Angellous' Anthology of Amusing Ancient Axioms

[angellous_evangellous]

I am a student of Greco-Roman antiquity, and I constantly come across amusing ancient anomalies.

For your enjoyment, I will post them here.

Here are some examples from my reading today:

1) "Beer-foam is used by women for cosmetic purposes." - Pliny the Elder, Natural History 22.164.

2) "If you keep the urine of someone who eats a good deal of cabbage and warm it up and bathe a patient in it, he is certain to recover. This has been proven. Babies are also fortified by urine baths. An eyebath with urine helps people with poor eyesight. Headaches and neck pain are cured with warm urine. A woman who warms up her sexual parts with this fluid will have no further pain. Warm up as follows: when the urine is boiling, put it under a stool with holes. The woman sits on this and is covered up. Make sure she is fully wrapped in clothes." Cat. RR CLVII

 

[angellous_evangellous]

From this morning's reading...

"If anyone calls you a catamite, Sextillus," says Martial, ii, 28, "return the compliment and hold out your middle finger to him."

Petronius, Satyricon Chapter 131

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Martial, Epigram 7.82

"So large a sheath covers Menophilus' penis that it would be enough by itself for all our comic actors. I had supposed (we often bathe together) that he was anxious to spare his voice, Flaccus. But while he was in a game in the middle of the sportground with everyone watching, the sheath slipped off the poor soul: he was circumcised."

(context notes: this occurs at a bath-house in first century Rome and the poem is a satire)

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Martial, Epigram 3.44.10

"You read to me as I stand, you read to me as I sit, you read to me as I run, you read to me as I sh*t."

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Ancient references for singing in the shower: Martial Epigram 3.44, Satire 73, 91-2; Seneca Epistle 56.2

 

[angellous_evangellous]

My favorite quote from antiquity is from the philosopher Teles, recounting the harassing of the Cynic philosopher Diogenes.

"But just as Diogenes, when someone was shoving him and twisting his neck when he was indesposed, did not submit but instead showed the fellow his penis, and says, 'My dear sir, stand here in front of me and shove on this."

 

[angellous_evangellous]

From Hanz Deiter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation 2.

"To get a certian lover at the baths: rub a tick from a dead dog on the loins" 127.1-12

"Love spell of attraction: Take a papyrus and with blood of a donkey and write the following names and figure, and put in the magical material from the woman you desire. Smear the strip of papyrus with moistened vinegar gum and glue it to the dry vaulted vapor room of a bath, and you will marvel." 36.69-75

 

[angellous_evangellous]

When Philip was said to be ready on the march, all the Corinthians were astir and busy, preparing weapons, bringing up stones, underpinning the wall, shoring up a battlement and doing various other useful jobs.

Diogenes saw this, and as he had nothing to do - nobody made any use of him - he belted up his philosopher's cloak and very busily by himself rolled the barrel, in which as it happens he was living, up and down Cranaeum. When one of his friends asked, 'Why are you doing that, Diogenes?," he repled, "I am rolling the barrel so as not to be thought the one idle man in the midst of all these workers."

Lucian, How to Write History 3

 

[angellous_evangellous]

This may be anti-climactic but I found it amusing:

A letter from Cicero:

I now come to your jests, since as an after piece to Accius's Enomaus, you have brought on the stage, not, as was his wont, an Atellan play, but, according to the present fashion, a mime. What's all this about a pilot-fish, a denarius, and a dish of salt fish and cheese? In my old easy-going days I put up with that sort of thing: but times are changed. Hirthms and Dolabella are my pupils inrhetoric, but my masters in the art of dining.

For I think you must have heard, if you really get all news, that their practice is to declaim at my house, and mine to dine at theirs. Now it is no use your making an affidavit of insolvency to me: for when you had some property, petty profits used to keep you a little too close to business; but as things are now, seeing that you are losing money so cheerfully, all you have to do, when entertaining me, is to regard yourself as accepting a "composition"; and even that loss is less annoying when it comes from a friend than from a debtor.

