599. Preserved as inventory # Gemäldegalerie, 2668 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Image thanks to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Wikimedia Commons. The Persian women’s anasyrma was also the subject of a painting by Frans Francken the Younger in Antwerp between 1587 and 1610.

References:

Arans, Olga R. 1988. Iambe / Baubo: A Study in Ritual Laughter. Adaptation (apparently in 2024) of Ph.D. Thesis in Classics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Babbitt, Frank Cole, trans. 1931. Plutarch. Moralia. Vol. 3. Sayings of Kings and Commanders. Sayings of Romans. Sayings of Spartans. The Ancient Customs of the Spartans. Sayings of Spartan Women. Bravery of Women. Loeb Classical Library 245. London: W. Heinemann.

Bryce, Archibald Hamilton and Hugh Campbell, trans. 1871. The Seven Book of Arnobius Adversus Gentes. Edinburgh: Clark. Alternate web-native presentation.

Butterworth, G. W., ed. and trans. 1919. Clement of Alexandria. The Exhortation to the Greeks. The Rich Man’s Salvation. To the Newly Baptized. Loeb Classical Library 92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Evelyn-White, Hugh G. 1914. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. London: William Heinemann Ltd.

Foley, Helene P. 1994. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Review by William Thalmann.​

Gerber, Douglas E, ed and trans. 1999. Archilochus, Semonides, Hipponax. Greek Iambic Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Loeb Classical Library 259. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Henderson, Jeffrey, ed. and trans. 2002. Aristophanes. Frogs. Assemblywomen. Wealth. Loeb Classical Library 180. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

King, Charles W.. 1888. Julian the Emperor: Containing Gregory Nazianzen’s Two Invectives and Libanius’ Monody. London: Bell. Web-native presentation.

Laks, André and Glenn W. Most, eds. and trans. 2016. Early Greek Philosophy, Volume V: Western Greek Thinkers, Part 2. Loeb Classical Library 528. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Marchesi, Concetto, ed. 1953. Arnobii Adversus Nationes. Seconda Edizione. Corpus scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum. Aug. Taurinorum: Paravia.

Marcovich, Miroslav. 1986. “Demeter, Baubo, Iacchus, and a Redactor.” Vigiliae Christianae. 40 (3): 294–301.

Nagy, Gregory. 2018. “Homeric Hymn to Demeter.” Online at The Center for Hellenic Studies.

Neumann, Erich 1956. Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine: A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius. Translated by Ralph Manheim and Harold Edgeworth Butler. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Newman, J. Kevin. 1998. “Iambe / Iambos and the Rape of a Genre: A Horatian Sidelight.” Illinois Classical Studies. 23: 101–20.

Oldfather, C. H., ed. and trans. 1939. Diodorus Siculus. Library of History, Volume III: Books 4.59-8. Loeb Classical Library 340. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pack, Roger A., ed. 1963. Artemidori Daldiani Onirocriticon. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Rayor, Diane J. 2004. The Homeric Hymns: A Translation with Introduction and Notes. Updated edition, 2014. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rayor’s translation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Homeric Hymns 2). Review by Stephen Evans.

Rich, Adrienne. 1976. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. New York: Norton.

Shelmerdine, Susan C., trans. 1995. The Homeric Hymns. Newburyport, MA: Focus Information Group. Review by Ingrid Holmberg.

Shepherd, Richard, trans. 1793. Polyænus’s Stratagems of War; Translated from the Original Greek. London: printed for George Nicol.

West, Martin L. 1983. The Orphic Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

West, Martin L., ed. and trans. 2003. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer. Loeb Classical Library 496. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Review by R. Garner.

White, Robert J., trans. 1975. Artemidorus. The Interpretation of Dreams = Oneirocritica. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Press.

Woelfflin, Eduard von and Johannes Melber, eds. 1887. Polyaenus. Polyaeni Strategematon Libri Octo Ex Recensione Edvard Woelfflin. Lipsiae: B.G. Teubneri.

Priapus against dildos and men being sexually objectified

Although a disreputable, rustic minor divinity, Priapus in the first-century GC poem collection Songs of Priapus {Carmina Priapea} provides a recondite literary critique of gender. Poets exemplifying both Callimachean and Neoteric aesthetics, known for their sophistication, appreciated Priapus’s seminal potential. The extraordinary prominence of Priapus’s penis and its purported instrumental use contrasts with a man as a fully human being with intrinsic value. The third-century BGC Alexandrian poet Herodas in his Mimiambs depicted women craving dildos and sexually objectifying men. The Carmina Priapea associates such crudeness with its own crudeness and contrasts it with tasteful, wise women sympathetically engaging in sexual intercourse with men.

