Satyricon, vol 6, Editors Notes | Page 8

Italy;
with the invention of this vice and it would appear from Athenaeus
(Deiphnos. lib. xiii) that the native peoples of Italy and the Greek
colonists as well were addicted to the most revolting practices with
boys. The case of Laetorius (Valerius Maximus vi, 1, 11) proves that as
early as 320 B. C., the Romans were no strangers to it and also that it
was not common among them, at that time.
As the character of the primitive Roman was essentially different from
that of the contemporary Greek, and as his struggle for existence was
severe in the extreme, there was little moral obliquity during the first
two hundred and fifty years. The "coelibes prohibeto" of the Twelve
Tables was also a powerful influence in preserving chastity. By the
time of Plautus, however, the practice of paederasty was much more
general, as is clearly proved by the many references which are found in
his comedies (Cist. iv, sc. 1, line 5) and passim. By the year 169 B. C.,
the vice had so ravaged the populace that the Lex Scantinia was passed
to control it, but legislation has never proved a success in repressing
vice and the effectiveness of this law was no exception to the rule.
Conditions grew steadily worse with the passage of time and the
extension of the Roman power served to inoculate the legionaries with
the vices of their victims. The destruction of Corinth may well have
avenged itself in this manner. The accumulation of wealth and spoils
gave the people more leisure, increased their means of enjoyment, and
educated their taste in luxuries. The influx of slaves and voluptuaries
from the Levant aided in the dissemination of the vices of the orient
among the ruder Romans. As the first taste of blood arouses the tiger,
so did the limitless power of the Republic and Empire react to the
insinuating precepts of older and more corrupt civilizations. The
fragments of Lucilius make mention of the "cinaedi," in the sense that
they were dancers, and in the earlier ages, they were. Cicero, in the
second Philippic calls Antonius a catamite; but in Republican Rome, it

is to Catullus that we must turn to find the most decisive evidence of
their almost universal inclination to sodomy. The first notice of this
passage in its proper significance is found in the Burmann Petronius
(ed. 1709): here, in a note on the correct reading of "intertitulos,
nudasque meretrices furtim conspatiantes," the ancient reading would
seem to have been "internuculos nudasque meretrices furtim
conspatiantes" (and I am not at all certain but that it is to be preferred).
Burmann cites the passage from Catullus (Epithalamium of Manlius
and Julia); Burmann sees the force of the passage but does not grasp its
deeper meaning. Marchena seems to have been the first scholar to read
between the lines. See his third note.
A few years later, John Colin Dunlop, the author of a History of Roman
Literature which ought to be better known among the teaching
fraternity, drew attention to the same passage. So striking is his
comment that I will transcribe it in full. "It," the poem, "has also been
highly applauded by the commentators; and more than one critic has
declared that it must have been written by the hands of Venus and the
Graces. I wish, however, they had excepted from their unqualified
panegyrics the coarse imitation of the Fescennine poems, which leaves
in our minds a stronger impression of the prevalence and extent of
Roman vices, than any other passage in the Latin classics. Martial, and
Catullus himself, elsewhere, have branded their enemies; and Juvenal
in bursts of satiric indignation, has reproached his countrymen with the
most shocking crimes. But here, in a complimentary poem to a patron
and intimate friend, these are jocularly alluded to as the venial
indulgences of his earliest youth" (vol. i, p. 453, second edition).
This passage clearly points to the fact that it was the common custom
among the young Roman patricians to have a bed-fellow of the same
sex. Cicero, in speaking of the acquittal of Clodius (Letters to Atticus,
lib. i, 18), says, "having bought up and debauched the tribunal";
charges that the judges were promised the favors of the young
gentlemen and ladies of Rome, in exchange for their services in the
matter of Clodius' trial. Manutius, in a note on this passage says,
"bought up, because the judges took their pay and held Clodius
innocent and absolved him: debauched, because certain women and
youths of noble birth were introduced by night to not a few of them
(there were 56 judges) as additional compensation for their attention to

duty" (Variorum Notes to Cicero, vol. ii, pp. 339- 340). In the Priapeia,
the wayfarer is warned by Priapus to refrain from