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

INTRODUCTION

behind me. For this reason I let no day pass without living in this manner.” }

Aristobulus (Ath., xii, 530a) also knew of a monument to Sardanapalus in Anchiale, one of his subject cities; on the stone statue of the king the right hand was so formed as if it wanted to snap off something valueless with the finger. The Assyrian inscription was as follows: ‘‘Sardanapalus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, who conquered Anchiale and Tarsus on a single day. Eat! drink! love! For all else is naught.” This seems to be the meaning of the gesture of the finger.

Clearchus (Ath., xii, 530c; FHG., ii, 307) told several remarkable things of Sagaris, an effeminate person from the Bithynian people of the Maryandini : In consequence of his effeminacy he ate nothing until he reached old age unless his nurse had chewed it for him, so that he himself might be relieved of the trouble. Also he was too indolent to reach further than his navel with his hand. Hence Aristotle, jesting about the fact that, when making water, he never grasped his member, quoted the verse of Euripides: “The hand is pure, but the thought has some pollution ” (Eurip. Hippol. 317).

The orator Lysias (frag. 4 in Ath., xii, 534) tells the following story of Alcibiades. ‘‘ He was once travelling with his friend Axiochus to the Hellespont. In Abydos they wedded a girl in common named Medontis, and lived with her in turns. Afterwards she bore a daughter, of whom they said that they did not know who was the father. When the daughter grew up they also lived with her, and when she was with Alcibiades in bed with her he said she was the daughter of Axiochus, and when she was with Axiochus he said she was the daughter of Alcibiades.”

In comedy also Alcibiades was soundly criticized for his love adventures, of which Athenzus gives several examples. It was not without reason that

1 This inscription is also given in hexameter form (Ath., viii, 335¢).

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