Carmina Priapea begins with a humble authorial voice that associates the shamelessness of its verse with the shamelessness of Priapus’s penis. The eminent Roman orator Cicero in his handbook for orators advised that we win goodwill “if we use prayers and entreaties with a humble and submissive spirit {si prece et obsecratione humili ac supplici utemur}.” The highly cultured Roman historian Tacitus thus claimed to have an “unpolished and crude voice {inconditus ac rudis vox}.”[1] Carmina Priapea adheres to that elite practice of self-deprecation in its first poem:

My unpolished verses’ impudent jests you are about to read.
Put down that raised eyebrow fitting for the old Latin world.
The sister of Phoebus doesn’t inhabit this shrine, nor Vesta,
nor the goddess who was born from her father’s head,
but a ruddy guardian of gardens, with a larger penis than is equitable,
and who has a groin covered by no clothing.
Therefore either extend a tunic over the part that should be hidden,
or using the eyes with which you gaze on that, read this.

{ Carminis incompti lusus lecture procaces,
conveniens Latio pone supercilium.
non soror hoc habitat Phoebi, non Vesta sacello,
nec quae de patrio vertice nata dea est,
sed ruber hortorum custos, membrosior aequo,
qui tectum nullis vestibus inguen habet.
aut igitur tunicam parti praetende tegendae,
aut quibus hanc oculis aspicis, ista lege. }[2]

This poem figures Carmina Priapea as a shrine of Priapus with his large, uncovered penis. Gazing on Priapus’s penis represents men being sexually objectified. Despite intense concern about the male gaze, almost no one has sought to end the sexual objectification of men. Carmina Priapea directs that oppressive, sexually objectifying gaze to its subversive poems.

Statues of Priapus sexually objectify him by depicted him with an uncovered, large, and fully erect penis. Priapus is distinctively identified with that penis. Moreover, since the statue is solitary, his erect penis has no relation to any specific person. A poem in the Carmina Priapea represents such sexual objectification:

When a sacred festival was held for the salacious god,
a young woman offered herself for a small price,
one sufficiently low to be available to all.
Just as many men as she went through in a single night,
that many willow-wood erect dicks she dedicated to you.

{ Cum sacrum fieret deo salaci,
conducta est pretio puella parvo
communis satis omnibus futura:
quae quot nocte viros peregit una,
tot verpas tibi dedicat salignas. }[3]

The salacious god is Priapus. A sacred festival for Priapus suggests appreciation for men’s sexual desire. The young woman prostituted herself at that festival. She thus exploited men’s sexuality for her own monetary interest. The verb “to go through {perago}” associates her actions with brutalizing figures of a man’s penis in sexual engagement. The wooden, erect dicks that she dedicated to Priapus objectify as dildos the men with whom she had sex. Making those dildos out of willow wood, a soft, relatively pliant wood, subtly disparages sexually the men whom she sexually objectified.

ancient Greek pottery painting showing a woman nourishing four dildos growing up from the ground

Carmina Priapea critiques the sexual objectification of men’s penises in Herodas’s Mimiambs. Herodas’s Mimiambs are highly sophisticated Alexandrian poetry drawing upon the literary tradition of mimes, most influentially those of Sophron of Syracuse. Sophron apparently alluded to solitary women seeking consolation with dildos:

Whatever are they, my dear woman, these big male mussels? — Surely these ones are tubes, a sweet-fleshed little shell, licking for solitary women.

{ τίνες δ᾿ ἐντί ποκα, φίλα, τοίδε τοὶ μακροὶ κόγχοι; — σωλῆνές θην τοῦτοί γα, γλυκύκρεον κογχύλιον, χηρᾶν γυναικῶν λίχνευμα }[4]

In his Mimiamb 6, “Women in a friendly or private situation {Φιλιάζουσαι ἢ ἰδιάζουσαι},” Herodas refigured dildos as sexually better than men. He depicted dildos as a superior commodity available from the skilled and well-intentioned shoe-maker Kerdon. The woman Koritto told her woman-friend Metro about Kerdon and his dildos:

He works at home and sells secretly,
for every door now shudders at the tax-collectors.
But his work, what work it is! You would think
you were seeing Athena’s own handiwork, not Kerdon’s.
And one — for he came with two, Metro —
when I saw it, my eyes bulged out with contending desire.
Men don’t make — we are speaking privately —
erections that stand so straight! Not only that,
but its softness is sleep, and its dear little straps
are wool, not leather straps. A shoe-maker more considerate
to a woman you couldn’t find even if you searched everywhere.