Yet, after all, I don't require dinners superfluous in quantity: only letwhat there is be first-rate in quality and recherche. I remember youused to tell me stories of Phamea's dinner. Let yours be earlier, butin other respects like that. But if you persist in bringing me back toa dinner like your mother's, I should put up with that also. For Ishould like to see the man who had the face to put on the table forme what you describe, or even a polypus--looking as red as IupiterMiniatus. Believe me, you won't dare. Before I arrive the fame ofmy new magnificence will reach you: and you will be awestruck atit. Yet it is no use building any hope on your hors d'aeuvre. I havequite abolished that: for in old times I found my appetite spoilt by your olives and Lucanian sausages. But why all this talk? Let me only get to you. By all means--for I wish to wipe away all fear from your heart--go back to your old cheese-and-sardine dish. Theonly expense I shall cause you will be that you will have to havethe bath heated. All the rest according to my regular habits. What Ihave just been saying was all a joke.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Cicero, Epistle XLV (to his brother in Britian)

...

Just as I had written these last words--which are by my own
hand--your boy came in to dine with me, as Pomponia was dining
out. He gave me your letter to read, which he had received shortly
before--a truly Aristophanic mixture of jest and earnest, with
which I was greatly charmed. He gave me also your second letter,
in which you bid him cling to my side as a mentor. How delighted
he was with those letters! And so was I. Nothing could be more
attractive than that boy, nothing more affectionate to me !--This, to
explain its being in another handwriting, I dictated to Tiro while at
dinner.

EDIT: This letter is exceptionally long - the longest ancient letter that I have ever read aside from the NT epistles.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Cicero, Epistle XXV

I have thrown myself into the
camp of my old enemy Epicurus not, however, with a view to the
extravagance of the present day, but to that refined splendour of
yours I mean your old style when you had money to spend (though
you never had more landed estate). Therefore prepare! You have to
deal with a man, who not only has a large appetite, but who also
knows a thing or two. You are aware of the extravagance of your
bourgeois gentilhomtne. You must forget all your little baskets and
your omelettes. I am now far advanced in the art that I frequently
venture to ask your friend Verrius and Camillus to dinner--what
dandies! how fastidious! But think of my audacity: I even gave
Hirtius a dinner, without a peacock however. In that dinner my
cook could not imitate him in anything but the hot sauce.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Here's a beauty - it gives the format of a special feast where the poor attend with the rich.

XXIX To ATTICUS (AT ROME) PUTEOLI, 21 DECEMBER

WELL, I have no reason after all to repent my formidable guest! For he made himself exceedingly pleasant. But on his arrival at thevilla of Philippus on the evening of the second day of theSaturnalia, the villa was so choke full of soldiers that there wasscarcely a dining-room left for Caesar himself to dine in.

Two thousand men, if you please! I was in a great taking as to what wasto happen the next day; and so Cassius Barba came to my aid andgave me guards. A camp was pitched in the open, the villa was putin a state of defence. He stayed with Philippus on the third day ofthe Saturnalia till one o'clock, without admitting anyone. He was engaged on his accounts, I think, with Balbus.

(1 = exercise)Then he took a walkon the beach. (2 = bath) After two he went to the bath. Then he heard about Mamurra without changing countenance. (3 = footwashing)He was anointed: tookhis place at the table. (4 = meal proper) He was under a course of emetics, and so ateand drank without scruple and as suited his taste.

It was a verygood dinner, and well served, and not only so, but "Well cooked, well seasoned food, with rare discourse:A banquet in a word to cheer the heart."

(5 = symposium or entertainment, this one has conversation) Besides this, the staff were entertained in three rooms in a veryliberal style. The freedmen of lower rank and the slaves had everything they could want. But the upper sort had a really recherche dinner. In fact, I shewed that I was somebody.

