Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

RELIGION AND EROTIC

Heracles, so that they indicated this fifty-fold lovecontest as the hero’s thirteenth labour (Diod. Sic., iv, 29; Pausan., ix, 27, 6).

The twelve labours, which Heracles was compelled to perform in the forced service of the feeble and cowardly king Eurystheus, thanks to the malice of his wicked stepmother Hera, are so generally known, that they can be passed over here, especially as they for the most part lack the erotic undertone ; but a less well-known trifle may be mentioned.

When Heracles penetrates into the underworld to fetch up the horrible hell-hound, Cerberus, he finds there the famous pair of friends, Theseus and Peirithous, who as a punishment for their foolhardy attempt to carry off Persephone, the wife of Hades, were grown to a rock. The mighty hero succeeded in pulling Theseus away ; but when he attempts to do the same with Peirithous, a violent earthquake warns him against further encroachment on the tights of the underground kingdom. ‘The comic poets were accustomed to describe with much satisfaction how, when Theseus was being pulled away, his posteriors remained hanging to the stone to which they had become attached, so that he was obliged to run about hypolispos, that is, with hinder parts worn smooth, since they had been rubbed by the rock. We can easily imagine how the Athenians enjoyed applauding this piece of stage-wit, especially as it was known to them from their Aristophanes, that they themselves as seafaring people, who continually rubbed their hinder parts on the rowers’ benches, were so called, and hence Aristophanes could speak of their “ Salamis-arse ”. Anyone who is to some extent initiated in the language of Attic comedy, knows what obscene subordinate meaning the public, always ready to laugh, was intended to get out of it, and certainly did.’

1 For Theseus see Suidas s.v. Aiowor; Aristoph., Knights, 1368, and Schol. The story itself, without an erotic by-sense, is common: e.g. Apollodorus, ii, 124; Pausanias, x, 29,9} Diod. Sic., iv, 26; Plutarch,

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