{ κατ᾿ οἰκίην δ᾿ ἐργάζετ᾿ ἐμπολέων λάθρη,
τοὺς γὰρ τελώνας πᾶσα νῦν θύρη φρίσσει.
ἀλλ’ ἔργ’, ὁκοῖ ἐστ’ ἔργα· τῆς Ἀθηναίης
αὐτῆς ὀρῆν τὰς χείρας, οὐχὶ Κέρδωνος,
δόξεις. ἐγὼ μὲν — δύο γὰρ ἦλθ’ ἔχων, Μητροῖ —
ἰδοῦσ’ ἀμίλλη τὤμματ’ ἐξεκύμηνα·
τὰ βαλλί᾿ οὔτως ἄνδρες οὐχὶ ποιεῦσι
— αὐταὶ γάρ εἰμεν — ὀρθά· κοὐ μόνον τοῦτο,
ἀλλ᾿ ἠ μαλακότης ὔπνος, οἰ δ᾿ ἰμαντίσκοι
ἔρι᾿, οὐκ ἰμάντες. εὐνοέστερον σκυτέα
γυναικὶ διφῶσ᾿ ἄλλον οὐκ ἀνευρήσει. }[5]

Koritto was willing even to have sex with Kerdon to acquire both of his dildos. Within a fashionable academic myth of “historically contingent hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality,” a scholar has interpreted Mimiamb 6 as providing a “female centering dildo-joke” with an important gender implication:

Koritto takes the premise of the female centering dildo-joke to its logical extreme. Herodas has upended the male oriented male centering dildo-joke; his women do not resort to dildoes because men are not available. His women do not need men for sexual pleasure. In fact, men are so incidental to their sexual pleasure that they treat having sex with a man as merely the means to an end. As in the female-centering vibrator-jokes of Sex and the City, women do not need men if they have a well-made dildo.[6]

In Herodas Mimiamb 7, Metro and her woman-friends visit Kerdon at his shop. Kerdon discusses with the women various features and styles of shoes. Those shoes plausibly represent dildos in a materially inverted form. With realistic characters, circumstances, and dialog, Herodas depicts female-centering (gynocentric) objectification and commodification of men’s sexuality. He doesn’t celebrate or promote these ideological constructions. His material inversion of dildos in Mimiamb 7 in fact suggests a critical perspective on gender.[7] In contrast, the narrow-minded, acutely bigoted anti-meninism that now dominates academia promotes devaluing and dehumanizing men.

woman carrying a huge dildo in a painting on an ancient Greek ceramic

With its immodest words, Carmina Priapea transgressively affirms the value of men to women. Carmina Priapea was a book that both women and men read. Most of the surviving literary texts from the ancient Mediterranean world were written by men for men. The Carmina Priapea ironically pretended to be such a text:

“Morally pure married women, depart far from here.
It’s shameful for you to read immodest words.”
They make not a bit of that warning and come straight on.
Of course married women also have taste
and gaze eagerly upon a large penis.

{ Matronae procul hinc abite castae:
turpe est vos legere inpudica verba. —
non assis faciunt euntque recta:
nimirum sapiunt videntque magnam
matronae quoque mentulam libenter. }[8]

Defying gyno-idolatry, Carmina Priapea forthrightly recognized the female gaze that sexually objectifies men. The book itself, however, isn’t literally a large penis. This poem asserts that married women, like others, “have taste {sapio}.” The Latin verb used means both taste in the sense of stimulating a particular bodily sensation and being discerning or wise. Carmina Priapea recognizes wisdom in the female and male gaze.

Moreover, Carmina Priapea recognizes that a woman’s vagina has wisdom beyond desiring superficial beauty. In a poem of Carmina Priapea, the rustic, minor god Priapus outrageously boasts:

By his beauty Mercury is able to please,
by his beauty Apollo is distinguished,
beautiful also is Dionysus as painted, yet
most beautiful of all is Cupid.
As for me, I confess to lack a lovely beauty,
but my penis is truly splendid.
Young women prefer it over more important gods —
if a young woman doesn’t have a foolish cunt.

