DC Photojournal 156


	"Statue representing the God Baal, bronze and gold. - Syria, Ugarit." - Getty Images I call this photo: "Baal" There is also the possibility that that is not Ba'al but a phallic goddess Sekhmet-Min or Mut. The erect phallus was the domain of Amazons only in Babylon. Men remained in the penis cage all their life - or were castrated. The worship of the Semitic goddess Anat continued even after the Exodus. Ramesses II was devoted to her and even named his daughter Anat who he married. That indicates where real power in the 19th dynasty was - Amazons! El was sumbissive to his daughter Anat. ... " ... Anat and Ba’al (Ugarit) Anat, the maiden, was daughter to the father-god El. Goddess of war, the hunt, and savagery, she slew Yam-Nahar, the seven-headed serpent, with her deadly arrows. One day, her brother Ba’al invited her to his home, and, laying out many delicacies for her, confided how he longed for a great palace. Thus he hoped to establish his supremacy over the earth, using his powers of wind and rain to grow the fields. Anat felt her warrior blood surge at the thought of challenging their father. Her eyes went red and she could feel the brush of every sharp fingernail against her palms. She faced her brother, and told him she would visit El. I shall trample him like a lamb to the ground, I shall bring down his hoary head with blood to the grave, The grey hair of his old age with his gore. Anat stamped her foot and rose into the sky, into the domain of El, Father of the Years. As she slammed open the gates, the bases of the pavilions quaked. She came before El, armed like a warrior, not a supplicant, and he hid himself in seven chambers inside eight enclosures. She pounded on the door so that the entire building trembled. “El, I bring a request,” she cried. “And you must grant it.” [Or] I shall seize thy curls with my right hand, thy locks with the great power of my hand, I shall pluck out the hair of thy pate. I shall bring down thy hoary head with blood to the grave, the grey hair of thine old age with thy gore. From within seven chambers inside eight enclosures, El answered her: “I know thee, my daughter, that thou art invincible That it is impossible to withstand the goddesses.” Thus he hastily gave Ba’al and Anat all they desired. ... " WorldHistory * " ... Anat is sporadically attested in Egypt since the 18th century BCE, and is found in the name of Anat-her, a fragmentarily attested figure (possibly a Hyksos ruler) of the 12th, 15th or 16th dynasty whose name means "Anat is content" and is taken to indicate Canaanite descent. As a warrior-goddess, Anat was one of several Syrian / northwest Semitic deities who was prominently worshipped by the warrior-pharaohs of the 16th Dynasty. She was often paired with the goddess Ashtart. In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Re and are given as allies to the god Set, who had been identified with the Semitic god Hadad. During the Hyksos period Anat had temples in the Hyksos capital of Avaris and in Beth-Shan (Israel) as well as being worshipped in Memphis. On inscriptions from Memphis of 15th to 12th centuries BCE, Anat is called "Bin-Ptah", Daughter of Ptah. She is associated with Reshpu (Canaanite: Resheph) in some texts and sometimes identified with the native Egyptian goddess Neith. She is sometimes called "Queen of Heaven". Her iconography varies. She is usually shown carrying one or more weapons. During the 19th Dynasty (in the New Kingdom period), Seti I's favourite chariot team was named "Anat is content". Ramesses II made Anat his personal guardian in battle and enlarged her temple in Pi-Ramesses, and also named his daughter (whom he later married) Bint-Anat, "Daughter of Anat". Ramesses II furthermore named his sword "Anat is victorious" and his dog "Anat protects" (the dog appears in a carving in a Beit el Wali temple), and named one of his horses "Anat is content". ... " Wikipedia * Garden of Priapus - 189 Boss lady , whip and penis cage - Reminds me of Anat! Anat has been scrubbed away from the history books ... Anat can only be a dragon - a dragon that moved from mother to daughter only. The question is where did El's daughter go? Yahweh used to be ruled by women! My one guess is Islam - the dark core of early Islam seems to have had an Anat style femdom goddess Garden of Priapus - 190 Vulva, penis cage, mentule - you do not see this often! And rough female bull sex ... But the vulva was central to the Inanna cult ... - That's a Cuban/American - Cubans have a freaky hidden side - probably through Yemonja/Yemaya - who has a female phallus Garden of Priapus - 191 Vulva, penis cage, mentule And rough female bull sex ... * Ba'al was sexually submissive to Anat - " ... Now returning to a discussion of religious incest in Canaanite religion, the Baal Epic describes the relationship of Anat and Baal to be siblings: As with the heart of a cow toward her calf, As with the heart of an ewe toward her lamb, So is the heart of Anath toward Baal. She seizes Mavet, in ripping His garment. She closes in on Him, in tearing His clothes. She lifts Her voice And shouts: “Come, Mavet, yield My brother!” ... " behindthabr Garden of Priapus - 192 Penis cage, mentule and horse reins ... Anat had 2 sides: war and sex but we only hear about her war side. Ba'al was yielding sexually Anat - and that makes no sense without knowledge of the penis cage or fibula. Sex was anal for men in the penis cage - men yielded sexually to women - except when women wanted to get pregnant The tomb of Ramesses II has a famous scene when his daughter - named Anat whom he married - is sexually restraining a bull - That was a common scene also in Minoan Crete. That's how power flowed in Egypt - though female bulls - Mother dragon to daughter dragon - Same as in ancient Israel and Babylon - the husband of the female bull became the king ... * " ... ANAT . The maiden Anat is a West Semitic or Canaanite warrior-goddess known for her violent temperament and volatile emotions. Although her name and cult are attested from the late third millennium bce to the fourth century bce, Anat plays a prominent role only in the Late Bronze Age mythological texts from the Syrian city of Ugarit (modern-day Ras Shamra). These poetic narratives, written in an alphabetic cuneiform script, depict Anat as a fierce and impetuous goddess who delights in bloodshed. As a hunter and protector of wild animals, Anat also functions as a "Mistress of Animals" in Canaanite tradition. Anat's primary epithet in Ugaritic sources is btlt (maiden), which identifies her as an adolescent female, a girl of marriageable age. Iconographic representations from Egypt and Syria-Palestine depict the goddess as young and nubile, with small breasts and a thin body. Called "the loveliest of the sisters of Baal," Anat is also a player of the lyre and singer of love songs in Ugaritic narrative. Although female, the adolescent goddess engages in the traditionally masculine pursuits of warfare, hunting, and political intrigue. Earlier studies often assume that Anat is Baal's consort. More recent studies by Peggy Day and Neal Walls, however, argue that the extant Ugaritic texts never depict her as sexually active. While some scholars have erroneously identified Anat with the cow that mates with and bears an heir for Baal, the Ugaritic narratives clearly distinguish between Anat and Baal's cow. As his devoted sister, Anat actively supports Baal's quest for kingship among the gods. She serves as a diplomatic intermediary in securing the support of El, her elderly father, for the establishment of his royal palace. The warrior Anat boasts of having vanquished many of Baal's foes, including Yamm (the Canaanite primordial sea), the Twisting Serpent, and the Seven-Headed Dragon. Whether or not Anat is the consort of Baal, the maiden goddess maintains her autonomy and independence from male control. She lives in her own palace on her sacred mountain Inbb rather than in the household of her father, brother, or consort. Ugaritic poetry venerates Anat as the "Mistress of Kingship, Mistress of Dominion, and Mistress of the High Heavens." The meaning of her epithet ybmt limm remains uncertain, but it most likely refers to her position within the pantheon's kinship structure. Anat displays her malevolent aggression in two encounters with El, in which she threatens to drag him from his throne "to the ground like a lamb" for slaughter. She promises to smash his skull and to make his "gray hair run with blood and his gray beard with gore" unless he agrees to her demands. El's response to his belligerent daughter seems more indulgent than fearful, "I know, my daughter, that you are incorrigible, and that among the goddesses there is no rancor like yours." While El apparently denies her request in one text, in the other he yields to her rash demands, "Depart, my daughter; haughty is your heart. Take what is in your mind, carry out [what] is in your breast. Whoever hinders you will be destroyed." El's words are perhaps reflected in an eighth-century Akkadian text that praises Anat, "whose heroism among the goddesses has no equal." Another famous scene from Ugaritic myth depicts Anat's bloodthirsty nature as she gleefully slaughters armies of human warriors. Delighting in the carnage of battle, Anat "wades in their blood up to her thighs." She adorns herself by placing her enemies' severed heads on a garland around her neck and their severed hands on a belt around her waist before she exultantly wades into the gore of battle a second time. Possibly a description of ritual cannibalism, this grisly scene clearly portrays the murderous quality of Anat's martial enthusiasm. In contrast with her warlike attributes, Anat is also portrayed in Ugaritic myth as a compassionate goddess who pathetically grieves the death of her brother: "Like the heart of a cow for its calf, like the heart of a ewe for its lamb, such is the heart of Anat for Baal." On hearing of his death, Anat scours the earth in search of her slain brother's corpse, which she then buries with elaborate funerary sacrifices and mourning rites. Anat "gashes her cheeks and her chin" in a heartfelt display of ritual bloodletting. She then humbly entreats Mot, the Ugaritic god of death, to return her brother to her. After her diplomatic efforts have failed, however, Anat reverts to her more characteristic mode and viciously attacks Mot: "She seizes divine Mot; with a blade she splits him, with a sieve she winnows him, with fire she burns him, and with millstones she grinds him." Anat scatters his pulverized remains in a field for the birds to consume. This scene of utter annihilation demonstrates Anat's impulsive ferocity, but it also leads to Baal's restoration as ruler of the earth. Although the text is broken at this point, it is clear that Baal returns to power, bringing his fertilizing rains to the thirsty fields in a renewal of natural fecundity. The maiden Anat's hostile actions are thus crucial to the balance of cosmic power and the continuation of life on the earth in Ugaritic myth. Anat's passionate disposition takes on a more sinister quality in the Ugaritic epic of Aqhat. In a scene that is perhaps related to Hellenistic accounts of Artemis and the Babylonian account of Ishtar's failed seduction of Gilgamesh, Anat attempts to wrest a divinely crafted bow from the young hero Aqhat. He disdains her offer of gold, silver, and immortality in exchange for the composite bow and insolently informs her that females are not meant to be warriors. Seeking revenge for the insult, Anat eventually has her henchman murder Aqhat. The bow, however, is lost, and Anat tearfully regrets her impulsive actions in killing the young man, an injustice that causes drought and famine in the land. The conclusion to this epic has yet to be recovered. Anat was introduced into Egypt during the Hyksos period (c. 1650–1550 bce) and became a patron goddess of the Ramesside era (c. 1295–1069 bce) as the "Mistress of the Heavens," a martial goddess who gives victory in battle. Aramaic texts from the fifth-century bce Jewish community in Elephantine, Egypt, refer to Anat-Bethel (ntbytl) and Anat-Yahu (ntyhw ), which some scholars interpret as references to the goddess Anat as the consort of the gods Bethel ("House of God") and Yahweh, respectively. Other scholars translate the word nt as "providence" or "sign" and understand it as the cultic hypostasis of the male deity rather than the appearance of Anat in the syncretistic Jewish literature. Anat-Bethel also appears in the list of divine witnesses to the seventh-century Assyrian treaty between King Baal of Tyre and Esarhaddon. Hellenistic sources sometimes equate Anat with the virgin warrior Athena, as in a fourth-century bce bilingual inscription in Phoenician and Greek from Lapethos on Cyprus. Later traditions often identify Anat with other Canaanite goddesses, such as Astarte and Atargatis-Derketo. ... " encyclopedia Garden of Priapus - 193 The cuban topless and topping! In an Amazon orgy ... This new research that Anat was not sexual is wrong on its face - the most important day on the calender for Innana and her derivative goddesses was the annual spring Hieros Gamos - When Innana through her high priestess asked the shepard Dumuzi through the King "who will plow my vulva?" And it was more than plowing her vulva - Men were sodomized by women in the garden of Priapus - The Priapea lays it all out in vivid detail ... All those women with a penis on page 150 of this site are telling a story that was constant in the Roman world ... The phallic Amazon and the catamite Roman male ... The divine Me was stolen by Innana from her father and passed on to the King though Innana's phallus or mentule: “... When the kingship was lowered from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu” so says the Sumerian King List. This is the root of divine rule. Mesopotamian kings displayed their divine inheritance through symbols, the most telling being the branch from the Tree of Life. It all begins with Inanna. There is no doubt of Inanna's connection to the Tree of Life. This may be the origin of the scepter. In the Sumerian tale of Inanna and Enki Inanna travels to Eridu and visits with Enki. During her stay they drink beer together and during this time Enki gives her the mes which in this case includes the throne of kingship and kingship itself. It became tradition that the king be ritually married to Inanna and earn his divine right to rule. Thus we have the trapping of power derived from Inanna in the symbolism of the Tree of Life. In her warrior aspect, Inana/Ishtar is shown dressed in a flounced robe with weapons coming out of her shoulder, often with at least one other weapon in her hand and sometimes with a beard, to emphasize her masculine side... " traveltoeat Garden of Priapus - 194 Vulva, mentule, penis cage, cigarette and Cuban ... Another rough female bull performance She may or may not know about the sacred kingdom of the waters of Yemanjá - but as a Cuban Yemanjá knows about her! Garden of Priapus - 195 Vulva, penis cage, cane and topless Cuban - A woman with a whip - maybe as Anat, was part of the Bacchic mysteries in Rome: " ... A famous fresco from Pompeii shows a naked woman dancing and a woman with big black wings and a long whip, the symbol of Dike (“justice”). ... " Erik Langkjer, The Origin of our belief in God " ... Baal coming to Rome: Dionysiac anti-religion The nature of the hunter comes out very clearly in a late secret Dionysiac cult discovered in Rome where the courtesan Hispalla revealed the following details to consul Postumius: “it was known that for two years now no one had been initiated who had passed the age of twenty years. As each was introduced, he became a sort of victim for the priests. They, she continued, would lead him to a place which would ring with howls and the song of a choir and the beating of cymbals and drums, that the voice of the sufferer when his virtue was violently attacked, might not be heard ... the mingling of males with females, youth with age had destroyed every sentiment of modesty, all varieties of corruption first began to be practiced, since each one had at hand the pleasure answering to that to which his nature was more inclined. There was not one form of vice alone, the promiscuous matings of free men and women, but perjured witnesses, forged seals and wills and evidence, all issued from this same workshop: likewise poisonings and murders of kindred, so that at times not even the bodies were found for burial. Much was ventured by craft, more by violence. This violence was concealed because amid the howlings and the crash of drums and cymbals no cry of the sufferers could be heard as the debauchery and murders proceeded”. A famous fresco from Pompeii shows a naked woman dancing and a woman with big black wings and a long whip, the symbol of Dike (“justice”). Nilsson has dealt with this motif (“The Winged Woman Fleeing”): The winged demoniac woman is one of the apparitions and terrifying figures that were introduced in the Bacchic mysteries, reminiscent of the evil fate awaiting the unjust in the afterlife. But salvation is at hand. To the left of the winged woman the girl reveals the liknon with its contents, promising life and luck. The Campana relief: a young man is seen to the left, then the kneeling girl revealing the liknon, to the right a winged woman running away hurriedly. The girl takes hold of a corner of her long robe to hold her back, but she makes an averting gesture. The cameos are similar. Instead of the youth there is a Silenus holding up a basket of fruit, and the object revealed is a bearded bald head, probably that of a Silenus. Bad conscience and the fear of retaliation by Dike are driven away by the holy symbol of Dionysos (often the lingam of the god) hidden in the liknon (basket). Another fresco shows the burdened soul standing between two options: the woman clad in black with the staff as the instrument of punishment, and the dancing naked maenad. The cult described by Livius is, acc to R.Reitzenstein, the cult of an Oriental god identified with Dionysos. The next picture (from the same villa in Pompeii) shows a woman (the soul) flying towards an idyllic scenery: a Satyr playing the Pan-flute, and a female Satyr offering her breast to a kid. In the Hellenistic novels the heroine is often taken away to a bucolic sphere, a symbol of her being taken away to unity with the highgod. The picture shows the cloak of the woman blown out by the wind to become a picture of the heavenly vault: she is taken away to the stars. (Europa in the care of Asterios, Jo in the care of the thousand eyed Argos.) Europa riding on the back of the bull is often pictured with her cloak blown out to become a vault over her head. The last picture shows a young man tricked into seeing himself as a demon. Perhaps