Satyricon, vol 7, Marchena Notes | Page 5

women was
never the fashion at Rome and the stories we have on the authority of
Valerius Maximus on the chastity and modesty of the first Roman
matrons merit the same degree of belief as the legend of Romulus and
Remus being brought up by a wolf, the rape of Lucretia or the tragic
death of Virginia. On the contrary, in Livy, a great admirer of the
customs of the early days of Rome, we find that in those times a great
number of Roman women of the noblest families were convicted of
having poisoned their husbands and condemned to death for this
hideous crime: that, by no means shows a very exquisite and tender
conjugal sentiment. During the period of the second Punic War with
what energy they went about the city seeking the repeal of the law
which took out of their hands the custody of jewels and precious stones!
A repeal which they obtained despite the opposition of Cato the Censor.
It appears that the profession of the courtesan was generally practised
by the freed-women; their manner necessarily showed the results of

their education. But the young sparks of Rome never paid much
attention to them, they preferred to have love affairs with the wives of
their friends. For one Sallust who ruined himself with freedwomen,
there were five Cupienniuses; "Cupiennius, that admirer of the pudenda
garbed in white," Hor. Sat. I, ii, 36. Delia, Lesbia, Ipsythillia, Corinna,
Nemesis, Neeria, Cynthia, Sulpitia, Lycimnia, and almost all the
women to whom, under real or assumed names, Catullus, Tibullus,
Propertius, Ovid, Horace, and others, addressed their erotic
compositions, were Roman married women. Horace is the only one
who celebrated a freedwoman in some of his odes. This is due,
however, to his taste for variety and perhaps also, to his birth, for he
himself was the son of a freedwoman. Ovid's Art of Love and the
Satires of Juvenal reveal the extent to which gallantry was the fashion
at Rome and Cato would never have praised the conduct of that young
man who had recourse to a public house if that had been an ordinary
course of procedure.
In Europe of the middle ages, the priests and abbots helped to some
extent in reviving the profession of the courtesans. Long before, Saint
Paul had stated in his Epistles that it was permitted to the apostles of
the Lord to take with them everywhere a sister for charity. The
deaconesses date from the first century of the church. But the celibacy
of the clergy was not universally and solidly established until about the
eleventh century, under the pontificate of Gregory VII. During the
preceding century, the celebrated Marozie and Theodore had put their
lovers successively upon the chair of St. Peter, and their sons and
grandsons, as well. But after the priests had submitted to celibacy they
ostensibly took the concubines of which, alas! our housekeepers of
today are but feeble vestiges. The Spanish codes of the middle ages
were often concerned with the rights of the concubines of priests
(mancebas de los clerigos) and these chosen ones of the chosen ones of
the Lord invariably appeared worthy of envy. Finally the courtesans
appeared in all their magnificence in the Holy City, and modern Rome
atoned for the rebuffs and indignities these women had been compelled
to endure in ancient Rome. The princes of the church showered them
with gifts, they threw at their feet the price of redemption from sin,
paid by the faithful, and the age of Leo X was for Rome a wonderful
epoch of fine arts, belles lettres, and beautiful women. But a fanatical

monk from Lower Germany fell upon this calm of the church and this
happy era of the harlots; since then the revenues of the sacred college
have continued to decrease, the beautiful courtesans have abandoned
the capital of the Christian world, and their pleasures have fled with
them. And can anyone longer believe in the perfection of the human
race, since the best, the most holy of human institutions has so visibly
degenerated!

III.
Le Soldat ordonne a embasicetas de m'accabler de ses impurs baisers.
The soldier ordered the catamite to beslaver me with his stinking
kisses.
One of the reasons which caused the learned and paradoxical Hardouin
to assert that all the works which have been attributed to the ancients,
with the exception of the Georgics and the Natural History of Pliny,
were the compositions of monks, was doubtless the very frequent
repetition of scenes of love for boys, which one notices in most of these
writings: this savant was a Jesuit. But this taste is not peculiar to
convents; it is to be found among all peoples and in all climates; its
origin is lost in the night of the centuries;