Satyricon, vol 7, Marchena Notes | Page 2

non sine
verberibus. Tibullus viii, 5.

I.
Vous verrez que vous avcz affaire a un homme. You will learn that you
have to deal with a man.
Fighting men have in all times been distinguished on account of the
beauty of their women. The charming fable of the loves of Venus and
Mars, described by the most ancient of poets, expresses allegorically,
this truth. All the demi-gods had their amorous adventures; the most

valiant were always the most passionate and the happiest. Hercules
took the maidenheads of fifty girls, in a single night. Thesus loved a
thousand beauties, and slept with them. Jason abandoned Hypsipyle for
Medea, and her, for Creusa. Achilles, the swift of foot, forgot the tender
Deidamia in the arms of his Briseis.
It has been remarked that the lovers did not have very scrupulous tastes
in their methods of attaining satisfaction from the women they loved.
The most common method was abduction and the women always
submitted to this without a murmur of any sort. Helen was carried off
by Theseus, after having also been abducted by Paris. The wife of
Atreus was abducted by Thyestus, and from that arose the implacable
hatred between the two families. Rape was no less common. Goddesses
themselves and the favorites of the Gods were at the risk of falling prey
to strong mortals. Pirithous, aided by Theseus, even attempted to snatch
Proserpina from the God of the under-world. Juno herself was
compelled to painful submission to the pursuit of Ixion, and Thetis
succumbed despite herself, to the assaults of Peleus. The gift of
foretelling the future, with which Apollo endowed Cassandra, did not
insure her against the brutal caresses of Ajax, son of Oileus.
In the infancy of society, there was never known any other distinction
except between the weak and the strong: the strong commanded and the
weak obeyed. For that reason, women were regarded in the light of
beings destined by nature, to serve the pleasures and even the caprices
of men. Never did her suitors express a tender thought for Penelope,
and, instead of making love to her, they squandered her property, slept
with her slaves, and took charge of things in her house.
Circe gave herself to Ulysses who desired to slay her, and Calypso, full
blown goddess as she was, was obliged to make his advances for him.
The fine sentiments that Virgil puts into the mouth of the shade of
Creusa, content with having died while serving against the Greeks, "she
was a Trojan, and she wedded the son of Venus"; the confession with
which Andromache, confronted by the murderer of her first husband,
responds to the question of AEneas; these ideas, I say, and these
sentiments, appertained to the polished century of Augustus and not to
the epoch or, scene of the Trojan War. Virgil, in his AEneid, had never
subscribed to the precepts of Horace, and of common sense:
Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge Horace Ars Poet. 119.

From this manner of dealing with women arose another reason for the
possession of beauty by the valiant. One coveted a woman much as one
would covet a fine flock of sheep, and, in the absence of laws, the one
in possession of either the one or the other of these desirable objects
would soon be dispossessed of them if he was not courageous enough
to guard them against theft. Wars were as much enterprises for
ravishing women as they were for taking other property, and one
should remember that Agamemnon promised to retire from before Troy
if the Trojans would restore Helen and his riches to Menelaus; things
which Paris had despoiled him of.
Also, there was never any of that thing we call "conjugal honor" among
the Greeks; that idea was far too refined; it was a matter too complex
ever to have entered the heads of these semi-barbarous people. This is
exemplified in the fact that, after the taking of Troy, Helen, who had, of
her own free will, belonged successively to Paris, and to Deiphobus,
afterwards returned to Menelaus, who never offered her any reproach.
That conduct of Menelaus was so natural that Telemachus, who, in his
trip to Sparta found Helen again with Menelaus, just as she was before
her abduction, did not show the least astonishment.
The books which bear the most remarkable resemblance to each other
are the Bible and Homer, because the people they describe and the men
about whom they speak are forerunners of civilization in pretty much
the same degree. Sarah was twice snatched from the bosom of
Abraham and he was never displeased with his wife and continued to
live on good terms with her. David, a newcomer on the throne,
hastened to have Michol brought to him although she had