a symbol of the initiate discovering/accepting a demonic side of himself. ... " Erik Langkjer, The Origin of our belief in God Garden of Priapus - 196 Vulva, cane and supplicant and topless Cuban - In this scene Ba'al and his sister Anat complete their conquest of their father El " ... Baal in Ugarit as a hunter An Ugarit text is named Els marzeah, RS 24.258: El invites to a feast in his temple. The guests are behaving like dogs, like dogs they tear the meat. The "guardian of the gate", El´s son, is very annoyed at this and reproaches his father because he does not want to sit beside his wife, but takes his seat next to another woman. El gets so drunk that he has to be carried home by “Ridge and Range (of hills)”probably the same as the guardian of the gate (and his brother?). We have seen how the first splitting up of the primeval mountain results in the two world-pillars often personified as the two sons of the highgod, the two bull-men who support the sky (carry the heavenly bull) and are the guardians of “the gate of the sun”, identical with the temple gate. This gate is the symbol of fixed order: space for the sun to shine and the rain to fall. The guardian of this gate is very much against the chaos developing inside the temple and tries to warn his father, but the “hidden one, Baal with horn and tale” (changed to animal or demon) hunts him down. Out of pure fear El lets go of his fæces and drops down as dead “becoming like one of those who go down to the realm of death”. After that “´Anat and ´Athtarte go hunting (sd)”. What are we looking at here? Certainly not an innocent prayer to the Highest. The tablet with this text was found in a house that seems to belong to a priest, and it is the secret myth about a murder of God the Kindly, the Highest, in Ugarit always called El, the “Bull”, a murder described in a very humiliating way and celebrated during an orgiastic feast, where men are changed into dogs and beasts of pray and give themselves to free sexuality (prostitutes?). They celebrate the death of god, the death of divine order and hail the great hunt. Perhaps the words msd sd in the first two lines of the text have to be translated by "hunts game (in his temple)". The god who prepares and serves the meal is Yarich, the moon, in Near Eastern myth the spender of ambrosia and nectar, but not to all: some are "scolded" and receive minor punishments on their legs with a stick. This strange scenario is the picture of a freemason-like lodge meeting and eating in the presence of gods and disciplined by some "grand wizard". “The hunting of Baal” is the name given by John Gray to a very demolished text found in Ugarit (Virolleaud calls it “Les Chasses de Baal”). It talks about Baal hunting some creatures called “the devourers”/”voracious ones” (Gray´s transl.), “rippers” (de Moor). They have horns and humps like bulls. Baal catches them in a net, gives them wine to drink and shoots them down with his bow But in the next moment, Baal, the great hunter, will become the victim. He falls into a swamp and is devoured by a fire that also has a withering effect on vegetation, turning it “brown”. Although Baal is clearly the hunter, he is also the victim and pictured as the suffering and “fallen bull” “prostrate lay the god Hadad as a steer in the midst of the mire”(Gray´s trans). Here Baal is both hunter and bull. He dies in the swamp as a representative of the wet element and as a victim of the fire raging in his limbs. The result is water (end of the text). But the rendering asunder (the sparagmos in Greek) which Jamm (“Sea”), the beloved son of El, suffers at the hands of Baal (“scatter (him), o mightiest Baal”, 2, IV, 28) shows that Baal is the “Great Hunter”, and so do the two throwing-clubs with which he brings poor Jamm down. This is the archaic weapon of the great hunter. Baal is accompanied by his “seven pages, eight boars” (5, V, 9). Tammuz is killed by 7 demons from the underworld. Resheph, “the burning one”, kills Adonis in the shape of a boar. The hunter is often followed by 7 helpers seen as boars. A text from Ugarit refers to the demons as “flies” so the title “Lord of the Flies”(Baal Zebub) is “Lord of the swarm of flying demons”. But in Ugarit it is first and foremost ´Anat who is pictured as the divine hunter with cruel features. She is the “destroying” ´Anat. Without the faintest feeling of mercy she goes berserk and makes a massacre of the totally innocent people coming to dine in her temple, “a grim and bloodthirsty goddess”. The fact that Baal is the male hunter and she the female hunter and his sister makes them a couple very similar to Apollo and Artemis. Originally the great hunter was “androgynous”: Sandan-Heracles serves Omphale dressed in women´s clothes. But this androgynity can be split into male and female hunter. In the scene of ´Anat´s massacre she is put back into balance by her love for Baal: the union of female and male god stands for harmony and is also seen as a union of heaven with earth and underworld (´Anat's dwelling is somewhere under the surface of the earth) SHE IS IN ALL ASPECTS IDENTICAL WITH THE INDIAN GODDESS KALI riding the tiger with the scimitar in her hand, a weapon also given to ´Anat. ... "Erik Langkjer, The Origin of our belief in God Garden of Priapus - 197 More Vulva, canes, penis caged supplicant, topless Cuban and other Amazons - That's a pure scene from the garden of Priapus - After the conquest of El or Yahweh , the new ruler of the world was the phallic Anat, not her brother Ba'al - or Beezelbulb or the devil as he is otherwise known. Ba'al was himself a supplicant of the youthful Anat - in the ancient Sumerian way The vulva of Anat and her Amazons was the new ruler of Rome ! Garden of Priapus - 198 More Vulva, canes, penis caged supplicant, topless Cuban and other Amazons ... Penis caged and hooded supplicant as a pet dog of the Amazons - I am certain all upper class Romans had to go through a similar ritual before removal of their penis cage at 25. That's probably an ancient rite of passage for Etruscans, Greeks, Egyptians and Sumerians and ancient Israel too ... Rule of the Amazons Garden of Priapus - 199 Roman sex: Topsy turvy - Rough anal sex under the topless Cuban after a good whipping. * Below is a South African's snapshot of Ba'al worship and why it was so popular with the children of Israel: Although I am not sure of the child sacrifice - as I said before that probably meant the very early installation of the penis cage - as early as 7 from Giton in the Satyricon. That was the sacrifice of the child to the sun. From the passage above, initiation into the mysteries was for the young - it did not extend past 20 years ... Men at this age were still in the penis cage and restricted to anal sex from the Amazons ... " ... 26 Apr 2013 So often when one reads about the fact that the children of Israel chose to worship Baal, in ancient times it’s a bit difficult to picture. Let’s take some time to show that the worship of Baal has in fact never left us! First of all: who is Baal? Did you see I said ‘is’ ? The term means ‘owner’ or ‘lord’. Other names for Baal are Moloch/Molech or Malcham/Milcom. Is this what the owl shrine represents there at ‘Cremation of Care’ ceremony at Bohemian Grove, California? Interestingly Baal’s wife is Ashtoreth, which we will return to a little bit later. The verb ba'al, means to have dominion over. The word can be used of men to signify ownership, e.g. of a house, land or cattle. The verb also means to take a wife and thus Baal also means husband. The children of Israel left Egypt and on their journey were involved in battles with other nations. Balak, king of the Moabites obviously heard of the Israelites and their conquests and we as part of his military strategic planning did the following as recorded in Num 22: 5-6: ‘Then he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor at Pethor which is near the River of the land of the sons of his people, to call him saying: Look, a people has come from Egypt. See they cover the face of the earth, and are settling next to me! Therefore please come at once, curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.’ Then the next day Balak took Balaam to the high places of Baal to see the extent of children of Israel; thus from the beginning worship of Baal is associated with the destruction of God’s people. What was the real appeal of Baal worship? It must have very powerful as it proved to be an enduring problem for the children of Israel. Baal worship is a syncretistic polytheistic religion, in simple terms: they had many different gods and you could sum up their orientation as ‘anything goes’! Syncretism is not just restricted to Baal worship; syncretism is also the process of blending paganism with Bible truths as we see in some quarters of Christianity. M. H. Pope writes: ‘The Israelites absorbed the Canaanite ways and learned to identify their god with Baal, whose rains brought fertility to the land. A characteristic feature of the fertility cult was sacral sexual intercourse by priests and priestesses and other specially consecrated persons, sacred prostitutes of both sexes, intended to emulate and stimulate deities who bestowed fertility. The agricultural cult stressed the sacrifice or common meal in which the gods, priests and people partook. Wine was consumed in great quantity in thanksgiving to Baal for the fertility of the vineyards. The wine also helped to induce ecstatic frenzy, and was climaxed by self-laceration, and sometimes by self emasculation. Child-sacrifice was also a feature of the rites’ Thus we see that the powerful attraction to the worship of Baal was sexual promiscuity or licentiousness. Promiscuity is ‘characterised by or involving indiscriminate mingling or association, especially having sexual relations with a number of partners on a casual basis.’ And what is licentiousness? It is the ‘dissolute indulgence in sensual pleasure’ or ‘lacking legal or moral restraints, especially: disregarding sexual restraints.’ Let’s return now to Ashtoreth as promised. Halley (1922) describes Baal worship, the religion of the Canaanites as follows: ‘Temples of Baal and Ashtoreth were usually together. Priestesses were temple prostitutes. Sodomites were male temple prostitutes. The worship of Baal, Ashtoreth and other Canaanite gods consisted in the most extravagant orgies; their temples were centres of vice.’ Let’s look at that word ‘Ashtoreth’ for a moment. It sounds Easter-ish hey? Asherah or Ashtoreth was the goddess of war and fertility, called Ishtar by Assyrians and Babylonians, called Astarte by Greeks and Romans and called Tanith by North Africans. Asherah or Ashtoreth or Ishtar is pronounced the same way we say ‘Easter’. ... " news24 (South Africa) Garden of Priapus - 200 Vulva, Mentule, penis cage, Cuban and restrained balding OG or old guy - The Roman OG was Silenius - the helper of Dionysus. - The youthful Anat or Inanna was probably the model for the Vestal Virgins who had 30 year tenures but retired young - mid 30's. The Sumerian Me required a young female vessel to pass through - Rome was being secretly ruled by young girls! The Vestals had veto power over the old men of the Roman Senate ... - There's a cameo and several plates on page 150 that have a scene of a young woman with a penis being roused to action by darkly tanned older Silenius - That was probably an Anat figure - Reminds me of the Haitian Poto Mitan which is associated with a female shaman - The basic model is the same - Or the Brazilian "Rainha de Bateria" from Samba and Carnaval. Garden of Priapus - 201 More Vulva, Mentule, penis cage, Cuban and restrained balding OG The Sumerian King had to submit to this every year. And Egyptian too - Older pharoahs ended up being sodomized by girls their daughters age ... Ramesses II ended up being restrained by his daughter - named Anat. He also called his hunting dog and sword Anat - so I suppose the penis was female in ancient Egypt. The penis was attached to men but was controlled by women under the penis cage system ... The Sumerian "slaver of the dog" Garden of Priapus - 202 More Vulva, Mentule, penis cage, Cuban, friends and restrained young guy Most men being sodomized in Rome were young though - under 25 and still in the penis cage. The Priapea is explicit about this. Once men entered their bearded stage they were no longer desirable for anal sex. Older men graduated to oral sex, their wives - and the Roman brothels or "stews"... Probably descended from the Sumerian tavern where Sumerian women went to snatch men after dark ...Those were Amazon brothels - designed to serve the Amazon sex drive The Priapea and the Satyricon are proof that Paedophilia was a Roman norm - boys as young as 7 were being sexually broken in by phallic Roman women The sex drive does not start at puberty - Freud is right about that - boys have sexual thoughts much younger than that even without sex abuse. Far more concerning to me is the failure of the fire to light - which is at epidemic levels today ... Garden of Priapus - 203 More Vulva, Mentule, penis cage/humbler , Cuban and restrained young guy * "Downloading" the Me from the gods: It flows from Harimtu into the Sumerian King. But at a more general level from phallic Amazon to catamite man: Note there is no mention of female prostitutes in the excerpt below - just male - The Sumerian tavern was an Amazon brothel . The Harimtu or female postitutes were the "slavers of the dog" or penis cagers and snatchers of men at the rise of venus A cir-namursaja to Ninsiana for Iddin-Dagan (Iddin-Dagan A) 1-16. I shall greet her who ascends above, her who ascends above, I shall greet the Mistress who ascends above, I shall greet the great lady of heaven, Inana! I shall greet the holy torch who fills the heavens, the light, Inana, her who shines like daylight, the great lady of heaven, Inana! I shall greet the Mistress, the most awesome lady among the Anuna gods; the respected one who fills heaven and earth with her huge brilliance; the eldest daughter of Suen, Inana! For the young lady I shall sing a song about her grandeur, about her greatness, about her exalted dignity; about her radiantly ascending at evening; about her filling the heaven like a holy torch; about her stance in the heavens, as noticeable by all lands, from the south to the highlands, as that of Nanna or of Utu; about the greatness of the mistress of heaven! 17. 1st kirugu. 18. Her rising is that of a warrior. 19. Jicgijal. 20-33. When standing in the heavens she is the good wild cow of An, on earth she instils respect; she is the lady of all the lands. She received the divine powers in the abzu, in Eridug; her father Enki presented them to her. He placed the lordship and kingship in her hands. She takes her seat on the great dais with An; she determines the fates in her Land with Enlil. Monthly, at the new moon, the gods of the Land gather around her so that the divine powers are perfected. The great Anuna gods, having bowed before them, stand there with prayers and supplications and utter prayers on behalf of all the lands. My lady decrees judgments in due order for the Land. {(2 mss. add the line:) Inana decides verdicts for the Land together with Enlil.} Her black-headed people parade before her. 34. 2nd kirugu. 35-43. Making silver aljar instruments sound for her, they parade before her, holy Inana. I shall greet the great lady of heaven, Inana! Making holy ub and holy lilis drums sound for her, they parade before her, holy Inana. I shall greet the great lady of heaven, Inana! Beating (?) holy balaj and holy lilis drums for her, they parade before her, holy Inana. I shall greet {(1 ms. adds:) in (?) her grandeur, in (?) her greatness, in (?) her exalted dignity as she ascends radiantly at evening,} {the eldest daughter of Suen} {(some mss. have instead:) the great lady of heaven}, Inana! 44. 3rd kirugu. 45-58. Tightening their hairgrips for her, male prostitutes parade before her, holy Inana. Their locks of hair at the back are adorned for her with coloured rags (?); they parade before her, holy Inana. Clothed (?) in the leather (?) of divinity, they parade before her, holy Inana. The trustworthy {man} {(1 ms. has instead:) king} and the proud lady, the doyenne of the great wise women, parade before her, holy Inana. Those who are in charge (?) of beating (?) the soothing balaj drums parade before her, holy Inana. Each girded with a sword belt, the strength of battle, they parade before her, holy Inana. Grasping a spear, the strength of battle, in their hands, they parade before her, holy Inana. 59. 4th kirugu. 60-68. Dressed with men's clothing on the right side, they parade before her, holy Inana. I shall greet the great lady of heaven, Inana! Adorned (?) with women's clothing on the left side, they parade before her, holy Inana. I shall greet the great lady of heaven, Inana! Competing with skipping ropes of (?) coloured cords for her, they parade before her, holy Inana. I shall greet {the eldest daughter of Suen} {(1 ms. has instead:) the great lady of heaven}, Inana! 69. 5th kirugu. 70-81. Young men wearing neck-stocks sing to her and parade before her, holy Inana. Young women, cugia priestesses, coiffured, parade before her, holy Inana. ...... sword and dagger for her, they parade before her, holy Inana. With daggers in their hands, ...... kurjara priests parade before her, holy Inana. Those who cover their swords with gore spatter blood as they parade before her, holy Inana. Blood is poured on the dais standing in the guena hall, as tigi, cem and ala drums are made to sound loudly. 82-87. The Mistress stands alone in the pure heavens. From the midst of heaven my lady looks with joy at all the lands and the black headed people, who are as numerous as {sheep} {(1 ms. has instead:) ewes}. {(some mss. add the line:) They parade before her, holy Inana.} I praise the lady of the evening, Inana, the august one, the young lady, Inana. {The lady of the evening reaches the borders of heaven!} {(1 ms. has instead:) The lady exalted as high as the heaven, Inana, is august!} 88. 6th kirugu. 89-105. When at evening, the radiant star, the Venus star, the great light which fills the holy heavens, the lady of the evening, ascends above like a warrior, the people in all the lands lift their gaze to her. The men purify themselves, the woman cleanse themselves. The oxen toss (?) their heads in their yoke. The sheep stir up dust in their pens. Because of my lady, the numerous beasts of Cakkan, the creatures of the plain, the four-legged animals {under the broad heavens} {(1 ms. has instead:) of the broad high (?) plain}, the orchards and gardens, the plots, the green reedbeds, the fish of the deep, the birds of heaven, all hasten to their sleeping places. All the living creatures and the numerous people bend the knee before her. When called for (?) by my lady, the matriarchs plentifully provide food and drink, and my lady refreshes herself in her Land. There is play in the Land, which is made festive. The young men take pleasure in their spouses. 