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

PROSE

Periander, the well-known ruler of Corinth, had sent 300 boys from Kerkyra (Corfu), sons of the most distinguished men of the island, to the court of King Alyattes at Sardes, to be castrated and to perform the services customarily discharged by eunuchs. How the inhabitants of the island of Samos, on whom the duty of transporting them was imposed, saved the boys and in memory thereof instituted a feast which was still observed in the time of Herodotus, may be gathered from the historian himself. From a later passage, very interesting from the point of view of the history of civilization, it is clear that many persons made a profession of the castration of boys. Herodotus tells us (viii, 104 ff.) : ‘‘ Xerxes sent with these boys as a guard a certain Hermotimus, a native of Pedasa, who held the first place among the king’s eunuchs. In the town of Pedasa, it is said that the following event happens : whenever all the neighbours living round are threatened by the approach of any serious disaster, the priestess of the temple of Athene grows a long beard. And this had already happened twice. Now Hermotimus was one of the inhabitants of Pedasa, to whom it befell to obtain the greatest vengeance that one can imagine upon a man by whom he had been wronged. Panionius, a citizen of Chios, who supported himself by most wicked acts, bought him when he had been captured by enemies and was put up for sale. For this Panionius, as often as he got possession of any beautiful boys, used to castrate them, take them to Sardes or Ephesus and sell them for a high price. For among the barbarians eunuchs are more valuable than those who are not castrated, and greater confidence is reposed in them in everything. When he had castrated many others, Panionius, who made his livelihood in this manner, then did the same to Hermotimus—to whom it did not come altogether as a misfortune, for he was sent to Sardes with other gifts for the king and in course of time of all the eunuchs of Xerxes he was held

497 Kk