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

SUPPLEMENT

The custom, at all times and everywhere usual, of inscribing more or less obscene words, sentences, verses, and drawing pictures on the walls of public conveniences, may also be assumed with certainty as regards ancient Greece, although direct evidence on this point has naturally not come down to us. As Kalinka informs us, a non-obscene epigram has been found on the wall of a latrine at Ephesus.

5. INCEST

The views of the Greeks on incest, like those of all naive peoples, were less strict than those of the moderns, as their mythology shows, for Zeus, the father of gods and men, is the husband of his sister Hera. Nevertheless, incest was rejected by public opinion, although certainly nowhere and at no time in Greece do very severe penalties appear to have existed for it. From Iszus we learn that marriage between ascendants and descendants was forbidden, and in older times, as it appears, marriage between brothers and sisters was also interdicted ; later, it was tolerated, if the spouses had different mothers. Apart from these restrictions, marriages between kinsfolk were not rare—indeed, even the marriage between brothers and sisters was not unheard of in noble conservative families until the fifth century, as we learn from the marriage of Cimon and Elpinike; indeed, the example of the Egyptians, among whom such marriages always existed, was imitated by the Greeks who lived in that country, with the proviso that the dowry should remain in the family. It is well known that King Ptolemy II (285-247 B.C.) after his marriage with his sister Arsinoé took the surname of Philadelphus. To keep the dowry in the family, it was also legally fixed that the hereditary daughter (é7t\ypos), that is, a girl to whom the property of her parents exclusively fell, was obliged to marry her next of kin who was still unmarried.

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