106-110. From the midst of heaven my lady looks down with joy. They parade before her, holy Inana. The lady of the evening, Inana, is august; I praise the young lady, Inana. The lady of the evening, her grandeur reaches the borders of heaven! 111. 7th kirugu. 112-121. At night the skilled and beautiful one (?), the joy of An, the ornament of broad heaven, appears like moonlight; in the heat of the noon she appears like sunlight. After the storehouses of the Land have been filled with fine food, and all the lands and the black-headed people have assembled, {(1 ms. adds:) and the storehouses of the Land have been made full (?),} those who sleep on the roofs and those who sleep by the walls step up before her with ...... and bring her their cases. Then she makes her orders known, and identifies the evil. She judges the evil as evil and destroys the wicked. She looks with favour on the just and determines a good fate for them. 122-126. From the midst of heaven my lady looks down with joy. They parade before her, holy Inana. The lady exalted as high as the heaven, Inana, is august! I praise the young woman, Inana. The lady exalted as high as the heaven, her grandeur reaches the borders of heaven. 127. 8th kirugu. 128-131. The beautiful lady, the joy of An, has ascended above like a warrior. She carries there what befits the ...... of heaven. She takes counsel with An in his lofty place. Among {youths and heroes} {(some mss. have instead:) heroic youths}, may she be alone chosen! 132. Jicgijal. 133. She is mighty, she is respected, she exalted, she is august and great, she is surpassing in youthfulness. 134. Cagbatuku. 135-141. As the lady, admired by the Land, the lone star, the Venus star, the lady elevated as high as the heaven, ascends above like a warrior, all the lands tremble before her ....... The faithful black-headed people bow to her. The young man travelling on the road directs himself by her. The oxen raise their heads in their yoke to her. {(2 mss. add:) The melody of the song of those tending the cattle resounds ...... on the plain. The farmer ...... the cattle ...... their yoke in the Land.} With her the storehouses of the Land prosper. 142-149. Everybody hastens to holy Inana. For my lady in the midst of heaven the best of everything is prepared (?). In the pure places of the plain, at its good places, on the roofs, on the rooftops, the rooftops of the dwellings (?), in the sanctuaries (?) of mankind, incense offerings like a forest of aromatic cedars are transmitted to her. They sacrifice alum sheep, long-haired sheep, and fattened sheep for her. They purify the earth for the Mistress, they {carry out purification rites for her} {(some mss. have instead:) celebrate her in songs}. 150-162. They fill the tables of the Land with ghee, dates, cheese, and seven sorts of fruits as first-fruit offerings for her. They pour dark beer for her, they pour light beer for her. Dark beer, emmer beer, and emmer beer for my lady bubble in the cagub jar and the lamsari vat for her. From pastes of honey mixed with ghee {(some mss. add the line:) From ...... mixed with ghee}, they bake date-syrup cakes for her. They pour out early-morning beer, flour, flour in honey, honey, and wine of sunrise for her. The personal gods of the people also attend upon her with food and drink. {They provide the Mistress with food in the holy place, the pure place.} {(some mss. have instead:) They purify the earth for the Mistress, they celebrate her in songs.} 163-167. From the midst of heaven my lady looks down with joy. They parade before her, holy Inana. Inana, the lady exalted as high as the heaven is august! I praise the young lady, Inana. The lady exalted as high as the heaven, her grandeur reaches the borders of heaven! 168. 9th kirugu. 169-180. When the black-headed people have assembled in the palace, the house that advises the Land, the neck-stock of all the foreign countries, the house of the river of ordeal, a dais is set up for Ninegala. The divine king stays there with her. At the New Year, on the day of the rites, {in order for her to determine the fate of all the countries} {(1 ms. has instead:) in order for the life of all the countries to be attended to}, so that during the day (?) the faithful servants can be inspected, so that on the day of the disappearance of the moon the divine powers can be perfected, a bed is set up for my lady. Esparto grass is purified with cedar perfume and arranged on that bed for my lady, and a coverlet is smoothed out on the top (?) of it. 181-186. In order to find sweetness in the bed on the joyous coverlet, my lady bathes her holy thighs. She bathes them for the thighs of the king; {she bathes them for} {(some mss. have instead:) with head held high she goes to} the thighs of Iddin-Dagan. Holy Inana rubs herself with soap; she sprinkles oil and cedar essence on the ground. 187-194. The king goes to her holy thighs with head held high, {(some mss. add:) she goes to the thighs of Iddin-Dagan,} he goes to the thighs of Inana with head held high. Ama-ucumgal-ana lies down beside her and {caresses her holy thighs} {(some mss. have instead:) (says:) "O my holy thighs! O my holy Inana!"}. After the lady has made him rejoice with her holy thighs on the bed, after holy Inana has made him rejoice with her holy thighs on the bed, she relaxes (?) with him on her bed: "Iddin-Dagan, you are indeed my beloved!" 195-202. To pour libations, to carry out purification rites, to heap up incense offerings, to burn juniper, to set out food offerings, to set out offering-bowls, he goes into her Egal-mah. She embraces her beloved spouse, holy Inana embraces him. She shines like daylight on {the great throne dais} {(1 ms. has instead:) the throne at one side (?)} and makes the king position himself next (?) to her like the sun. 203-216. Abundance and celebration are prepared before her in plenty. He arranges a rich banquet for her. The black-headed people line up before her. With instruments loud enough to drown out the south wind-storm, with sweet sounding aljar instruments, the glory of the palace, and with harps, the source of joy for mankind, musicians perform songs which delight her heart. The king sees to what is eaten and drunk, Ama-ucumgal-ana sees to what is eaten and drunk. The palace is in festive mood, the king is joyous. The people spend the day amid plenteousness. Ama-ucumgal-ana stands in great joy. May his days be long on the splendid throne! He proudly (?) occupies the royal dais. 217-222. They praise my lady on my behalf (?) with the hymns of heaven and earth. "You are the Mistress born together with heaven and earth." In the holy place, the pure place, they celebrate the Mistress in songs: "Joy of the black-headed people, ornament of the assembly, Inana, eldest daughter of Suen, lady of the evening, your praise is good." 223-225. From the midst of heaven my lady looks down with joy. They parade before her, holy Inana. {Inana, the lady elevated as high as the heavens, is august!} {(some mss. have instead:) The lady of the evening, her grandeur reaches the borders of heaven!} 226. 10th kirugu. 227-228. She is mighty, she is respected, she is exalted, she is august and great, she is surpassing in youthfulness! 229. Jicgijal. 230. A cir-namursaja of Ninsiana. Garden of Priapus - 204 Topless Cuban, whip, penis cage and old guy in stocks. This was basic for the parades of Inanna - " Young men wearing neck-stocks sing to her and parade before her, holy Inana." - What Muslims call abd - Allah or slave of Allah - used to be abd-Innana ! Or something along those lines ... - When Venus came out - it was Amazon hunting time - the time of the Inanna yoke Garden of Priapus - 205 More topless Cuban, friend, whip, penis cage and old guy in stocks. - That's the Roman bath - the imagery in the Roman bath was page 150 - the phallic Amazon - Roman baths were usually funded by the Augusta - That was another Amazon brothel for the "slavers of the dog" or penis cagers The imagery is almost always homosexual - but when you read the actual texts - the Roman bath was where Roman matrons brought their well oiled young men for sex. Since the Roman penis was caged - that had to have been mentule sex - the aqua version of the garden of Priapus Garden of Priapus - 206 Cuban vulva and mentule in a slaves mouth after anal sex - The roman "Irrumation" Sovereign vulva and mentule - That was the Roman secret. Anat and not Ba'al or Beezelbulb or the devil was the ruler of the Roman world. That's the world of "She" or the queen of Sheba that also ruled early Islam - until the fall of the Fatimid dynasty. My guess is the "she" dragon was restricted to the Syrian Roman Augustas * More data on Baal: " ... Fertility Cults of Canaan Only recently have scholars begun to unravel the complex religious rituals of Israel's Canaanite neighbors. Much of our knowledge of the origins and character of these fertility cults remains tentative and widely debated. What we do know reveals dark, seductive practices that continued to entice the people God had chosen to be his witnesses. The people of Israel developed their faith in the wilderness. Abraham lived in the Negev desert, where God made his covenant of blood with him and sealed it with circumcision. Moses met God in a burning bush in the desert, where he learned the greatness of God's name and received his commission to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt. God spoke to his people on Mount Sinai and reestablished his covenant with them in the Ten Commandments. Throughout the Israelites 40-year journey in the wilderness, their Lord accompanied them, protected them, fed them, and guided them to the Promised Land. There was no doubt that Yahweh was God of the wilderness. YAHWEH OR BAAL? When the Israelites entered Canaan, they found a land of farmers, not shepherds, as they had been in the wilderness. The land was fertile beyond anything the Hebrew nomads had ever seen. The Canaanites attributed this fertility to their god Baal,and that is where the Israelites problems began. Could the God who had led them out of Egypt and through the wilderness also provide fertile farms in the Promised Land? Or would the fertility god of Canaan have to be honored? Maybe, to be safe, they should worship both;Yahweh and Baal. An intense battle began for the minds and hearts of God's people. The book of Judges records the ongoing struggle: the Israelites attraction to, and worship of, the Canaanite gods; God's disciplinary response; the people's repentance; and God's merciful forgiveness until the next time the Israelites reached for Baal instead of Yahweh. Under the kings, this spiritual battle continued. By the time of Ahab and Jezebel, the fertility cults appeared to have the official sanction of Israel's leaders. Ahab, with his wife's encouragement, built a temple to Baal at his capital, Samaria. All the while, prophets like Elijah (which means Yahweh is God), Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah thundered that Yahweh alone deserved the peoples allegiance. It took the Assyrian destruction of Israel and the Babylonian Captivity of Judah to convince the Israelites that there is only one omnipotent God. This struggle to be totally committed to God is of vital importance to us today as well. We don't think of ourselves as idol worshipers, yet we struggle to serve God alone in every part of our lives. It is easy (and seductive) to honor possessions, fun, relationships, fame, money, and a host of other potential "gods." We need to learn from Israel's experience and respond to Jesus' command for total allegiance. One way we can accomplish this is to study the gods that attracted Yahweh's people 3,000 years ago. CANAAN'S GODS Baal The earliest deity recognized by the peoples of the ancient Near East was the creator god El. His mistress, the fertility goddess Asherah, gave birth to many gods, including a powerful god named Baal ("Lord"). There appears to have been only one Baal, who was manifested in lesser Baals at different places and times. Over the years, Baal became the dominant deity, and the worship of El faded. Baal won his dominance by defeating the other deities, including the god of the sea, the god of storms (also of rain, thunder, and lightning), and the god of death. Baal's victory over death was thought to be repeated each year when he returned from the land of death (underworld), bringing rain to renew the earth's fertility. Hebrew culture viewed the sea as evil and destructive, so Baals promise to prevent storms and control the sea, as well as his ability to produce abundant harvests, made him attractive to the Israelites. It's hard to know why Yahweh's people failed to see that he alone had power over these things. Possibly, their desert origins led them to question God's sovereignty over fertile land. Or maybe it was simply the sinful pagan practices that attracted them to Baal. Baal is portrayed as a man with the head and horns of a bull, an image similar to that in biblical accounts. His right hand (sometimes both hands) is raised, and he holds a lightning bolt, signifying both destruction and fertility. Baal has also been portrayed seated on a throne, possibly as the king or lord of the gods. Asherah Asherah was honored as the fertility goddess in various forms and with varying names (Judg. 3:7). The Bible does not actually describe the goddess, but archaeologists have discovered figurines believed to be representations of her. She is portrayed as a nude female, sometimes pregnant, with exaggerated breasts that she holds out, apparently as symbols of the fertility she promises her followers. The Bible indicates that she was worshiped near trees and poles, called Asherah poles (Deut. 7:5, 12:2-3; 2 Kings 16:4, 17:10; Jer. 3:6,13; Ezek. 6:13). CULTIC PRACTICES Baal's worshipers appeased him by offering sacrifices, usually animals such as sheep or bulls (1 Kings 18:23). Some scholars believe that the Canaanites also sacrificed pigs and that God prohibited his people from eating pork in part to prevent this horrible cult from being established among them. (See Isa. 65:1-5 for an example of Israel's participating in the pagan practices of the Canaanites.) At times of crisis, Baal's followers sacrificed their children, apparently the firstborn of the community, to gain personal prosperity. The Bible called this practice "detestable" (Deut. 12:31, 18:9-10). God specifically appointed the tribe of Levi as his special servants, in place of the firstborn of the Israelites, so they had no excuse for offering their children (Num. 3:11-13). The Bible's repeated condemnation of child sacrifice shows God's hated of it, especially among his people. Asherah was worshiped in various ways, including through ritual sex. Although she was believed to be Baal's mother, she was also his mistress. Pagans practiced "sympathetic magic", that is, they believed they could influence the gods' actions by performing the behavior they wished the gods to demonstrate. Believing the sexual union of Baal and Asherah produced fertility, their worshipers engaged in immoral sex to cause the gods to join together, ensuring good harvests. This practice became the basis for religious prostitution (1 Kings 14:23-24). The priest or a male member of the community represented Baal. The priestess or a female members of the community represented Asherah. In this way, God's incredible gift of sexuality was perverted to the most obscene public prostitution. No wonder God's anger burned against his people and their leaders. PAGAN RELIGIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Many, if not all, of the Old Testament gods had disappeared, at least in name, by the time of Jesus. Beelzebub, based on the Philistine god Baalzebul, had become a synonym for the prince of demons, Satan. Many of the ancient pagan deities lived on, however, now identified with the gods of the Greeks and Romans, the nations who controlled the people of Israel before and during New Testament times. It is not appropriate here to discuss all the gods and goddesses of the Greco-Roman pantheon; however, a few of them were significant in the first century, and some are even mentioned by name in the Bible. The leader of the gods, Zeus (Jupiter to the Romans), took on the role of Baal, the god of weather or storms. Artemis, the goddess of childbirth and fertility, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, continued the Asherah cults under a new name (Acts 19:35), but with worship practices that were as immoral as ever. It is said that in Corinth alone, there were more than 1,000 prostitutes in Aphrodite's temple. Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, became the namesake for the place of the dead and even for hell itself. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus referred to the gates of Hades, or the underworld, believed by some to be the grotto at Caesarea Philippi, from which one of the sources of the Jordan River came. The grotto itself was part of a temple complex used in the worship of the Greek god Pan. Pan was depicted as an ugly man with the horns, legs, and ears of a goat. Most stories about him refer to sexual affairs. The worship practices of his followers were no different. Pan was associated with Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and orgies, whose worshipers continued many of the sexual rites of the Old Testament gods of the Baal cult. Dionysus was worshiped in the pagan Decapolis across the Sea of Galilee from the center of Jesus' ministry. Clearly, though the names of the gods had changed, the peoples worship practices had not. Only the child sacrifice of the Baal cult came to an end with the Greeks and Romans. ... " thattheworldmayknow Garden of Priapus - 207 More Cuban, vulva, mentule and anal sex in penis cage/humbler The Romans may have seen Jupiter as Ba'al - but in keeping with the Etruscan model - Jupiter for all his power was in the penis cage - I have a few examples of the Etruscan Jupiter and his wife and he is clearly sexually submissive to her. Makes no sense today , but that was the ancient reality - conservation of the "Me" required the penis cage. Jupiter's phallus was passed on to his phallic daughters Apollo and Artemis and the 9 muses in the ancient Egyptian/Babylonian style Garden of Priapus - 208 Cuban with Mentule about to sex a naked and penis caged slave * The Roman Tribade myth again: " ... The tribade emerges in two Latin texts, one mythical, one legal: Seneca the Elder’s Controversiae and Phaedrus’ Fabulae, which both appear in the first decades of the 1st cent. CE. Children of a Drunken God: Phaedrus Phaedrus’ Fabulae are short stories in verse, reminiscent of Aesop, connected to one another by overarching themes. One theme is the creation of mankind by Prometheus, and more precisely where that creation went wrong: The other asked why he (Prometheus) had created the tribades and the soft men [molles mares]. The old man explained: “That same Prometheus, who created people from clay who were broken to pieces as soon as they met with ill fortune, having laboured all day separately creating the natural parts that shame hides under clothing, so that he could fit them to their bodies, was unexpectedly invited to dinner by Liber. There he flooded his veins with much nectar and returned home late, unsteady on his feet. Then, his spirit half-asleep, drunken and clumsy, he put what belongs to girls [virginale] on the male sex [generi masculo] and the masculine members [masculina membra] on women [feminis]. Hence, nowadays, desire [libido] enjoys deformed [pravo] pleasure.” ... " The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality by Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson (2015) Garden of Priapus - 209 Cuban, vulva and cage and cane and penis caged slave. That's an electric penis cage that the Cuban remotely controls to ensure compliance - Or dragon! The dragon ensured compliance - even over fathers like El who had to submit to his daughter Anat - That's not just talk - earlier on the dinosaur page of this website I noted that the Vestal Virigins were credited with the power to compel slaves, so long as they were in the city of Rome - Roman husbands too probably! : " ... The Vestals became a powerful and influential force in the Roman state. When Sulla included the young Julius Caesar in his proscriptions, the Vestals interceded on Caesar's behalf and gained him pardon. Augustus included the Vestals in all major dedications and ceremonies. They were held in awe, and attributed certain magical powers. Pliny the Elder, for example, in Book 28 of his "Natural History" discussing the efficacy of magic, chooses not to refute, but rather tacitly accept as truth: " ... At the present day, too, it is a general belief, that our Vestal virgins have the power, by uttering a certain prayer, to arrest the flight of runaway slaves, and to rivet them to the spot, provided they have not gone beyond the precincts of the City. If then these opinions be once received as truth, and if it be admitted that the gods do listen to certain prayers, or are influenced by set forms of words, we are bound to conclude in the affirmative upon the whole question. ... " Pliny - Wikipedia That's Ba'al and Anat - All focus is on Ba'al but power was really in Anat ... * The penis cage produced muscle women - Many of those phallic women on page 150 were clearly based on physically strong real life models - In ancient Egypt women did not even bother with clothes - The images of BinAnath the daughter of Ramesses II are all close to naked, lean and virile and some with a whip ... The Egyptian vulva was free and open if we are to go by the example of Egyptian art and statuary. Garden of Priapus - 210 Cuban bare ass with whip, about to whip a bare ass in the penis cage - Tribade in action ! Garden of Priapus - 211 More Cuban bare ass with whip, about to whip a bare ass - She has the Samba "bum bum" - That's African - Brazilian samba queens are proud of their "bum bum" That's where sexual power lives. The penis and the vagina are inferior sex organs when compared to the ass chakra ... But that's a power few will ever experience - It does not give up its power easily - I think it chooses you - you do not choose it Garden of Priapus - 212 Topless Cuban, vulva, whip - - Wow! Garden of Priapus - 213 Topless Cuban, Vulva, Nipple play, Penis cage - Inner images are satisfied beehive around me - also giants in the penis cage. That's still a hard image to digest - but all of Rome in the ruling class was in the fibula ... "Anat is content" as Ramesses II would say! * Anat was the name of Ramessess II's eldest daughter - that was the real King! Make no mistake - The dragon moved from mother to daughter in ancient Egypt. Reminds me of the book "Dune" - there was a problem finding males who could incarnate the dragon energy - only females could do it " ... Bintanath (or Bentanath) was the firstborn daughter and later Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II. Bintanath was likely born during the reign of her grandfather Seti I. Her mother was Isetnofret, one of the two most prominent wives of Ramesses II. Her name is Semitic, meaning Daughter of Anath, referring to the Canaanite goddess Anath. She had at least three brothers, Ramesses, Khaemwaset and Merneptah and a sister who was named Isetnofret after their mother. Bintanath had a daughter who appears on the paintings in her tomb in the Valley of the Queens. She is unnamed there but according to Joyce Tyldesley it is possible that her name was also Bintanath and she married the next pharaoh, Merneptah. According to Tyldesley, a statue of Merneptah in Luxor mentions "the Great Royal Wife Bintanath", who is, possibly, this daughter, since it is unlikely that the older Bintanath married Merneptah when both of them were well over sixty. However, it is entirely possible that Bintanath never married Merenptah and used the "Great Royal Wife" title only because she was entitled to it due to her first marriage. Bintanath is depicted in a scene on a pylon in Luxor dated to year 3 of Ramesses II. She is said to be the King's daughter of his body, and is the first in a procession of princesses. She is followed by Meritamen in this procession. Bintanath appears twice as a princess in Abu Simbel. Together with Nebettawy she flanks the southernmost colossus on the facade of the great temple. On one of the pillars inside the temple she is shown offering flowers to the goddess Anuqet. Bentanath became Great Royal Wife around the 25th year of her father's reign.During her time as queen she held many titles including hereditary princess, the great first one (iryt-p`t-tpit-wrt), Lady of The Two Lands (nbt-t3wy), Great King’s Wife (hmt-niswt-wrt), Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt (hnwt-Shm’w -mhw), King’s Daughter (s3t-niswt), and eventually King’s Sister (snt-niswt). As (great) royal wife Bintanath appears on several statues of Pharaoh Ramesses II. She is depicted on a statue from the Sinai (BM 697), on two sandstone colossi found in Tanis, but probably originally from Pi-Ramesse, and on a statue from the south gate of the Ptah precinct in Memphis. A usurped Middle Kingdom statue from Heracleopolis depicts both Bintanath and her sister Meritamen, and a statue from Hermopolis depicts Bintanath and Henutmire (both as great royal wives). Bintanath is depicted on statues of her father at least three times in Karnak and Luxor, and she appears in statues in Wadi es-Sebua. Two family stelae show Bintanath with her immediate family. The Aswan rock stela shows Ramesses II, Isetnofret and Khaemwaset before the god Khnum, while in another register Bintanath appears with her brothers Ramesses and Merneptah. Another stela from West Silsila depicts Bint-Anath standing behind her mother Isetnofret and her father Ramesses II as the king offers Maat to the gods Ptah and Nefertem. Prince Khaemwaset stands in front of the king, while her brothers Ramesses and Merneptah are shown in a lower register. Despite her being Ramesses' first daughter, she was actually one of the few children who outlived their long-lived father. She was depicted on a statue usurped by Merenptah. She died during the reign of her brother Merneptah and was buried in the tomb QV71 in the Valley of the Queens. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 214 More topless Cuban, vulva, penis cage, nipple play Sumerian taverns were Amazon brothels - Run by women where the vulva was compared to beer in its "sweetness": "My god, the tavern keeper , her beer is sweet! And her vulva is sweet like her beer - and her beer is sweet! And her vulva is sweet like all her mouths - and her beer is sweet Her kashbir -beer and her regular beer are sweet" Court of Shu-Sin - Falkenstein (1947) - When Alexander the great conquered the Persians he was said to have been drained of his energy by spending too much time in Babylon where married women and young girls would regularly attend dinner parties naked: " ... In the first century CE, Curtius Rufus (5.1.36–38) discussed the unparalleled moral corruption (nihil urbis eius corruptius moribus) of the Babylonians, with specific references to their habit of prostituting their girls and women: liberos coniugesque cum hospitibus stupro coire, modo pretium flagitii detur, parentes maritique patiuntur. It is worth noting that Curtius omits the religious framework in which Herodotus made his comments and simply focuses on the corruptible nature of the people, now additionally presented as drunkards who have surrendered to their innate lasciviousness: Babylonii maxime in vinum et, quae ebrietatem sequuntur, effusi sunt. He states that this customary display of immorality, which included the appearance of naked married women (matronae) and even girls (virgines) at dinner parties, posed a major threat to the character of Alexander the Great and his men. Indeed, we are told that Alexander spent more time there than in any other of his conquests, and that military discipline was seriously undermined as a result of this extended stay. ... " Herodotus on Sacred Marriage and Sacred Prostitution at Babylon (2018) Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides and Michael B. Charles * But in Babylon the genders were switched - so naked matrons and girls at dinner parties was just doing as Innana did: Hymn to Inana as Ninegala " .... Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! When you act as a shepherd with the herdsman, when ...... with the cowherd you throw the halters on the cows, when you mix the butter, when you purify the milk, when you find joy in the embrace of your spouse Dumuzid, when you have pleasure in the embrace of your spouse Dumuzid, when you take your seat on the high dais in the great hall in your Kura-igijal where judgment is passed, then the people of the holy uzga stand there at your service. They cannot compete with you, Inana. As a prostitute you go down to the tavern and, like (?) a ghost who slips in through the window, you enter there. Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! When the servants let the flocks loose, and when cattle and sheep are returned to cow-pen and sheepfold, then, my lady, like the nameless poor, you wear only a single garment. The pearls of a prostitute are placed around your neck, and you are likely to snatch a man from the tavern. As you hasten to the embrace of your spouse Dumuzid, Inana, then the seven paranymphs share the bedchamber with you. Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! ... " Garden of Priapus - 215 Topless Cuban, vulva, whipping session in the cage Alexander's Babylonian conquest was probably like the encounter between the wild man Enkidu and the temple prostitute Shamash. - Shamash tamed Enkidu by more than 2 weeks of rough sex - Since that Greeks were in the penis cage that was probably female mentule in the male Greek anus sex. That was probably when the religious cult of Innana began to penetrate the west * Hymn to Inana as Ninegala Great light, heavenly lioness, always speaking words of assent! Inana, great light, lioness of heaven, who always speaks words of assent! Ninegala! As you rise in the morning sky like a flame visible from afar, and at your bright appearance in the evening sky, the shepherd (i.e. the king) entrusts (?) the flocks of Sumer to you. Celestial sign, ...... glory of heaven! All the countries are building a house for you as for the risen sun; a shining (?) torch is assigned to you, the light of the Land. Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! When bright ...... had raised its head in the Land, and when you live ...... with ......, the young woman ...... the hero for you, she has grasped ...... for you. ...... has brought the numerous ...... to you. They raise ...... to your ......; kids ...... are ordered, and your Egal-edina, the place of calm, has been arranged for you. You are the good woman who spreads a sense of awe perceptibly throughout the Land. Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! After the first watch of the night has passed, as like a shepherd you get up from the grass, you seize your battle-mace like a warrior, you fasten the guma cloth on your arms, and you bind on your indefatigable strength. Thus you appear brilliantly, together with An, in the city (probably Unug) . On earth, Inana, you emit awe-inspiring splendour from the holy dais. Your feet are placed on seven dogs, your seat is set upon a lion and a leopard. Cattle and sheep are brought to you for inspection. Lulal stands by your feet, bearing in battle the pitiless (?) udug weapon. Beside them the cultic attendants stand at your service, lined up for you beside the dogs. They have taken over the temple Gu-ena-ida, to provide for you. Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! The ...... dog (?) has brought the sheep close to you; the powerful dog (?) has ...... a wild bull ...... in its paws, 2 lines unclear the lion, the warrior ....... Inana, in heaven you are lightning, on earth you move swiftly ...... against the foreign land that you are angry with, ....... When in your precinct and shrine the Ibgal you regulate the divine ordinances like the divine powers of An, when you regulate the heavenly ordinances like the divine powers of Enki and cause awe of you to reach up to the heavens, then your seat is on the ...... dais on the terrace by your Gate of Four Faces. Inana, you go into the interior of heaven like your father Suen; Ninegala, you appear like moonlight in your shrine the Ibgal, placing your foot on your ordinances, and dividing them among the ...... dogs (?). Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! When you hasten to where brambles and foul great thorns grow, when you stride along all the mountains, when you drink from puddles with the dogs, when you share the stall with the horses, when with the storm you reduce everything to a mere shadow, Inana, when you cause the rain to fall all day long, then your seat is in your E-kug-nuna at Eridug, on the dais where destinies are determined. At the New Year, at the festival of Dumuzid, your spouse Ama-ucumgal-ana, lord Dumuzid, steps forward to you. ...... of weeping are brought to you, Inana, as offerings. The tubes of the underworld are opened for you, and memorial libations are poured down them for you. The en priests, the lumah priests and the nindijir priestesses, and the dead luzid and amalu, eat meals for you, to keep away the ghosts, and drink water for you, to keep away the ghosts. Your holy dais is set up beside them. Inana, you are the lady of all the divine powers, and no deity can compete with you. Here is your dwelling, Ninegala; let me tell of your grandeur! Inana, when you give judgement with An and Enlil; Ninegala, when you decide destinies on earth with Enki, when you shimmer (?), when you ...... to a mere shadow, when you come forth from the corner, when you come forth from the side, when you are to be seen on the horizon, Inana, when in your destructiveness you make storm-floods wash over everything, then the great en priests ......, then the igi-dua priestesses wear the tonsure for you, then your seat is on your Dais of Silence. The young men fastened in neck-stocks ...... before you, the mother of the sick lays her child in your arms, the mother of the uprooted (?) ...... in your great hall. You cut the ...... of the weak, you release (?) ...... the weak. ... " Garden of Priapus - 216 Topless cuban as a warrior sodomizing a male soldier The Sumerian tavern evolved into the garden of priapus - Priapus was the son of the phallic Aphrodite and the catamite Bacchus - which is directly parallel to the phallic Inanna and the catamite Dumuzi: "The most popular of the [Sumerian] erotic typologies after the drinking scenes are the bed scenes. The bed, like the tavern, is a liminal territory and intimately related to the female body. Bed scenes, like tavern scenes, seem to draw on a general awareness of Inanna's legendary sexual affairs. Although the divine harimtu copulates with various, usually anonymous, partners at the tavern, Inanna as the bride-to-be has only one, the beloved Dumuzi. The miraculous attributes of this paradigmatic couple, which I maintain gave such agency to their plaque images, endured throughout Mesopotamia's history ... " Sex, Magic and the Liminal Body in the Erotic Art and Text of the Old Babylonian Period" Julia Assante On page 150 of this website are many images of women or girls either with a penis or standing next to Priapus in female clothes and an erection - That's what happened in the Roman bedroom - the Inanna or female phallus in the male rectum ! *** There was also an ancient Egyptian branch of the sacred prostitutes - but research here is hard - Egypt has Roman, Greek and Canaanite and Babylonian layers covering up its ancient black African core: " ... Strabo on Thebes (Luxor) Priestesses or “Sacred Prostitutes” of the West Bank? Mogg Morgan The Greek author Strabo wrote his voluminous Geography during the reign of emperor Augustus when Pax Romana made it relatively safe to travel throughout the extensive Roman empire. He visited Thebes (Luxor) in Upper Egypt and records how the once great capital had, since Homer’s time, declined to a collection of villages on either side of the river. Although not mentioned by name one can assume that on the west bank of the Nile these are Qurna & Bayrat. Strabo’s account is marred by what some say is a “remarkable example of the perverted meaning of a religious custom, by the ignorance of the Greeks and Roman writers”. These remarks are from early 19th century explorer and pioneer Egyptologist Gardner Wilkinson. His work, still remarkably current and readable, is perhaps one reason why Egyptologists, unlike other historians of ancient history, have never really accepted the existence of sacred prostitution in Egypt. Strabo wrote that for “Zeus (Amon) whom is held in the highest honour, they dedicate a maiden of greatest beauty and most illustrious family (such maidens are called “pallades” (virgin-priestesses) or pallacide (harlots) by the Greeks); and she prostitutes herself, and cohabits with whatever men she wishes until the natural cleansing of her body takes place; (menstruation) and after her cleansing she is given in marriage to a man; but before she is married, after the time of her prostitution, a rite of mourning is celebrated for her.” This and other passages are largely responsible for the myth of sacred prostitution in antiquity. Strabo visited Thebes (Luxor), travelling