{ Forma Mercurius potest placere,
forma conspiciendus est Apollo,
formosus quoque pingitur Lyaeus,
formosissimus omnium est Cupido.
me pulchra fateor carere forma,
verum mentula luculenta nostra est:
hanc mavult sibi quam deos priores
si qua est non fatui puella cunni. }[9]

Mercury (Hermes), Apollo, Dionysus, and Cupid (Eros) are important gods in ancient Greco-Roman religion. None of them has a sexually objectified penis as Priapus does. None of them seems as superficially foolish as Priapus. In the ancient cultural circumstances of Carmina Priapea, being foolish was associated with bodily weakness as well as stupidity. With shocking bodily specificity, Carmina Priapea asserts that a woman with a strong, smart, and prudent cunt values a man’s cock more than a man’s beautiful appearance. That’s actually wise. Crude language doesn’t change the mechanism of the seminal blessing.

woman using two dildos in ancient Greek pottery painting

Within the Carmina Priapea, a young woman desires to encompass sexually Priapus and seems to affirm men as fully human beings bearing a gender-specific blessing. The poignant, ironic poem addresses you:

For what, would you say, she desires my spear, although I’m wooden,
if a young woman gives kisses to my groin?
No diviner is required. “Within me,” she said, believe me,
“your crude spear will encounter true strength.”

{ Velle quid hanc dicas, quamvis sim ligneus, hastam,
oscula dat medio si qua puella mihi?
augure non opus est: “in me” mihi credite, dixit
“utetur veris viribus hasta rudis.” }[10]

Priapus is foolish and bewildered. He figures his own penis as a brutalizing weapon: a wooden “spear {hasta}.” The young woman, however, kisses his groin. That kissing powerfully rejects the figure of his penis as a brutalizing weapon. It also rejects the objectification and commodification of his penis as merely a piece of wood. The young woman understands that her vagina gives his penis “true strength {vera vis}.” That’s the unitive joy and incomparable fecundity possible through sexual intercourse. You might doubt this. Priapus asks you to believe. The poem leaves open for its men and women readers the crucial, reflexive question of a man’s sexual dignity: “For what, would you say, she desires his penis?”

In the third-century BGC, the learned poet Herodas wrote about women’s desires for dildos. About four centuries later, Carmina Priapea transgressively affirmed the dignity of men’s sexuality against sexually objectifying and commodifying men’s penises. The sophisticated voice of the Carmina Priapea deserves to be heard and understood.[11] It can help to liberate men and women from today’s oppressive gender ideology.

As long as you live, one can hope. You, rustic guardian,
may you come here, erect Priapus, and be favorable to my nerve.

{ dum vivis, sperare licet: tu, rustice custos,
huc ades et nervis, tente Priape, fave. }[11]

* * * * *

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Notes:

[1] Cicero, About rhetorical construction {De inventione} 1.22, Latin text and English translation from Hubbell (1949); Tacitus, About the Life and Death of Julius Agricola {De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae} 1.3, Latin text via Perseus, my English translation. For a helpful notes on Tacitus’s Agricola, Damon (2016). On the “winning of goodwill {captatio benevolentiae}” more generally, Andoková (2016).

[2] Songs of Priapus {Carmina Priapea} 1, Latin text from Porter (2021a), my English translation, benefiting from that of Porter (2021b) and notes in Gua, Hayes & Nimis (2017). Here are English translations by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton. For detailed analysis of this poem, Elomaa (2015) pp. 17-26. Compare v. 2 to Martial, Epigrams 1.4.2:

Put down that eyebrow of the ruler of lands

{ terrarum dominum pone supercilium }

The poem collection Carmina Priapea belongs to the same elite literary culture as does Martial.

Carmina Priapea 1 is closely connected to Carmina Priapea 2. Both functioning together as an introduction to the poem collection. This dual introduction invokes the playfulness of Catullus. Elomaa (2015) p. 47. Specific intertexts for the dual proem of Carmina Priapea are other sophisticated volume introductions: “Catullus’ dedication to Cornelius Nepos, Martial’s introduction to Domitian, and two introductions in Strato.” Id. p. 20.

Only recently has the Carmina Priapea started to be adequately appreciated:

To appreciate, however, the true sal {taste} of the CP {Carmina Priapea} one also needs to be attuned to the book’s Hellenistic and Neoteric allusions and nuances. It humors us, titillates us, but ultimately subverts notions of literary taste and style that are standard to Hellenistic and Neoteric poets.

Elomaa (2015). p. 139. Elomaa deserves to be regarded as a leading interpreter of the Carmina Priapea.

Subsequent quotes from Carmina Priapea are similarly sourced. Porter (2021b) provides English translations of all the poems in the collection. My translations tend to follow the Latin more closely.

[3] Carmina Priapea 34. Within the context of this poem, the woman apparently sought many customers individually. Porter observed:

In charging only a pittance for her services, the woman in effect proclaims her intention to take on as many customers as possible, without discrimination.

