Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

CHAPTER Vill

SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE SEXUAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS 1. THE SEXUAL ORGANS AND KALLIPYGY

From Meleager we have the epigram (Anth. Pal., v, 192): “ If you see Callistion naked, you will say, here stands the double letter of the Syracusans upside down.” t

Pastry was often made in phallic or ktenic form.

As already mentioned, men liked women to remove the hairs from their privy parts, which was done by pulling them out or singeing them off. The comic writer Plato spoke of ‘‘myrtle bunches pulled out by the hand” (CAF., 1, 648), and according to Aristophanes (Lysistrata, 827) women used a burning lamp, as, if the interpretation is correct, it is to be seen on a picture published by Moll; hot ashes were also employed for the same purpose. Obvious depilation was the rule, for the strong growth of hair of southern women would otherwise prevent their private parts themselves from being seen, and in any case, many passages testify that it was but the smooth female bosom, not the bosom covered with hairs, that pleased the Greek man. Thus, Aristophanes in the Lysistrata (148 ff.) : “‘ For if we women were to sit at home, painted, and approach them lightly clad in our vests of fine linen, having the hairs plucked off our bosoms, the men would become enamoured, and desire to lie with us; and if we were not to come nigh them, but abstain, they would quickly make peace, I well know.”

1 According to the Scholiast, the double consonant psi (is) was invented by the Syracusan Epicharmus (Pliny, Hist. Nat., vii, 56). If & be turned upside down, by a stretch of imagination it may represent the sexual organs ; hence Callistion would have been a hermaphrodite. It is less probable that two letters have to be changed, K into Th and t into ch, that is, Thallischion=“‘ with large buttock muscles.”

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