to its west bank, “The Libyan Suburb” (Contemporary land sales refer to it as such ) Strabo viewed the so-called Colossus of Memnon, actually colossal statues of Amenhotep III that fronted his enormous mortuary temple, now largely destroyed. He may also have visited the remains of Medinet Habu before passing on to the Theban necropolis. The sacred precinct at Medinet Habu is a large complex of sacred buildings less than a mile from the Colossus of Memnon. Uvo Hölscher’s 1954 archaeological survey confirms that the small 18th dynasty temple of Amun was still functioning in Roman times. There was in fact a small Roman village built around it whose inhabitants buried their dead in a cemetery just south-west of the great girdle wall or temenos. The temple of Amun continued to function until the rise of the Coptic religion when it was remodelled for Christian use. The temple enclosure was eventually submerged beneath the streets of the Coptic town of Jeme whose citizens reused the standing temple walls for a church, monastic cells and secular dwelling houses. This town of Jeme was eventually abandoned by the 8th or 9th century, which is some time after the Arab conquest of Egypt circa 640AD. One question arises here is whether Strabo recorded any authentic Egyptian religious practice or was it, as Wilkinson wisely understood, merely “typical Greek and Roman perversity”, obsessed with the construction of an oriental “other”? Stephanie Budin, in her recent study of the topic opines that previous scholars have misunderstood Strabo, who is really only recording the existence of local virgin priestesses, female temple functionaries, perhaps prophetesses. There is apparently nothing in his language to imply they were also “sacred prostitutes”. Stephanie Budin’s more neutral retranslation of the passage reads: “But for Zeus, whom they [the Thebans] honour most, a beautiful girl maiden of most illustrious family serves as priestess, [girls] whom the Greek called pallades; she serves as a functionary (prophetess) and accompanies whomever/attends whatever [rites] she wishes until the natural cleansing of her body; after her cleansing she is given to a man/husband but before she is given, a rite of morning is celebrated for her after the time of her religious service.” (Budin 2008: 199) The idea of sacred prostitution, she says, whether in Egypt or elsewhere is a complete myth with absolutely no evidence other than biased Greek accounts, often repeated by subsequent authors up to the present day. Strabo says these priestesses “must receive some sort of rite of mourning before resuming normal & married life”. I suspect this is a garbled account of the existence of the Tombs of the Divine Votaresses that can still be visited within the walls of the sacred precinct of Medinet Habu. The entrances to these tomb-chapels are conspicuous and face the Small Temple of Amun, the god whom these women all served. In my opinion, what one reads in Strabo is a memory of the existence of these high-ranking priestesses in Egyptian religion. Their cult was obviously still a living memory when Strabo visited and one can speculate that their tombs-chapels continued to receive cult offerings of some sort. Did their spirits continued to inspire those who served the god Amun in an Egypt under Roman rule? Priestesses of one kind or another had an active role in temple life although as with their male counterparts the end was nigh. Perhaps in difficult times they felt an affinity with their ancient forebears? Before Strabo, in the 1st century BCE, Diodorus Siculus also described tombs of the [supposed] “concubines of Zeus” (ta pallakidas tou Dios) saying they were 10 stades (approximately one mile) from the monument of the king known as Osymandyas. (1.47.1). This King Osymandyas is actually Ramses II. His colossal statue lies in great fragments in the forecourt of his mortuary temple, these days widely known as the Ramesseum. There has been some confusion over the distances mentioned in Diodorus Siculus’ account; 10 Stades (one mile) seems to underestimate the distance between the Ramesseum and the valley of the Queens or Kings. But it does fit with the distance to the far closer Tombs of the Divine Adoratrices or Votaresses. A votary is an uncommon word in English meaning someone who is devoted to the service of the deity, usually a monk or a nun. In ancient Egyptian the term used is “Duat Neter”- meaning divine adoratrice. Approximately thirty such tombs have been discovered in the temple precinct. None of them is intact. They cluster in three groups – the most significant are a dozen or so buried in crypts associated with the tomb-chapels of the divine votaresses. A second group of less elegant tombs are near the enclosure wall of the small temple of Amun and the third group lie beneath the floors of rooms in the main temple. Where names are known they are all women. There are three Egyptian terms used to designate these special priestesses. The earliest,“divine consort” (Hemet Neter) is first encountered and is perhaps an innovation of 18th dynasty. The word hemet means womb (see N40 in standard sign list). To us the most famous bearer of this title is Queen Hatshepsut (circa 1479-1458BCE), who was married to Amun and at the same time was favourite wife of king Thutmose II. She also bore the title “hand of the god” (djedet neter) and “divine votaress” (duat-neter). She was not celibate or if so perhaps only so on sacerdotal days. Her role was something to do with the fertility of the god Amun-Min. Was this, as some speculate, some sort of gross sexual stimulation of the ithyphallic god? Gay Robins doubts the necessity of manual stimulation for a god almost permanently aroused. . . but there again? She prefers to focus on the other possible connotations of “hand of god” as someone who hold executive power on behalf of the king. Over time the lifestyle of the divine adoratrice evolved and changed. By the time of what Egyptologists designate Egypt’s Third Intermediate period (1000-700BCE) no single dynasty ruled the whole of the land. What we call dynasties overlapped. In 25th and 26th dynasties the institution of Divine Adoratrice was revived at Thebes (Luxor). Amun’s divine consort were now a royal princess who never married. Their husband was Amun. They were treated like queens and had royal titulary. The succession passed from adoptive “mother” to “daughter” – coronation followed the mother’s death. She exercised some executive power as representative of the king in the Theban state. She also had great priestly power on a par with the high priest at Karnak, until that post was itself abolished around the time of Soror Niticris. Names of the first group of Votaresses are Shepnupet I (daughter of “Libyan” Osorkon III – last of the Bubastite line c 718BC) Amerirdis – (daughter of Ethiopian king Shabaka adopted by Shepnupet ) Shepnupet II – (daughter of Ethiopian king Piankh, cousin of Taharka (adopted by Amenirdis) Amenirdis II – (daughter of Ethiopian king Taharka – although she never served ) Nitocris – (daughter of Saitic King Psamtik I and Mehenusekhet (c655BC) Nitocris died in 584BC – 70years after her adoption) Ankhenes-Neferibre’ – (Saitic grand niece of Nitocris, daughter of Psamtik II -The last divine consort before the Persian invasion of 525BC) The tomb chapels for these women are orientated with their northern facade facing the small temple of Amun at Medinet Habu. This temple was far less grand than the adjacent mortuary temple of Ramses III. Even so it was the most important centre on the west bank, the djeset-shet, of the god Amun. The tombs of the high priests of Amun are also nearby, as is that of 22nd dynasty Theban priest-king Horsiese. All are buried in association with the small temple of Amun. Above ground the stone structures of the chapels of the Votaresses have interconnecting doorways. This suggests some interaction between the different priestesses both during and after life. One can imagine the newly adopted priestess served firstly as understudy to the older woman during the latter’s final years of life. The new priestess was responsible for continuing the cult of her predecessor in the corresponding tomb chapel and this no doubt included consulting the ka of the deceased. Her function was complex, serving the cult of Amun but also that of her departed predecessor, making daily food offerings and channelling the messages of her ghostly ka spirit, perhaps also making prophesy. Each priestess had her own chapel-tomb, some of the oldest were of mud brick, although these were swept away in the 19th century clearance (déblaiement). The easternmost of these would have been the most ancient. Unfortunately no record was made of the appearance of the mud brick structures before their demolition. From the above arrangement, we gain insight into how a group of priestesses interacted and one can deduce quite a lot concerning the mechanics of ancient religious practice. One thing that seems obvious is the need for the living priestess to interact with her dead ancestor, presumably for on-going inspiration. This mirrors the way every Egyptian interacted with their own ancestors and how most tombs was designed to facilitate such a dialogue. Uvo Hölscher says of the tomb-chapels at Medinet Habu that they are unique in design; nothing similar has yet been found. To him their uniqueness is coincidental; other examples may well exist awaiting discovery. A ceremonial gateway leads to a courtyard, open to the sky. Here stood a standard offering table. A short stairway leads to a windowless room; the architectural term is a “cellar” meaning storage room. A corridor, presumably to facilitate circumambulation, runs around the windowless inner sanctuary. The tomb spaces are in crypts below this windowless room. There is something in this arrangement that to me suggests the pre-dynastic tent shrines whose remains were discovered at Hieronkonpolis. In both instances the living offer food and other supplies to the dead. Every important Egyptian temple was linked to a priestly scriptorium or “house of life” – perhaps this too enabled interaction between living and dead priests, a relationship they may have been initiated between living mentor and student? It’s a “technique” that one can envisage would still work in a contemporary religious setting such as one finds in neo-paganism. A careful reading of Strabo’s much abused account of life on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes does yield some useful information. His account of a special class of ancient priestesses is borne out by archaeology evidence from Medinet Habu. The fortunes of the village that grew around the sacred precinct has ebbed and flowed over the centuries, sometime seemingly completely abandoned then repopulated by others. Even today the sanctity of the site continues as evidenced by local “folk practices” many of which appear to be survivals or archaeological memories of these ancient times. ... " Strabo on Thebes (Luxor) Priestesses or “Sacred Prostitutes” of the West Bank? Mogg Morgan - mandoxegypt Garden of Priapus - 217 Icon of ancient Egyptian sexuality: the Djed Pillar and the eight pointed star of Venus. I just noticed the star of venus which is all over Sumerian artefacts Shot blocked. Used workaround. Research in ancient Egyptian sacred prostitutes may be hard - but the phenomenon was probably universal - due to the penis cage which was put on in the company of women at a very young age and stayed on until the Sed festival 30 years later. During this time the primary male sexual organ was the anus and the primary female sex organ was the mentule or female phallus or venus phallus or Innana phallus - In ancient Egypt gender roles were reversed like in Sumeria and Ethiopia. And the female sex drive was high enough caused by the universal penis cage to require the services of Amazon brothels and the annual "festival of drunkeness" which was an Amazon orgy designed to placate or cool off fierce phallic Egyptian goddesses like the lioness Sekhmet-Min. 18th dynasty and 19th dynasty were the era of the Minoan "bull-jumpers" - Amazons with large phalli subduing bulls - The female phallus started young - as young as 7 years old in the Satyricon - On page 150 of this website is a Roman sculpture of a mother daughter hermaphrodite pair ...The Amazon sexuality of ancient Egypt and Rome was thick and intense .... Garden of Priapus - 218 Boss lady and a friend sodomizing a penis caged man. The garden of Priapus almost certainly derives from the gardens of Babylon - the world of the phallic Inanna and the catamite Dumuzi "The king [Alexander] first went to the temple of Bel-Marduk and ordered the damage Xerxes had done to the sacred precinct repaired. Then, carefully following the instructions of the priests, he sacrificed to the god, surrounded by cheering natives." erenow - The central rite of Bel-Marduk involved a bed and a high priestess and a King. Alexander who was gay was probably sodomized in the ancient way by a Harimtu More data on Alexanders conquest of Babylon - my intuition is there was a counter-conquest of the west by the Amazon brothel culture of the Babylonian tavern: " ... Alexander, on the other hand, was determined to show respect for the religious traditions of Babylon, though he was also cautious. He gave strict orders to his men that there was to be no looting and that no Macedonian soldier would enter a Babylonian house uninvited. He hoped to take Babylon peacefully and maintain good relations with the natives, but he was ready for trouble if it occurred. Thus beneath the city walls crowded with thousands of men, women, and children throwing flowers to the soldiers below, Alexander entered the city that bright autumn day through the Ishtar Gate at the head of his troops in full battle formation. There was no hostility from the inhabitants, who, like the Egyptians, were pleased to see the Persians removed from power even though they did not yet know what sort of rule the Macedonians would impose. Instead of spears and arrows there were garlands and perfumes, followed by gifts of precious frankincense and cages filled with lions and leopards. The native priests sang hymns in ancient tongues to welcome the new king while music filled the air. The throngs of citizens joined in the procession behind the soldiers as if the entry of the army were a great holiday. Alexander had never seen anything to compare with Babylon. To his men from the poor villages of Macedonia, it was as if they had entered another world. The king first went to the temple of Bel-Marduk and ordered the damage Xerxes had done to the sacred precinct repaired. Then, carefully following the instructions of the priests, he sacrificed to the god, surrounded by cheering natives. Then he and his officers retired to the palace at the northern end of the city near the Ishtar Gate and settled into a life of splendid luxury for the next month. He marveled at a pillar in the palace listing the dining requirements of Darius’ royal entourage, including dozens of cakes of honey, hundreds of bushels of flour, barrels of sesame oil and vinegar, and baskets of finely chopped cardamom. Alexander ordered the inscription destroyed to show a break with the wasteful Persian ways of the past and told his officers that those who indulged in such extravagant ways were quickly defeated in battle. With his copy of Herodotus in hand the next day, Alexander toured the strange and wonderful city. As he passed through the streets, he noticed that family members and friends would carry sick people into public squares and leave them there to talk with those walking by. The Babylonians did not trust physicians, but instead relied on the advice of strangers, who would approach the sick and offer a remedy. Many had suffered from the same illness themselves and had learned firsthand an effective treatment, while others had heard of a cure elsewhere. Given the international nature of the city, with visitors from almost every land, there was no shortage of medical wisdom and quackery available to the sick. One of the first places visited by Alexander’s men, if not by the king himself, must have been the temple of the goddess Ishtar, known to the Greeks as Aphrodite, who ruled over the sexual aspects of life. It was an unbreakable rule in Babylon that every woman of the city must sometime in her life offer herself to a man at the temple as an act of worship. Rich and poor women alike would come to the sacred precinct and sit with wreaths of cords on their heads to mark their availability. Visiting men would walk up and down the pathways among the women looking for an appealing devotee. When they found the right lady, they would toss silver into her lap and call her to come in the name of the goddess. A waiting priest would collect the money for the temple treasury and escort the couple to a nearby room in the temple. No woman could refuse any man, so that a poor shepherd in from the countryside could enjoy the favors of a noble lady of the court, at least on that single occasion. Beautiful women never had to wait long, but those lacking in appeal might sit in the temple courtyard for years before being chosen. Prudish Greek writers reported that the whole enterprise was nothing but prostitution on a grand scale, but to the citizens of Babylon it was as much an act of genuine devotion as the most solemn sacrifice to Athena or Zeus. Alexander would least of all have missed the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, ranked along with the Great Pyramid at Giza as one of the wonders of the world. Centuries earlier, an Assyrian king ruling in Babylon had built the gardens for his foreign wife, who longed for the woods and groves of her native land. There in the middle of a desert city, the king built a series of raised platforms above the streets supported by massive columns. Tons of soil were carried to the terraces by an army of slaves and water was continuously piped in from the river and drawn up by huge screws to circulate through the gardens. Fruit trees, palms, and conifers were planted throughout, growing into a living forest rising high above the city. In the most intense heat of summer, visitors could walk through the cool groves and picnic in the shade on the lush grass. As always, Alexander seems to have taken an interest in religious matters that went beyond the mere politics of ingratiating himself with the locals. There was in Babylon a special quarter of the city given over to the Chaldeans, the ancient priest-philosophers of Mesopotamia famed especially for their precise study of the stars. Their records of astronomical events reportedly went back thousands of years, but as they were written in a cuneiform script unknown to the Greek world, the king had to take the priests’ word on the matter. Unlike