Porter (2021a) p. 66. A graffito from Pompeii tells of several customers for a single woman sex-worker:

11 days before the Kalends of December, for 15 copper coins
Epaphra, Acutus, and Auctus
led for sex to this place
the woman Tyche. The price
per person was 5 copper coins.
In the year when Marcus Messalla and Lucius Lentulus were consuls.

{ A(nte) d(iem) XI K(alendas) Decembr(es) a(ssibus) XV
Epap(h)ra Acutus Auctus
ad locum duxserunt(!)
mulierem Tychen pretium
in singulos a(ssibus) V f(uit?)
M(arco) Messalla L(ucio) Lentulo co(n)s(ulibus) }

Graffito from Pompeeii, Corridor of the Theaters (VIII.7.20), Latin text and English translation (modified) graffito AGP-EDR167788 in the Ancient Graffiti Project, also cataloged as CIL IV.2450.

Richlin translated the second and third verses of Carmina Priapea 34 in a way that denies the woman sex-worker agency. Her translation is also inconsistent with the individually contracted, per-person fee that typically characterizes prostitution:

a girl was hired for a small fee
to be shared as enough for all

Richlin (1992) p. 126. Richlin’s tendentious translation served her poor-dear interpretation of women honoring Priapus: “The women who venerate Priapus are women in the service of men.” As wise clients of lawyers and other professionals understand, persons commercially serving clients are also serving themselves.

[4] Sophron, Mimes, Fragment 23, perhaps from the women’s mime A Bride’s Labor / Nymphoponos {Νυμφόπονος}, ancient Greek text and English translation from Rusten & Cunningham (2003). For some analysis of this fragment, Kutzko (2012) p. 381. Another fragment also apparently alludes to dildos:

See the fine shrimps, see the lobsters, see my dear. Look how red they are and smooth-haired.

{ ἴδε καλᾶν κουρίδων, ἴδε καμμάρων, ἴδε φίλα· θᾶσαι μὰν ὡς ἐρυθραί τ᾿ ἐντὶ καὶ λειοτριχιῶσαι }

Sophron, Mimes, Fragment 25, sourced as previously. Rusten & Cunningham (2003) notes, “Dildos again.”

[5] Herodas, Mimiamb 6, vv. 63-73, ancient Greek text (modified) and English translation (modified) from Rusten & Cunningham (2003). For vv. 65-70, I use the reading of the ancient Greek from Kutzko (2012) p. 382, following that of Kutzko (2000) p. 35. For an alternate English translation of all of Mimiamb 6, Murray (2021) pp. 280-3.

Upon entering Koritto’s home, Metro immediately raises her urgent concern:

Dear Coritto, who was it who stitched for you the scarlet
dildo?

{ φίλη Κοριττοῖ, τίς κοτ᾿ ἦν ὄ σοι ράψας τὸν κόκκινον
βαυβῶνα }

Mimiamb 6, vv. 18-9, sourced as previously. The color “scarlet {κόκκῐνος}” is associated both with blushing and Priapus’s penis. “Statuettes of Priapus, but esp. the statue’s phallus, were painted a reddish-purple color with ochre.” Porter (2021a) p. 15, note to Carmina Priapea 1, v. 5. On scarlet / red being a color for ancient Greek dildos, Sumler (2019) pp. 471-2.

The word that Herodas uses for dildo, βαυβών, is unique to his work among surviving ancient Greek texts. The ancient Greek word ὄλισβος is also attested to mean dildo. On the word for dildo in Herodas, Murray (2021) pp. 283-4.

[6] Murray (2021) p. 287. I’ve corrected “as a mere the means” to the apparently intended “as merely the means,” but have kept Murray’s idiosyncratic hyphenation elsewhere in the text.

Hegemony” and “patriarchy” are prominent, ambiguously specified shibboleths in Murray (2021). For “historically contingent hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality,” id. p. 279. The “hegemonic patriarchal constructions of female sexuality” is not specified as historically contingent at id. p. 280. Hegemonic patriarchy apparently constructs femininity as well as female sexuality. For “hegemonic patriarchal construction of femininity,” id. pp. 278, 279 (twice), 290, 294 (five instances total). Whether hegemonic patriarchy has more than one construction of femininity isn’t clear in Murray’s article. For “hegemonic patriarchal constructions of femininity,” id. pp. 280, 283.

Aristophanes’s Lysistrata figures men as better than dildos. The woman Kalonike laments the absence of husbands, lovers, and even inferior consolation from dildos:

Even lovers have vanished without a trace.
Ever since the Milesians revolted from us,
I haven’t even seen a six-inch dildo,
which might have been just a small leather aid to us.

{ ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲ μοιχοῦ καταλέλειπται φεψάλυξ.
ἐξ οὗ γὰρ ἡμᾶς προὔδοσαν Μιλήσιοι,
οὐκ εἶδον οὐδ᾿ ὄλισβον ὀκτωδάκτυλον,
ὃς ἦν ἂν ἡμῖν σκυτίνη ᾿πικουρία. }

Lysistrata vv. 107-10, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Henderson (2000). Subsequently, Lysistrata suggests that dildos are available and should be used, but Kalonike dismisses a dildo as a grossly inferior substitute for a man:

(Lysistrata): As Pherecrates said, skin the skinned dog.

(Kalonike): Facsimiles are nothing but poppycock.

{ (Λυσιστρατη): τὸ τοῦ Φερεκράτους, κύνα δέρειν δεδαρμένην.

(Καλονικη): φλυαρία ταῦτ᾿ ἐστὶ τὰ μεμιμημένα. }

Lysistrata vv. 158-9, sourced as previously.

Murray claims that in the “male-dominated Athenian worldview that Aristophanes exploited in his comedies, all women and girls are always eager to be penetrated by a man, any man.” Murray (2021) p. 275. That’s ridiculous. Such a worldview obliterates the complex characters of the important ancient Greek women-characters Penelope, Clytemnestra, and Aspasia.

[7] Women placing their feet in new shoes differs significantly in physical-sexual figuration from a man placing his foot in a shoe. Cf. Sumler (2010), which misses this important point. For an example of a relevantly structured metaphor, consider a quip in which a sandal belongs to a man’s wife. A shoemaker is asked to loosen it:

Another husband says this to a shoemaker,
a virile one sporting no boyish cock:
“Shoemaker, about my wife’s tootsy:
the thong is squeezing her pinky winky, where she’s tender.
So why don’t you drop in on her some lunchtime
and loosen it up so there’s more play down there?”

{ ἕτερος δέ τις πρὸς σκυτοτόμον ταδὶ λέγει
νεανίαν καὶ πέος ἔχοντ᾿ οὐ παιδικόν·
“ὦ σκυτοτόμε, τῆς μου γυναικὸς τοῦ ποδὸς
τὸ δακτυλίδιον πιέζει τὸ ζυγόν,
ἅθ᾿ ἁπαλὸν ὄν· τοῦτ᾿ οὖν σὺ τῆς μεσημβρίας
ἐλθὼν χάλασον, ὅπως ἂν εὐρυτέρως ἔχῃ.” }

Aristophanes, Lysistrata vv. 414-9, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Henderson (2000). The husband is inadvertently inviting the shoemaker to come and have sex with the husband’s wife. That’s obvious from the quip’s context in Lysistrata.

Interpreting Herodas in accordance with today’s dehumanizing gynocentric ideology of “liberated women” largely passes without critical scrutiny. In fact, that bizarre ideology has been essentialized as “a more authentic representation of female sexuality”:

Two companion pieces in the corpus of Herodas, Mimiambs 6 and 7, draw attention to female sexuality by giving voice to liberated women and their erotic fantasies. The women in these poems turn their lustful gaze not on men but on erotic accessories which arouse their sexual desire, a generic topos well-known from Old Comedy and perhaps Sophron’s mimes. But, in contrast to Old Comedy sex-humor which is filtered through the male perspective, it may be argued that here Herodas is interested in a more authentic representation of female sexuality through the viewpoint of his women characters.

Sistakou (2024) p. 136, footnotes omitted. Sistakou noted:

That Herodas in Mimiambs 6 and 7 appropriates the transgendered poetics of female poets such as Erinna and Nossis and therefore represents female sexuality is compellingly argued by Murray
2021

Id. p. 136, footnote 40. Another scholar interpreted Herodas’s Mimiambs 6 and 7 as presenting:

a gender reversal which plays out the male fear of a world where men are no longer needed or they are deemed ineffective.

Anagnostou-Laoutides (2015) p. 158. Men and women of good will should fear a world socially constructed to devalue and demean men. Like Herodas, they should engage with it critically, but carefully.

[8] Carmina Priapea 8. For an alternate English translation of Carmina Priapea 8, Elomaa (2015) p. 79. The phrase non assis faciunt literally refers to an as, a “copper coin worth ¼ sesterce (a coin of little value; a penny).” Porter (2021a) p. 28. An alternate translation thus would be “they don’t care as much as a halfpenny.” Id.

Carmina Priapea 68 highlights the shaping influence of men’s penises in Homeric epic. While violence against men is normalized so that it’s scarcely noted, in fact having a penis overwhelming characterizes those killed in Homeric epic. The “morally pure married women {matronae castae}” perhaps ironically invokes Penelope. Elomaa (2015) p. 80.

