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

CASTRATION, CIRCUMCISION, INFIBULATION

with the beautiful woman, begged him to abandon the idea. All that he could obtain was an adjournment for seven days, and after these had expired he handed over to the king, in the presence of several witnesses, a small sealed box, with the request that he would keep it faithfully, since it contained the most valuable thing that he possessed. The king also seals the box and gives it to his treasurer to keep. Then they started on the journey and everything happened as Combabus had feared. Stratonike, who had so long been in want of the joys of marriage, fell in love with the handsome young man, but her advances are repulsed, and now the story of Potiphar or Phzdra is repeated. ‘The rejected woman in letters to the king falsely accuses her modest companion, or, what Lucian thinks more probable, the suspicion is suggested by others to the king, who orders Combabus to return and has him thrown into prison for seducing his wife. When the day of trial arrived, Combabus asks the king to open the box entrusted to him, since it contained the proof of his innocence. After the king had found the seal untampered with, he opens the box and finds therein the embalmed genitals of his unhappy friend. The king embraces him with many tears and distinguishes him with the highest honours. Later, a bronze statue of Combabus was shown in man’s dress but of female figure. Hence it is said that the custom became naturalized, that many Galli emasculated themselves and ever after wore female dress and pursued female occupations (Lucian, De Syr. dea, 19 ff.).

Heracleides Ponticus in his book On Enjoyment had related that a certain Deinias, keeper of a perfumery, led a very dissipated life and had thereby wasted his property. When he had come to the end of his physical powers, he himself cut off the instruments of his lust, grieving that they could be of no further service to him (Ath., xii, 552).

As the Odyssey informs us, in ancient times there

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