most numerical systems, mathematics as taught by the Chaldeans was based on the number sixty rather than ten—a way of measuring time and space passed on to later civilizations as the sixty-minute hour, the sixty-second minute, and the 360-degree circle (six times sixty). Long before Alexander, the Babylonians had discovered how to use complex fractions, quadratic equations, and what would come to be known as the Pythagorean theorem. Many of the advances in later Greek mathematics in fact derived from the encounter that began in Babylon that autumn with the arrival of the Macedonians. As the Chaldeans were also experts in divination, Alexander took several of them along with him for the rest of his campaign to read the signs of events to come. He must have also talked with them about their views of the gods and the origin of the world. If so, he would have learned of a remarkable similarity between Babylonian creation myths, with their stories of successive generations of gods battling one another for control of the universe, and the tales he had read in the Greek poet Hesiod of Cronos castrating his father, only to be violently displaced in time by his own son Zeus. But Alexander could not spend all his time in Babylon seeing the sights and visiting with native scholars. There were also appointments to be made and military affairs to be arranged. Almost fifteen thousand new recruits had just arrived in the city following a long march from Macedonia. These included cavalry and infantry sent by Antipater and led by Amyntas, the veteran commander dispatched to Macedonia by Alexander many months before to bring back additional troops. The king was sorely disappointed that Amyntas had not arrived with the much-needed soldiers before the battle at Gaugamela, but he knew there would be plenty of opportunities for fighting yet to come. The commander also brought with him fifty sons of leading Macedonian nobles to serve as royal pages under the king. These lads were to wait on the royal table, attend the king in hunting and battle, and stand guard outside his chambers at night. It was an honored position for ambitious young men that served as an important training ground for future Macedonian leaders. Before leaving the city, Alexander appointed Agathon from the coastal Macedonian town of Pydna as commander of the citadel at Babylon with a thousand troops under him. Overall command of military affairs in Babylonia was assigned to another Macedonian, Apollodorus from Amphipolis, along with two thousand soldiers and money to hire more. Asclepiodorus, probably a Greek, was put in charge of collecting taxes from the province, while the former Persian satrap Mazaeus was reconfirmed in his previous office. To keep the army happy—and perhaps to lure them away from the pleasures of the city—he gave each of his Macedonian cavalry the equivalent of a year’s pay as a bonus. Foreign horsemen received almost as much and Macedonian infantry each pocketed more than they would earn in six months. Alexander wanted to give his men no cause to grumble as they continued the march into Persia. They knew there would be more to come from their generous king on the road ahead. Once the last of his soldiers was rounded up from the brothels of Babylon, Alexander set out with his enlarged army to the winter capital of the Persian Empire at Susa. Darius was still at large in the snow-covered mountains of Media, but the most pressing matter for Alexander was to secure the treasuries at Susa and Persepolis as soon as possible. Susa was the closer of the two capitals, more than a hundred miles down the royal road that ran all the way back to Sardis in Lydia. The town was so notoriously hot in summer that lizards trying to cross its roads baked before they reached the other side, but in the cooler months it was a most pleasant city. The journey there took the Macedonians to the north of the endless marshes where the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates met the Persian Gulf, a land known in antiquity as Sumer. From here, the biblical patriarch Abraham was said to have set out on his journey to the land of Canaan. The Sumerians, who had built cities three thousand years before Alexander, were one of the oldest civilizations on earth. The king must have heard stories from his new Chaldean traveling companions about the glories of ancient Sumer. From the city of Uruk on the Euphrates, a great king named Gilgamesh once ruled. The story may have been lost by Alexander’s day, but if it had survived once again he would have been surprised by similarities with the earliest Greek literature. Gilgamesh, like Homer’s Achilles, was part god and part man, a great hero seeking glory who fought monsters and gods alongside his beloved friend Enkidu. Like Achilles’ companion Patroclus, Enkidu died suddenly, plunging his friend into deep despair. But unlike Achilles, who took out his frustration on the Trojan warrior Hector, Gilgamesh instead set out in search of eternal life. His quest at last took him to the island of Utnapishtim, a man who had once survived the great flood sent by the gods to destroy humanity and been rewarded with immortality. Gilgamesh failed the test that would grant him eternal life, but the lessons he learned were a comfort to readers for millennia. The city of Susa was the old capital of the kingdom of Elam, a land of southern Mesopotamia stretching into the Zagros Mountains of Persia to the east. It was once a large territory encompassing parts of Persia before the ancestors of Cyrus the Great took over the highlands. Elam served as the main conduit of trade between the east and Mesopotamia for goods such as timber and minerals. The people of Elam, like the Sumerians, wrote on clay tablets in cuneiform script thousands of years before Alexander. Once the Persians brought the Elamites of the Mesopotamian plain into their empire in the sixth century, they made their tongue one of the official languages of state. The language of Elam was unrelated to any other in the area, though it may have shared a common origin with those spoken in ancient times in parts of India. In any case, it was an important means of communication in Alexander’s new empire and required that the king employ scribes who were fluent in the language.... " erenow Garden of Priapus - 219 Boss lady sodomizing and her friend irrumating a penis caged slave "The king [Alexander] first went to the temple of Bel-Marduk and ordered the damage Xerxes had done to the sacred precinct repaired. Then, carefully following the instructions of the priests, he sacrificed to the god, surrounded by cheering natives." erenow Bel-Marduk was a form of Dumuzi "... During the first millennium BC, the Babylonians worshipped a deity under the title "Bel", meaning "lord", who was a syncretization of Marduk, Enlil, and the dying god Dumuzid. Bel held all the cultic titles of Enlil and his status in the Babylonian religion was largely the same. Eventually, Bel came to be seen as the god of order and destiny. The cult of Bel is a major component of the Jewish story of "Bel and the Dragon" from the apocryphal additions to Daniel. In the account, the Babylonians offer "twelve bushels of fine flour, twenty sheep, and fifty gallons of wine" every day to an idol of Bel and the food miraculously disappears overnight. The Persian king Cyrus the Great tells the Jewish wise man Daniel that the idol is clearly alive, because it eats the food that is offered to it, but Daniel objects that it "is only clay on the inside, and bronze on the outside, and has never tasted a thing." Daniel proves this by secretly covering the floor of the temple with ash. Daniel and Cyrus leave the temple and, when they return, Daniel shows the king the human footprints that have been left on the floor, proving that the food is really being eaten by the seventy priests of Bel. Bel is also mentioned in the writings of several Greek historians. ... " Wikipedia In the vein of Anat forcing her father El to submit to Ba'al - Marduk was also elevated over his own father Ea. Ea was probably forced to concede by his own daughter the goddess Sarpanit in the ancient Sumerian way " ... Marduk's original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic. His consort was the goddess Sarpanit. He was also regarded as the son of Ea (Sumerian Enki) and Damkina, and the heir of Anu, but whatever special traits Marduk may have had were overshadowed by political developments in the Euphrates valley which led to people of the time imbuing him with traits belonging to gods who in an earlier period were recognized as the heads of the pantheon. There are particularly two gods—Ea and Enlil—whose powers and attributes pass over to Marduk. In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded peacefully and without effacing the older god. Marduk took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, and was thus integrated into the pantheon of Eridu, where both Ea and Asarluhi originated. Ea, Marduk's father, voluntarily recognized the superiority of the son and handed over to him the control of humanity. This association of Marduk and Ea, while indicating primarily the passing to Babylon of the religious and political supremacy once enjoyed by Eridu, may also reflect an early dependence of Babylon upon Eridu, not necessarily of a political character but, in view of the spread of culture in the Euphrates valley from the south to the north, the recognition of Eridu as the older centre on the part of the younger one. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 220 Boss lady sodomizing her husband. Going by the example of the Warka vase, a naked Alexander bearing a fruit basket was led into a sacred bedroom in the Ziggurat of Etemenanki and sodomized by the high priestess or Naditu in public - Alexander as the shepard Dumuzi, the priestess as the goddess Inanna He first served her vulva orally - but reading the Roman Priapea - female on male sodomy with a mentule was required to "download" the sacred Me And this service was not limited to the King. All Babylonian women were required to have sacred temple sex with a paying stranger at least once in their lives - She was Inanna and the paying supplicant was Dumuzi - This service continued in Rome. The state supported a community of sacred prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite - Aphrodite had a phallus - she is associated with the phallus of her father Uranus - It was not a secret that at midnight in her sacred rites the sexes exchanged clothing and sexual roles as well - the Me flowed from goddess into male supplicant. - In Babylon however, the Amazons were more voracious and sex was not restricted to the temple - It was done in public after the rising of Venus with Harimtu servicing many young men at one time. In Babylon the whole male population was sexually caged unlike Rome where that was limited to the ruling class " ... The story of the Tower of Babel, found in the Biblical book of Genesis, is one of the most famous and beloved legends of mankind. The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Šin'âr, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, "Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. And the Lord said, "Behold, the people are one and they have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have imagined to do. Come, let Us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off building the city. Therefore is the name of it called Bâbel (that is "Confusion") because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.note Let's start our discussion of the Etemenanki with some remarks about this Biblical story. The Hebrew word Bâbel, Confusion, is often used for Babylon (Akkadian Bab-ili), but this is not sufficient to prove the identification of the tower with a monument in this big city. (Imagine a legend about the unity of mankind, which is situated by scholars in Union, Connecticut.) Fortunately, the story contains a second geographical clue: the tower was erected on "a plain in the land of Šin'âr". This country is known from other books of the Bible (Isaiah 11.11 and Zechariah 5.11) and is translated as "Babylonia" in the Septuagint. So there is nothing that keeps us from identifying the Biblical building with a monument in ancient Babylon. This must be the building known as E-temen-an-ki, the 'House of the foundation of heaven on earth', a giant mountain of bricks and tiles with, on top, a temple for the god Marduk. He had a second temple in the neighborhood, the Esagila. The ancient Babylonians called these brick mountains a ziqqurratu or ziggurat, which can be translated as "rising building" (Akkadian zaqâru, "to rise high"). This type of temple tower is the oriental equivalent of the Egyptian pyramid and just as old, although there are two differences: the ziggurat was not a tomb, and ziggurats were built well into the Seleucid age, whereas the building of pyramids came to an end after c.1640 BCE. Ziggurats played a role in the cults of many cities in ancient Mesopotamia. Archaeologists have discovered nineteen of these buildings in sixteen cities; the existence of another ten is known from literary sources. The Etemenanki was among the largest of these, and the most important. (The largest was the shrine of Anu at Uruk, built in the third or second century BCE.) According to the Babylonian creation epic Enûma êliš the god Marduk defended the other gods against the diabolical monster Tiamat. After he had killed it, he brought order to the cosmos, built the Esagila, which was the center of the new world, and created mankind. The Etemenanki was next to the Esagila, and this means that the temple tower was erected at the center of the world, as the axis of the universe. Here, a straight line connected earth and heaven. This aspect of Babylonian cosmology is echoed in the Biblical story, where the builders say "let us build a tower whose top may reach unto heaven". The best description of the monumental tower can be found in a cuneiform tablet from Uruk, written in 229 BCE. It is a copy of an older text and is now in the Louvre in Paris. It states that the tower was made up of seven terraces and it gives the height of the seven stocks - 91 meters all in all. The ground floor measured 91 x 91 meters, and this is confirmed by archaeological excavations conducted by Robert Koldewey after 1913 (91,48 x 91,66 m). Large stairs were discovered at the south side of the building, where a triple gate connected the Etemenanki with the Esagila. A larger gate in the east connected the Etemenanki with the sacred procession road. Seen from the triple gate, the Etemenanki must have resembled a true "stairway to heaven", because the gates on the higher terraces seemed to be standing on top of each other. Using the archaeological data and the tablet at the Louvre, several reconstructions have been proposed. However, there is one caveat: it is possible that the Louvre tablet describes not the real temple tower, but an idealized sanctuary - a blueprint for a Etemenanki that still has to be build, comparable to the description of the temple of Jerusalem in the Biblical book of Ezekhiel. On the highest terrace was a temple, dedicated to the Babylonian supreme god Marduk. The Louvre tablet again offers information. There were several cult rooms: Marduk shared his room with his wife Sarpanitum, a second room offered accommodation to the scribe-god Nabû and his wife Tashmetu, and there were rooms for the water god Ea, the god of light Nusku, the god of heaven Anu, and finally Enlil, Marduk's predecessor as chief of the Mesopotamian pantheon. A seventh room was called "house of the bed" and contained a bed and a throne. A second bed was on the inner court of the temple on the highest platform of the Etemenanki. Finally, there must have been stairs to the roof. It is possible that the famous Babylonian astronomers, the Chaldaeans, did their observations at the topmost level of the building. This is the point where another text becomes useful: the Histories by the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE). Although he probably never visited Babylon, his description of the Etemenanki tells us something about the temple ritual. (Herodotus correctly calls the supreme god of Babylon Bêl ("lord"), because his real name was not pronounced.) The temple of Bêl, the Babylonian Zeus [...] was still in existence in my time. It has a solid central tower, one stadium square, with a second erected on top of it and then a third, and so on up to eight. All eight towers can be climbed by a spiral way running round the outside, and about half way up there are seats for those who make the ascent to rest on. On the summit of the topmost tower stands a great temple with a fine large couch in it, richly covered, and a golden table beside it. The shrine contains no image, and no one spends the night there except (if we may believe that Chaldaeans who are the priests of Bêl) one Babylonian woman, all alone, whoever it may be that the god has chosen. The Chaldaeans also say -though I do not believe them- that the god enters the temple in person and takes his rest upon the bed.note This account contains minor errors (the dimensions of the tower, the number of levels, the shape of the stairs) and belongs to a description of Babylon that contains grave errors. It needs to be stressed, because there are still scholars maintaining that Herodotus visited Babylon, that the Greek researcher does not claim that he has seen the Etemenanki: he merely writes that it "was still in existence" in his time. Yet, this is the only text we have that describes the ritual performed in the temple: a holy marriage, in which the god sleeps with a woman. Unfortunately, there is not a single scrap of Babylonian evidence that can be used to corroborate Herodotus' story. Probably, we must simply ignore it. He goes on to make a comparison with a similar Egyptian ritual, and this betrays him: on several occasions, Herodotus offers comparisons between Babylonia and Egypt, and in those cases, he is always wrong and may be repeating a story told by Egyptian priests. The story about the woman and the god belongs to this category. The Etemenanki is mentioned for the first time in the Annals of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who claims that he destroyed the temple tower of his Babylonian enemies in 689 BCE. Although he certainly sacked Babylon, it is impossible that his looting soldiers destroyed the Etemenanki. The wholesale destruction of large-scale structures is the prerogative of the modern age; ancient armies were incapable of destroying a large building. The fact that Sennacherib could send an army against the Etemenanki, proves that it was older, and it would be remarkable if it was not so by at least 1000 years. During the reign of king Hammurabi (1792-1750), Babylonia was the leading power of Mesopotamia. In his age, there were ziggurats in lesser towns like Qatara, Aššur, Sippar, Kish, Borsippa, Nippur, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, and Eridu. It would be very strange if the capital of the world would be the only city without a ziggurat. It may be noted that the creation epic Enûma êliš with its reference to the building of the Esagila (and the implication of the existence of the Etemenanki), had already been written. After Sennacherib, Esarhaddon was king of Assyria (r.680-669). He allowed the Babylonians to rebuilt their city. Another construction phase may have been after the war between the Assyrian king Aššurbanipal and his brother Šamaš-šum-ukin, the viceroy of Babylon (r.667-648). When Babylonia became independent under Nabopolassar (625-605), there was renewed building activity, and finally, king Nebuchadnezzar (605-562) is recorded as one of the builders. He finished the temple at the top, which was covered with a roof made of cedars from the Lebanon. The two last king have boasted that the tower "reached unto heaven" (cf. the Weidner Chronicle). The building history suggests that the Babylonians were occupied with the construction of the tower for over a century. It is possible that the ambitious design of a tower of 92 x 92 x 92 meters was too grandiose, so that they needed as much time for their project as the medieval builders of the European cathedrals. For a long time, the tower must have looked unfinished, and this may explain how the Biblical story came into being. It is certainly possible that the sanctuary was never finished at all. The Persian king Xerxes (r.486-465) has often been blamed for the destruction of the Etemenanki. During his reign, there were indeed two revolts (led by Bêl-šimânni and Šamaš-eriba, both in 484), and Herodotus states that Xerxes took away a large statue of a man from the Esagila. Some six centuries later, the historian Arrian of Nicomedia, the author of an important book on Alexander the Great, expanded this last piece of information to a remark about the destruction of the Etemenanki. After all, Arrian had to explain why Alexander started to rebuild the monument that was by then known as the "tomb of Belus". But his story cannot be true. The continuous cult at the Esagila and Etemenanki is mentioned in cuneiform sources form the fifth and fourth centuries, and is confirmed by Herodotus (whatever his merits), who states that "the temple of Bêl [...] was still in existence in my time The truth must be that by the time of Alexander, the ziggurat had fallen into disrepair. Buildings made of brick easily fall apart and need permanent care in the hot climate of the Near East. There is one badly damaged source, quoted here, that suggests that the Persian king Artaxerxes IV Arses (338-336) had already decided to restore the Esagila and the Etemenanki. Behaving like a Babylonian king was supposed to do, Alexander ordered 10,000 soldiers to remove the remains of the old building. Over a period of two months (April and May 323), tiles and bricks were brought to the eastern part of the city. This time, the tower was not destroyed by an army looking for loot: it was a systematic attempt to clear the building ground. Although the site was now cleared, the tower was never rebuilt. On 11 June, Alexander died. Civil war broke out between his generals, the Diadochi. During the next years, Babylon saw several armies, and it lasted until 309 until peace conditions were restored by Seleucus Nicator. However, he founded another capital for the new Seleucid empire, Seleucia. Babylon was never restored to its old status, and that meant the end of the attempts to rebuilt the Etemenanki - although one scribe in Uruk was still hoping for its reconstruction and wrote the Louvre tablet. The Esagila remained intact well into the first century BCE and probably even later. .... " livius Garden of Priapus - 221 Herm of Aphroditus at the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm. Phallic Inanna and catamite Dumuzi were compared to phallic Aphrodite and catamite Adonis by greek visitors of Babylon " ... The worship of Aphroditus comes from Cyprus, a cult of a masculine or hermaphrodite form of Aphrodite. The divinity was introduced into Greece and celebrated in Athens in a cross-dressing ritual. It is thought that Hesiod's myth, explaining the birth of Aphrodite, born when Cronus cut off the genitals of Uranus and threw it into the sea, originated from the cult of Aphroditus. A terracotta plaque from the 7th century BC found at Perachora in Greece, representing Aphroditus emerging from severed male genitals, suggests this, as there are two different myths of the creation of Aphrodite. According to Macrobius, Aphroditus was represented in Cyprus with a beard and phallus, wearing female clothing and holding a scepter. At sacrifices to the god, worshipers cross-dressed, men wearing women's clothing and women dressed in men's clothing. The cult spread from Cyprus into southern Asia Minor, eventually reaching mainland Greece around the late 5th century BC. In Athens, the iconography of the god took on the anasyromenos pose, a female figure lifting her dress to reveal an erect phallus, a gesture that had apotropaic qualities, much like the god Priapus. By the Hellenistic period, the cult and votives had spread throughout Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. Gradually over time the cult lost popularity, Aphroditus was also being called Hermaphroditus, which originally meant Aphroditus in the form of a herm or "a herm of Aphroditus". These were marble or bronze sculptures with a head or torso above a plain rectangular pillar, a symbol of fertility. In later Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus came to be known as the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 222 Boss lady sodomizing her husband with a friend. Sexual superwomen - Abraham was a Sumerian - when he migrated to Canaan he was probably running away from these -the voracious female phalli. The king during Abraham's day was Nimrod - a fire worshipper - Nimrod is traditionally depicted as black. Sumeria was probably an African colony! Yahweh or El was married to one of these sexual superwomen - Asherah - mother of 70 gods ... The dream psyche says the Asherah layers of human history were technological - When you glimpse the mathematical culture of Mesopotamia - it is not hard to credit ancient tech! Garden of Priapus - 223 More boss lady sodomizing her husband with a friend. The Magi that visited the infant Christ may have been from Mesopotamia. One of them has traditionally black. Alexander was advised to perform the Bel Marduk ritual by the Magi when he entered Babylon - That ritual was almost certainly sexual - an Inanna/Dumuzi encounter with a Harimtu or sacred prostitute in the bedchamber of the Bel Marduk Ziggurat. After his campaigns in India Alexander tried to retire to the pleasures of Babylon - but the Magi advised him not to - he ignored their advice and died not long after that: " .... January 4, 2010 Alexander the Great and the Magi What have they in common, you’ll ask. Well much more than you would expect, provided you allow yourself to think about Magi in general and not about The Magi from the Bible who followed their star to Bethlehem. Magi were known as Wise Men from Mesopotamia, particularly famous around Babylon by their local name of Chaldeans, were reputed among others for their knowledge in astrology. In those days there was no distinction between astronomy and astrology, both forms of star observation went hand in hand. By studying and analyzing the celestial heavens, these Wise Men could, for instance, predict major events to important people. This knowledge was already mentioned by Herodotus in the 5th century B.C. who defined the Magi as a priestly caste from upper Mesopotamia. The Magi we are familiar with, are the Three Wise Men who visited the Lord Jesus, but this fact is based on a simple and non-explicit quotation by the evangelist Matthew, who stated that they came from the east, which is evident geographically speaking, and brought expensive gifts of myrrh, frankincense and gold with them. Nowadays there is a discussion going on whether there were three Magi or more for Matthew only mentions three gifts, which has been interpreted as each Magi carrying one gift, while evidently there could have been ten or thirty of them offering these three gifts. Now we all know that Alexander the Great always looked for his omens. So, when he was in Babylon in 331 B.C, he came into contact with these Magi, the Chaldeans as Arrian called them, i.e. the priests of Marduk or Bel, for “in all matters of religious ceremonial he [Alexander] took their advice, offering sacrifice to Bel in particular, according to their instructions”. Alexander even gave them the money and instructions to rebuild the famous Temple of Bel. After his campaigns to the East, through what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, Alexander returned to Babylon in 323 B.C. and was met by the Chaldeans outside the city walls. They advised him not to enter Babylon, as it was considered a bad omen. Arrian tells us this story “… Alexander, after crossing the Tigris, was met by some Wise Men of the Chaldeans, who drew him aside and begged him to go no further, because their god Bel had foretold that if he entered the city at that time it would prove fatal to him”. Plutarch relates a similar story in which Alexander got the news through his naval commander, Nearchus: “As he [Alexander] was upon his way to Babylon, Nearchus … came to tell him he had met with some Chaldean diviners, who had warned him against Alexander’s going thither”. Alexander complied but as time went by he lost his patience and decided to enter Babylon after all - his destiny was already sealed. It was written in the stars and Alexander died shortly afterwards in Babylon. The diviners must have known this but it remains a guess whether or not Alexander was fully aware that he would die if he ignored the warning. By ancient writers, we usually refer to our western historians, but what about the literature in the East. There are, for instance, the Enuma Anu Enli records of celestial omens, which archaeologists have recovered from the Assyrian Library in Nineveh. The authors were Chaldeans, who left us tablets detailing the movements of the planets and how they disclosed the fate of mankind. These astronomers had the duty to warn authorities when they discovered that some major event was going to happen. They had done so before, for instance, at the approach of the decisive Battle at Gaugamela, that engaged Alexander the Great against King Darius III of Persia "The son of the king will become purified for the throne but will not take the throne. An intruder will come with the princes of the west; for eight years he will exercise kingship; he will conquer the enemy army; there will be abundance and riches on his path; he will continually pursue his enemies; and his luck will not run out." Now among these tablets of Enuma Anu Enlil there is also one predicting Alexander’s death: "When in the month Ajaru, during the evening watch, the moon eclipses, the king will die. The sons of the king will vie for the throne of their father, but will not sit on it." ... " makedonia-alexandros.blogspot Garden of Priapus - 224 Cuban, Vulva, cane, cage and supplicant in an electronic penis cage With the slaver of the dog, thirst, hunger With the slap of the face, with the rolling of the eye I have hit you in the head, I have deranged your reason Set your will to my will Set your decision to my decision I hold you fast as Ishtar held Dumuzi As beer binds her drinker I have bound you with my hairy mouth With my vagina full of wetness With my mouth full of saliva With my vagina full of wetness No female rival shall go near you ... " “Sex, Magic and the Liminal Body in the Erotic Art and Texts of the Old Babylonian Period,” Julia A Assante "With the slaver of the dog" - that's the penis cage - the amazon/harimtu/wife/daughter controlled access to that * Between Marduk and his consort Sarpanit we only hear about Marduk. But in keeping with Babylonian practice Sarpanit was the more important deity - Her worship continued in Syria until late in the Roman Empire - She was probably embodied by the Roman Syrian Augustas: " .... In Babylonian mythology, Sarpanit (alternately Sarpanitu, Zarpanit, Zarpandit, Zerpanitum, Zerbanitu, or Zirbanit) is a mother goddess and the consort of the chief god, Marduk. Her name means "the shining one", and she is sometimes associated with the planet Venus. By a play on words her name was interpreted as zer-banitu, or "creatress of seed", and is thereby associated with the goddess Aruru, who, according to Babylonian myth, created mankind. Her marriage with Marduk was celebrated annually at New Year in Babylon. She was worshipped via the rising moon, and was often depicted as being pregnant. She is also known as Erua. She may be the same as Gamsu, Ishtar, and/or Beltis. ... "religion.wikia * " ... Marduk, in Mesopotamian religion, the chief god of the city of Babylon and the national god of Babylonia; as such, he was eventually called simply Bel, or Lord. Originally, he seems to have been a god of thunderstorms. A poem, known as Enuma elish and dating from the reign of Nebuchadrezzar I (1119–1098 BCE), relates Marduk’s rise to such preeminence that he was the god of 50 names, each one that of a deity or of a divine attribute. After conquering the monster of primeval chaos, Tiamat, he became Lord of the Gods of Heaven and Earth. All nature, including humanity, owed its existence to him; the destiny of kingdoms and subjects was in his hands. Marduk’s chief temples at Babylon were the Esagila and the Etemenanki, a ziggurat with a shrine of Marduk on the top. In the Esagila the poem Enuma elish was recited every year at the New Year festival. The goddess named most often as the consort of Marduk was Zarpanitu. Marduk’s star was Jupiter, and his sacred animals were horses, dogs, and especially the so-called dragon with forked tongue, representations of which adorn his city’s walls. On the oldest monuments Marduk is represented holding a triangular spade or hoe, interpreted as an emblem of fertility and vegetation. He is also pictured walking or in his war chariot. Typically, his tunic is adorned with stars; in his hand is a sceptre, and he carries a bow, spear, net, or thunderbolt. Kings of Assyria and Persia also honoured Marduk and Zarpanitu in inscriptions and rebuilt many of their temples. Marduk was later known as Bel, a name derived from the Semitic word baal, or “lord.” Bel had all the attributes of Marduk, and his status and cult were much the same. Bel, however, gradually came to be thought of as the god of order and destiny. In Greek writings references to Bel indicate this Babylonian deity and not the Syrian god of Palmyra of the same name. ... " Matt Stefon, Britannica * " ... Data from the Esagila tablet, which was copied from older texts in 229 BC and describes Esagila in lines 1–15 before passing on to the ziggurat of Etemenanki, have aided in the temple's reconstruction. The tablet, described by George Smith in 1872, disappeared for some time into private hands before it resurfaced and began to be interpreted. The Esagila tablet hold Babylonian calculating methods considered to be sacred as they read in the back "let the initiate show the initiate, the non-initiate must not see this". On the front, the tablet explains the history and engineering of the 7-floor high Etemenanki temple (the equivalent of the Tower of Babel in the Bible). ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 225 "Kudurru recording the bequest of land by Marduk-zakir-sumi to Ibni-Ishtar on behalf of the Eanna temple in Uruk" - Wikipedia "Marduk-zakir-sumi ... was a king of Babylon from 855 to 819 BC during the mixed dynastic period referred to in antiquity as the dynasty of E. He was a contemporary of the Assyrian kings, Salmanu-asaredu III (commonly known as Shalmaneser III) (859–824 BC) and Samsi-Adad V (824–811 BC) with whom he was allied. There are few contemporary inscriptions bearing witness to his reign. A kudurru granting Ibni-Ishtar, a kalu-priest of the temple of Eanna in Uruk, land by Marduk-zakir-sumi, is dated to his second year. ... " * The consensus seems to be that Marduk grew to be more important than Innana in the later days of Babylon. Maybe, but I doubt it. My theory is Marduk is important in that he represents the rare line of men who could incarnate the dragon energy. In the novel "Dune" only women were able to subdue the dragon energy - all male attempts ended in death. Marduk is the equivalent of the Osiris energy represented by the Djed pillar in ancient Egypt. - : only after an average of 30 years in the penis cage or Roman bronze Fibula * (June 26, 2021) The inner images related to this is a massive sun rising from below - Up from the earth - viewed through massive stone floor blocks - as if from the interior of an ancient temple. Awesome image, but scary too - that energy can do as much harm as it can do good ... * Marduk, by Joshua J. Mark, 09 December 2016 " ... Marduk was the patron god of Babylon, the Babylonian king of the gods, who presided over justice, compassion, healing, regeneration, magic, and fairness, although he is also sometimes referenced as a storm god and agricultural deity. His temple, the famous ziggurat described by Herodotus, is considered the model for the biblical Tower of Babel. The Greeks associated him with Zeus and the Romans with Jupiter. He is depicted as a human in royal robes, carrying a snake-dragon and a spade. Marduk seems to have originated from a local deity known as Asarluhi, a farmer's god symbolized by the spade, known as a marru, which continued as part of his iconography. Marduk's name, however, though linked to the marru, translates as 'bull-calf,' although he was commonly referred to simply as Bel (Lord). Far from the local deity he sprang from, Marduk would become the most prestigious god of the Mesopotamian pantheon. He was the son of the god of wisdom Enki (also known as Ea, considered a creator god in some myths) who was also associated with fresh, life-giving water. Marduk's association with Enki is no doubt linked to the earlier regional deity Asarluhi who had the same relationship and shared many of Marduk's characteristics. Marduk's wife was the fertility goddess Sarpanitu (though in some myths his wife is Nanaya), and their son was Nabu, the patron god of scribes, literacy, and wisdom. From a regional agricultural deity, Marduk took on increasing significance for the city of Babylon (and later the Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian Empire) becoming finally the most important