Satyricon, vol 7, Marchena Notes | Page 8

for pleasures and they took the pleasures which offered themselves
without delay and in a spirit of competition. Caligula was so little
accustomed to waiting that, while occupied in offering a sacrifice to the
Gods, and the figure of a priest having pleased him, he did not take
time to finish the sacred ceremonies before taking his pleasure of him.
A remarkable thing is that among almost all peoples, the baths are the
places where the prostitution of men by their own sex is the most
common. We see in Catullus that the "cinaedi" (catamites), a noun
which my chaste pen refuses to translate into French, haunted the baths
incessantly to carry out their practices. Among the Orientals, of all
modern peoples who have retained this taste most generally, this same
fact holds good. It was at the bath that Tiberius, impotent through old
age and debauchery, was made young again by the touch little children
applied to his breasts; these children he called "'little fishes," they
sucked his withered breasts, his infected mouth, his livid lips, and
finally his virile parts. Hideous spectacle of a tyrant disgraced by nature
and struggling against her maledictions! But in vain did he invent new
pleasures, in vain did he take part in these scenes in which groups of
young men by threes and fours assumed all sorts of lascivious postures,
and were at the same time active and passive; the sight of these
indulgences of the "sprintriae" (for that is the name which was given
there) did not enable him to resuscitate his vigor any more than the
glamor of the throne or the servile submission of the senate served to
mitigate his remorse.
But of all the emperors, the ones who carried their taste for young boys
to the greatest lengths were, Nero, Domitian and Hadrian. The first
publicly wedded the young eunuch Sporus, whom he had had operated

upon so that he might serve him like a young woman. He paid court to
the boy as he would to a woman and another of his favorites dressed
himself up in a veil and imitated the lamentations which women were
accustomed to utter on nuptial nights. The second consecrated the
month of September to his favorite and the third loved Antinous
passionately and caused him to be deified after death.
The most ample proof of the universality of the taste for young boys
among the Romans is found in the Epithalamium of Manilius and Julia,
by Catullus, and it might be cause for surprise that this has escaped all
the philologists, were it not a constant thing that men frequently
reading about these centuries fail to perceive the most palpable facts in
their authors, just as they pass over the most striking phenomena of
nature without observing them. It appears, from this epithalamium, that
young men, before their marriage, had a favorite selected from among
their slaves and that this favorite was charged with the distribution of
nuts among his comrades, on the day, they in turn, treated him with
contempt and hooted him. Here follows an exact translation of this
curious bit. The favorite could not refuse the nuts to the slaves when by
giving them it appeared that he owned that his master had put away his
love for hire.
"Lest longer mute tongue stays that In festal jest, from Fescennine, Nor
yet deny their nuts to boys, He-Concubine! who learns in fine His
lordling's love is fled.
Throw nuts to boys thou idle all He-Concubine! wast fain full long
With nuts to play: now pleased as thrall Be thou to swell Talasios'
throng He-Concubine throw nuts.
Wont thou as peasant-girls to jape He-whore! Thy Lord's delight the
while: Now shall hair-curling chattel scrape Thy cheeks: poor wretch,
ah' poor and vile:-- He-Concubine, throw nuts."
and further on, addressing the husband:
"'Tis said from smooth-faced ingle train (Anointed bridegroom!) hardly
fain Hast e'er refrained; now do refrain! O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O
Hymen Hymenaeus!
We know that naught save licit rites Be known to thee, but wedded
wights No more deem lawful such delights. O Hymen Hymenaeus io,
O Hymen Hymenaeus." (LXI. Burton, tr.)
The Christian religion strongly prohibits this love; the theologians put it

among the sins which directly offend against the Holy Ghost. I have
not the honor of knowing just why this thing arouses his anger so much
more than anything else; doubtless there are reasons. But the wrath of
this honest person has not prevented the Christians from having their
"pathici," just as they have in countries where they are authorized by
the reigning deities. We have even noticed that they are the priests of
the Lord and especially the monks who practice this profession most
generally amongst us. The children of Loyola have acquired
well-merited renown