Carmina Priapea 8 is thematically close to one of Martial’s epigrams:

Thus far, married woman, this little book has been written for you.
For whom are the latter parts written, you ask? For me.
Gymnasium, warm baths, stadium are in this portion. Retire!
We are undressing. Forbear to look upon naked men.
Laying modesty aside after the wine and roses,
tipsy Terpsichore doesn’t know what she says,
she without ambiguity, but openly naming that
that Venus proudly welcomes in the sixth month,
that the bailiff sets as a guard in the middle of the garden,
that a proper young woman gazes upon from behind her hand.
If I know you well, you were already weary of this lengthy
volume. Now you will read attentively all of it.

{ Huc est usque tibi scriptus, matrona, libellus.
Cui sint scripta, rogas interiora? mihi.
Gymnasium, thermae, stadium est hac parte: recede.
Exuimur: nudos parce videre viros.
Hinc iam deposito post vina rosasque pudore,
Quid dicat, nescit saucia Terpsichore:
Schemate nec dubio, sed aperte nominat illam,
Quam recipit sexto mense superba Venus,
Custodem medio statuit quam vilicus horto,
Opposita spectat quam proba virgo manu.
Si bene te novi, longum iam lassa libellum
Ponebas, totum nunc studiosa leges. }

Martial, Epigram 3.68, Latin text from Heraeus & Borovskij (1976) via Perseus, my English translation. Men’s bodies, including their penises, are specific, flesh-and-blood materialities. Carmina Priapea 8 emphasizes the body’s immediate significance. Martial’s Epigram 3.68, in contrast, is more abstract and literary.

Using a figure of Priapus, Martial elsewhere more directly insisted on the incomparable value of men’s bodily integrity:

But these little books
are like husbands with wives —
they can’t please without a penis.

Don’t try to castrate my little books.
Nothing is more repulsive than a Priapus like a eunuch Gallus.

{ … sed hi libelli,
tamquam coniugibus suis mariti,
non possunt sine mentula placere.

nec castrare velis meos libellos.
gallo turpius est nihil Priapo. }

Martial, Epigram 1.35.1-3, 14-5, sourced as previously.

[9] Carmina Priapea 39. Fatuus suggests “silliness, foolishness, and idiocy.” Elomaa (2015) pp. 129-30, fn. 249. “The adjectives fatuus and insulsus are roughly synonymous.” Id. p. 137. Insulsus is etymologically linked to “tasteless”: in (“not”) +‎ salsus (“salted, witty”). Matthew 25:2 and 1 Corinthians 1:20, 27 provide nearly contemporaneous evidence on what it means to be regarded as not foolish: wise, smart, and strong.

In relation to divine beings’ diverse attributes, Priapus similarly asserts the importance of his penis:

Each of us has a notable bodily appearance.
Phoebus has lovely hair, Hercules is muscular,
tender Bacchus brings out the figure of a virgin woman,
Minerva has sparkling eyes, Venus a flirting squint,
Arcadian fawns, as you see, have goats’ brows,
the god’s envoy Mercury has suitable feet,
Lemnos’s patron Vulcan moves with limping gait,
Asclepius always has an unshaved beard, and
no one has a bigger chest than furious Mars.
If among these any place remains for me,
it’s because no god is more penis-endowed than Priapus.

{ Notas habemus quisque corporis formas:
Phoebus comosus, Hercules lacertosus,
trahit figuram virginis tener Bacchus,
Minerva ravo lumine est, Venus paeto,
frontem vides cornutos Arcadas Faunos,
habet decentes nuntius deum plantas,
tutela Lemni dispares movet gressus,
intonsa semper Aesculapio barba est,
nemo est feroci pectorosior Marte:
quod si quis inter hos locus mihi restat,
deus Priapo mentulatior non est. }

Carmina Priapea 36. For comments on this poem, Elomaa (2015) pp. 117-8. Carmina Priapea 20 mocks brutalizing figuration of the penis through comparison of Priapus’s penis to other gods’ weapons.

Carmina Priapea shows “ingenuity and artistic skill” in its catalogues:

Traditional structural forms of catalogues are followed, yet tradition is often challenged by new interpretative alternatives. In the collection the variety of structural patterns (internal balance, descending mode, ascending mode ) is impressive. Metrical diversity, the use of present or past tenses and the use of polysyndeton or asyndeton are all employed as means of diversification within a cycle of epigrams. Catalogues are perceived both as means of cohesion and of variatio; at the same time they manage to contest the expected and play with the reader’s expectations.