However,he is not a guest to whom one would say, "Pray look me up again on your way back." Once is enough. We didn't say a word about politics. There was plenty of literary talk. In short, he was pleasedand enjoyed himself. He said he should stay one day at Puteoli,another at Baiaee. That's the story of the entertainment, or I might call it the billeting on me--trying to the temper, but not seriously inconvenient. I am staying on here for a short time and then go toTusculum. When he was passing Dolabella's villa, the whole guardformed up on the right and left of his horse, and nowhere else.This I was told by Nicias.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

From Seneca's On Benefits, chapter 10

I see there letters of credit, promissory notes, and bonds, empty phantoms of property, ghosts of sick Avarice, with which she deceives our minds, which delight in unreal fancies; for what are these things, and what are interest, and account books, and usury, except the names of unnatural developments of human covetousness? I might complain of nature for not having hidden gold and silver deeper, for not having laid over it a weight too heavy to be removed: but what are your documents, your sale of time, your blood-sucking twelve per cent interest?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

‘I rememeber when you used to wipe your nose on your sleeve” - Plutarch, Moralia, 631D

‘The man who cannot engage in joking at a suitable time... must avoid jokes altogether.” 631c

‘They are happy to be asked about friends who are successful and about children who are making progress in studies or in lawsuits or in the friendship of kings. They are even more delighted to be asked about the disgraces, the injuries, and the unsuccessful lawsuits of enemies and adversaries who have been convicted and ruined... It is also very agreeable to ask a huntsman questions about dogs, a keen athlete about games, and an amorist about about his handsome lovers (masculine)...” 631b

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The boxer Heraclides...

From the Moralia, 624d

Unable to find a drinking-companion able to stay with him, he was in the habit of inviting people in for a round of drinks before luncheon, others for luncheon itself, still others for dinner, and finally new people again for an after-dinner bout of drinking. As the first group departed, the second arrived, then the third in their turn, and the fourth. Heraclides, without any let-up, was a match for them all and fully carried his part of the four sessions of drinking.

Among the companions of Drusus, the son of Tiberius Ceasar, a doctor outstripped them all in drinking, and it was proved on him that before each party he took five or six bitter almonds to avoid getting drunk. When he was stopped from doing so and closely watched, he did not hold out against the power of wine even for a short time.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Plutarch warns that the inept drinking-party leader orders bald men to comb their hair, stammerers to sing, or the lame to dance on greased wine skins.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Is there not a very great allowance of frankness and jesting in the conversation and the activity of a drinking-party? Now at such a time how is one to handle himself, pray, if he is not a legitimate guest, personally invited, but, as it were, a b*sterd illegally enrolled in the register of the guests? Whether he speaks freely or not to the other guests, he is an easy mark for carping critics.

Plutarch, Moralia, 707f

Now this passage is one reason why I don't believe in predestination. The word for invite is the same word in the New Testament for "call" - God calling people for salvation. It's mealtime language - an invitation that can be rejected, but it is important for full participation.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

First woman:

I've got armpits bushier than underbrush, just as we have agreed; then, whenever my husband went off to the agora, I oiled myself and stood in the sun all day getting a tan.

Second woman:

Me too. I threw out my razor out of the house right away, so I'd get hairy all over and not look female at all.

from the play "Assemblywomen" by Aristophanes

 

[angellous_evangellous]

A first century doctor talking about rare diseases that have only been known to afflict one person:

"There was even a case of a person who, after experiencing difficulty in urination for a long time, passed a barley-stock with joints, and I know that it is a fact that my host Ephebus at Athens emitted, along with a large amount of semen, a hairy creature which ran rapidly on many legs."

Plutarch, Moralia, 733C

 

[angellous_evangellous]

A first century doctor talking about rare diseases that have only been known to afflict one person:

"There was even a case of a person who, after experiencing difficulty in urination for a long time, passed a barley-stock with joints, and I know that it is a fact that my host Ephebus at Athens emitted, along with a large amount of semen, a hairy creature which ran rapidly on many legs."

Plutarch, Moralia, 733C

I have highlighted some words that I may study this evening. It seems that "pain with urination" is an understatement! :thud:

If you ever go back in time, don't go to the doctor. :areyoucra