Michalopoulos (2017) p. 345.

[10] Carmina Priapea 43. That the young woman kisses Priapus’s groin doesn’t necessarily imply that they have oral sex. Moreover, classicists simplistically and misleadingly bifurcate oral sex into fellatio and irrumatio. Cf. Elomaa (2015) p. 138.

In another poem, Priapus himself recognizes that a woman can vitalize his wood and transform it into a penis that can make a holy sacrifice:

Why do you look at me, desirous young women, with eyes askance?
A penis doesn’t stand erect on my groin.
Although it’s now a lifeless and useless piece of wood,
it will be useful, if you offer your altar.

{ obliquis quid me, pathicae, spectatis ocellis?
non stat in inguinibus mentula tenta meis.
quae tamen exanimis nunc est et inutile lignum,
utilis haec, aram si dederitis, erit. }

Carmina Priapea 73. The altar that a woman offers is her warmly receptive vagina inseparable from her personal agency.

[11] The suffocating weight of anti-men gender ideology pervades classical studies, from the absurd “active” / “passive” sexual dichotomy to preposterous claims about the “reign of the phallus.” With respect to penis and dildo, consider this overview:

Like scholars in art history, feminists who criticize the use of the dildo tend to see it as reproducing and reinscribing heterosexual norms. Those who defend the dildo in theoretical terms stress its detachability and separation from economic and social masculinity, as well as its suitability for parodic inversion of gender conformity. The antidildo position is generally associated with the woman-identified woman, radical feminist, separatist branch of lesbianism, while the prodildo position is usually associated with the pro-sex, anti-censorship, butch / femme, s/m supporting wing of “lesbian” ism. The sexuality debates, the pornography debates, and internal fights within feminism might jokingly be said to be based on the lowly dildo. Those who dismiss the dildo in these vases as an invasion of male sexuality, or the effect of male fantasy, ignore the difference between the dildo and penis: there is no man attached to the former. In some sense, the dildo stands for women’s sexual agency and therefore for the possibility of the pleasure of penetration without male domination.

Rabinowitz (2002) p. 146. Many women experience “the pleasure of penetration without male domination” in relations of mutual love and respect with men. The domineering ideological assertion, “without male domination,” presents no obstacle to pleasure for women wise enough to reject it as a totalizing ideological myth.

[12] Carmina Priapea 80.9-10 / Carmina Priapea 81. Scholars differ about whether these last two verses of Carmina Priapea are a separate poem, and whether they are a later addition. For a review of the issues Porter (2021a) pp. 146-8. Poetic unity is convincingly argued, in my view, in Elomaa (2015) pp. 186-9. These verses tend to be interpreted as those of an impotent supplicant asking for Priapus’s favor. Yet there is also a more sophisticated reading of this ending of a highly sophisticated poem collection:

the poet is also asking for the reader to be favorable to his literary work. To be favorable to this text requires us to understand its poetics, to see through the pose, to understand the text’s engagement with literary texts, to exist in the world of the poetry while simultaneously existing in the world of the present day, and, ultimately, it requires us to laugh and to be pleasantly stimulated by the different associations the poet makes between his poetry and other literary works.

Elomaa (2015) p. 190. The poet seems also to have composed a universal prayer relevant to women and men everywhere in all time. It’s prayer of persons aspiring to the fullness of life.

[images] (1) Young woman sprinkling a substance on four dildos with foliage at their bases. Scholars have speculated that this painting might be related to the men-excluding Thesmophoria, a festival honoring the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. Painting on a red-figured pelike made in Attica (Greece) between 440 BGC and 430 BGC. Attributed to the Hasselmann Painter. Preserved in the British Museum, number 1865,1118.49. Source image © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. The British Museum describes the items pointing up from the ground as “phalli” (penises). The term dildo is more appropriate for such representations separate from a man’s body. For an alternate discussion of distinguishing between dildos and penises / phalli, Rabinowitz (2002) pp. 140-6.

(2) Young woman carrying a huge dildo. Painting on a Attic red-figure column krater made about 470 BGC. Attributed to the Pan Painter. Found in Etruria. Preserved in the Antikensammlung / Altes Museum (Berlin, Germany) as inventory no. 3206. Source image thanks to ArchaiOptix and Wikimedia Commons. For an alternate image, Figura (2022) Figure 13.

(3) Athletic woman using two dildos. Painting on a pottery cup made in Attica (Greece), 520 BGC to 500 BGC. Painting attributed to the Nikosthenes Painter. Cup made by Pamphaios. Preserved in the British Museum, number 1867,0508.1064. Source image © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

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