and powerful god of the Babylonian and wider Mesopotamian pantheon and attaining a level of worship bordering on monotheism. He was regarded as the creator of the heavens and earth, co-creator with Enki of human beings, and originator of divine order following his victory over the forces of chaos led by the goddess Tiamat. Once he legitimized his rule, he conferred upon the other gods their various duties and responsibilities and organized both the world and the netherworld. Marduk in the Enuma Elish The Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish, tells the story of Marduk's rise to power. In the beginning of time, the universe was undifferentiated swirling chaos which separated into sweet fresh water, known as Apsu (the male principle) and salty bitter water known as Tiamat (the female principle). These two deities then gave birth to the other gods. Tiamat loved her children, but Apsu complained because they were too noisy and kept him up at night while distracting him from his work during the day. Eventually, he decided to kill them and Tiamat, horrified, told her eldest son Enki about the plan. Enki then considered the best possible course of action, put his father into a deep sleep, and killed him. From Apsu's remains he created his home, the earth, in the marshy region of Eridu. Tiamat never expected her son to kill his father and so declared war on her children, raising up an army of chaos to assist her. At the head of her forces she placed the god Quingu, her new consort, who is victorious over the younger gods in every battle. Enki and his siblings begin to despair when the young god Marduk steps forward and says he will lead them to victory if they will first proclaim him their king. Once this is accomplished, Marduk defeats Quingu in single combat and then kills Tiamat by shooting her with an arrow which splits her in two; from her eyes flow the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and, from her corpse, Marduk forms the heavens and completes the creation begun by Enki of the earth (in some myths Enki is not mentioned and Marduk is the sole creator of the world). In consultation with Enki, Marduk then created human beings from the remains of the defeated gods who had encouraged Tiamat to wage war on her children. The defeated Quingu is executed, and his remains used to create the first man, Lullu. Marduk then regulates the workings of the world which includes humanity as co-workers with the gods against the forces of chaos. Henceforth, Marduk decrees, humans will do the work which the gods have no time for, freeing the divine to concentrate on higher purposes and care for human needs. As the gods will care for humans and supply all their needs, humans will respect and heed the will of the gods, and Marduk will reign over all in benevolence. Marduk's Reign in Babylon This reign was centered, not in the heavens, but in the temple - the Esagila - in Babylon. Deities in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and elsewhere were thought to literally reside in the temple built for them, and this was as true for Marduk as any other deity. Marduk came to prominence in Babylon during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE). Prior to the elevation of Marduk, Inanna - goddess of sexuality and warfare - was the principal deity worshiped in Babylon and elsewhere throughout Mesopotamia; afterwards, although Inanna continued to be widely venerated, Marduk was the supreme deity of the city and his worship spread as Babylon conquered other regions. Scholar Jeremy Black writes: The rise of the cult of Marduk is closely connected with the political rise of Babylon from city-state to the capital of an empire. From the Kassite Period, Marduk became more and more important until it was possible for the author of the Babylonian Epic of Creation to maintain that not only was Marduk king of all the gods but that many of the latter were no more than aspects of his persona. (128) The golden statue of Marduk, housed in the inner sanctum of his temple, was considered a vital aspect of the coronation of kings. A new king needed to 'take the hands of Marduk' to legitimize his rule, a practice which seems to have been initiated during the Kassite Period (1595-1155 BCE) when the Kassites made Babylon their capital after driving out the Hittites. Some scholars maintain that the new king had to literally take the hands of the statue - and this seems to be corroborated by ancient texts on the subject - while others claim 'taking the hands of Marduk' was a symbolic statement referring to submitting to the guidance of the god. It seems likely, however, based on the ancient written evidence, that the statue needed to be present at the succession of a new ruler and that the king needed to actually touch the statue's hands. Marduk Prophecy The importance of the statue is attested by the ancient work known as The Akitu Chronicle which relates a time of civil war in which the Akitu Festival (New Year's celebration) could not be observed because the statue of Marduk had left the city. On New Year's day, it was customary for the people to carry the statue of Marduk through the city and out to a little house beyond the walls where he could relax and enjoy some different scenery. During those times when the statue was carried off by hostile nations, the Akitu festival could not be observed because the patron god of the city was not present. Further, disaster was thought imminent when the god was not in the city as there was no one to stand between the people and the forces of chaos. This situation is depicted clearly in the document known as The Marduk Prophecy (c. 713-612 BCE, though the story is probably older) which relates Marduk's 'travels' when his statue is stolen from the city during various eras. Scholar Marc van de Mieroop comments: The absence of the patron deity from his or her city caused great disruption in the cult [of that deity and city in general]. The absence of the divinity was not always metaphorical but often the result of the theft of the cult statue by raiding enemies. Divine statues were commonly carried off in wars by the victors in order to weaken the power of the defeated cities. The consequences were so dire that the loss of the statue merited recording in the historiographic texts. When Marduk's statue was not present in Babylon, the New Year's festival, crucial to the entire cultic year, could not be celebrated. The Marduk Prophecy relates how the Hittites, Assyrians, and Elamites all captured Marduk's statue at one time or another and how it was finally returned to the city when King Nebuchadnezzar I (1125-1104 BCE) defeated the Elamites. The document is written as though Marduk himself chose to visit those foreign lands - except for Elam - and how it was prophesied that a great Babylonian king would rise and bring the god back from the Elamites. The Marduk Prophecy was most likely written as a propaganda piece during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, although the only extant copy is a much later Assyrian copy. This work, as well as the Akitu Chronicle and others, make clear how vital Marduk's presence in the city was to the people. Without their divine protector the people felt helpless, knowing that they and their city were left vulnerable to widespread and also personal attacks. Marduk the Protector Although Marduk is referenced in a number of works throughout Mesopotamian literature, two of them make especially clear how dangerous life was for a person or city once one's god was absent. The Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi (c. 1700 BCE) and The Wrath of Erra (c. 800 BCE) treat of the individual's problem and a city's suffering respectively, both making clear the necessity of a protector deity. The Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi is a treatise on suffering, on why a good person should seemingly be punished for no reason, framed as a long complaint by Tabu-utu-bel, an official of the city of Nippur, another city in which Marduk was worshiped. The speaker relates how he has called out for help from his goddess but has not heard back from her. Marduk, from afar, tries to send him help but nothing can alleviate the suffering. The speaker lists all of the good gifts Marduk tries to help him with, but none of them do any good and, possibly this is because Marduk is not close at hand. The Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi has often been compared to the biblical Book of Job in examining the problem of suffering and the seeming absence of one's god. The work never explicitly claims that Marduk has left the person but certainly implies that Marduk is 'far off' and can only send what meager help is available. The Wrath of Erra is a very different work in which the war god Erra (also known as Irra or Nergal) becomes bored and falls into a lethargy which he feels can only be cured by attacking Babylon. He is urged to abandon his plan by other gods but ignores them. He travels to Babylon where he distracts Marduk by telling him that his clothes have become shabby and he should really attend to his wardrobe. Marduk protests that he is too busy, but Erra assures him that all will be well and he, Erra, will watch over the city. Once Marduk leaves to have a new suit of clothes made, Erra destroys the city, killing the people indiscriminately until he is stopped by the other gods and called to account (in some versions he is stopped by Marduk's return). The piece ends with praise for Erra, god of war, who decided to spare a remnant of the city so it could be repopulated. Marduk the protector was so important to Babylon's sense of security and personal identity that when the city revolted against Persian rule c. 485 BCE, the Persian king Xerxes had the statue destroyed when he sacked the city. After Alexander the Great defeated the Persians in 331 BCE, he made Babylon his capital and initiated efforts to restore the city to its former glory but died before this could be accomplished. By the time the Parthians ruled the region in 141 BCE, Babylon was a deserted ruin and Marduk had been forgotten. ... " worldhistory. Garden of Priapus - 226 More Boss lady and a friend sodomizing her husband "Ibni-Ishtar, a kalu-priest of the temple of Eanna in Uruk" was probably the passive sexual partner of a Harimtu or sacred prostitute. My suspicion is all Sumerian men were passive sexual partners to Harimtu in Sumeria. Present day discourse does not have this category - the Roman mentule - there is a hard limit making it a form of homosexual eros. But that's not always true - I was reading in Julie Assante's work that many times the function of Babylon erotica was magical - it was meant to affect reality - I think the mentule or female phallus needs to return to reality - at a more basic level male-female eros needs to return to reality. * "... The Gala (Sumerian: gala, Akkadian: kalu) were priests of the Sumerian goddess Inanna. They made up a significant number of the personnel of both temples and palaces, the central institutions of Mesopotamian city states. These were thought in modern times to have been individuals with neither male nor female gender identities. Originally specialists in singing lamentations, gala appear in temple records dating back from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. According to an old Babylonian text, Enki created the gala specifically to sing "heart-soothing laments" for the goddess Inanna. Cuneiform references indicate the gendered character of the role. Lamentation and wailing may have originally been female professions, so that the men who entered the role adopted its forms. Their hymns were sung in a Sumerian dialect known as eme-sal, normally used to render the speech of female gods, and some gala took female names. Homosexual proclivities are implied by the Sumerian proverb which reads, "When the gala wiped off his anus [he said], ‘I must not arouse that which belongs to my mistress [i.e., Inanna]’ ". In fact, the word gala was written using the sign sequence USH.KU, the first sign having also the reading ... ("penis"), and the second one dur2 ("anus"), meaning that might be a pun involved. Moreover, gala is homophonous with gal4-la "vulva". In spite of all their references of their effeminate character (especially in the Sumerian proverbs), many administrative texts mention gala priests who had children, wives, and large families. In addition, some gala priests were cisgender women. ... " Wikipedia * A conquering Alexander would not have found the female phallus strange even if he was a heterosexual: according to Plato men were the sexual objects of women in ancient Greece - My theory is that was caused by the penis cage of Fibula: " ...In a commentary on Plato's Symposium, Lacan commented that women in Greek society played their significant role in love .... When Plato differentiates between the erastes, the active lover, and eromenos, the passive beloved, he applies it to the relationship between a boy and his adult male lover. In a heterosexual context, the woman was the lover and the man the object of her love. This did not imply that women were free to choose husbands and indeed lovers. We know, on the contrary that the social restrictions imposed on women limited their ability to make such decisions. But we also have to recognize that in many traditional societies there is a difference between public life and public utterance, often dominated my men, and private discourse, dominated by women ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) and: " ...Dover discovered a line of Athenian Kritias quoted by a Roman writer, ‘In males, the most beautiful appearance is that which is female; but in females, the opposite. ... " Dover, Greek Homosexuality - Wikipedia - That was Greece - in Rome and Egypt women did have the right to polyandry! They were the heads of households and expected to be sexually active outside the marriage ... Garden of Priapus - 227 More Boss lady and a friend sodomizing her husband Innana or Ishtar continued to be worshipped during late Babylon when Marduk came to the fore - Marduk was the sexual object of competition between Inanna and his wife Sarpanitu - My guess is this set up was simply ported into Greek power - So it was the Greco-Chaldean empire followed by the Greco-Roman-Chaldean empire - I outlined this world on page 29 of this website - Only there I saw it as an Aryan sun from above - It was more of a Chaldean sun from below - Chaldean or Chthonic - as I recently vividly experienced in a dragon temple dream. Also in page 29 I had no idea that Roman women were Amazons who sexually dominating Roman men. The Roman Penis cage or Fibula is Chaldean ... " ... In comparison to Ishtar, Marduk was a newcomer to the Babylonian official pantheon. Promoted as a national god by Hammurabi in the eighteenth century, he became increasingly popular in the whole of Mesopotamia and beyond. With the rise of the second dynasty of Isin he was declared ‘lord of the gods’ and took over from the ancient, but by then otiose, sky-god Anu and replaced Enlil as the executive god as well. The most splendid temples in Babylon were built for him and the important New Year festival included the recitation of a long text, the so-called Enuma eliš, a theological justification of Marduk’s cosmic pre-eminence. He was integrated into the pantheon as the son of Ea/Enki and Damkina. His wife was always S.arpa-nitu, his son Marduk. Ishtar is often called his sister, although this did not conform with the tradition of her being the daughter of the moon-god Nannar (Babylonian Sîn), or with the alternative version of Anu being her father (as in Gilgamesh). At any rate, Marduk’s relationship with Ishtar was not clearly defined. We have also seen that Anu too had ambiguous relations with the goddess. In some Old Babylonian hymns she appears as his official consort (Thureau-Dangin 1925), and in one Late Babylonian text he elevates her from a state of divine concubinage to his official wife (Hruška 1969). We know from Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions that he had a wooden bed made for Marduk, ‘covered with gold and precious stones’, For the delicious bed of my Lord and Lady, To perform the marital task, to make love (Matsushima 1988:100) The same text specifies that this bed was to be installed in the temple of S.arpa-nitu, the KÁ. HI. LI. SÙ, or the ‘House of Passion’. So Marduk, like other Babylonian and Assyrian gods, enjoyed an active love-life with his consort. However, according to these ritual texts, he also carried on an affair with Ishtar. But unlike Anu, Marduk does not make Ishtar his official wife; she remains the concubine. The ritual seems to be built around a triangular affair, with S. arpa- nitu playing the role of the wronged wife who insults her rival, while Ishtar is the seductive woman flaunting her sexual attraction. Edzard (1987:50–70) has suggested that the texts may represent a dramatized ritual against a sexual rival. Ishtar represents, as often in the late texts, the marginal part, the socially inferior position of the legally underprivileged concubine. But at the same time she stands again for the irresistible power of sex-appeal (kuzbu), which no social sanctions can ultimately constrict. S. arpa- nîtu takes on the role Hera plays in the Homeric tales, that of the legal wife who resents incursions into her domain. Between the two women, or goddesses, Marduk’s role is limited, and his voice seems mainly addressed to Ištar, like an echo or refrain. But he is the object of their quarrel. ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) Garden of Priapus - 228 More Boss lady and a friend sodomizing her husband One divergence with the text below: Harimtu or sacred prostitute is not a low class occupation - from distant ages the Harimtu were the noblemen of Ancient Babylon - female phallic noblemen ... " .. Much of the text is taken up with references to the ritual, which involves assinnus and kurgarrûs, part of Ištar’s cult personnel, who apparently were to chant the dialogues, but who are also responsible for the ritual performance. The ritual itself is called a ‘ritual of lament’ (riksu ša sipitti). Unlike the balag lamentations, which were recited in Sumerian, these are in Akkadian and there is no indication that the kurgarrûs were using Sumerian either. As Edzard points out, there is a refrain that poignantly contrasts the riksi ša S.arpa-nîtu, the ‘lament of S. arpa- nîtu’, with the mîlula-ti ša Marduk, the ‘pleasures of Marduk’. ‘[The ritual], the ritual of lament. She is totally dejected (so Edzard 1987:60). She was preferred to me, so I heard, to make love with’. ‘[I bemoaned] S.arpa-nîtu, does she sleep in (her) cella (while) Bel (Marduk) is on the roof? of Bel...[ ] “.....you are for me a little thing one can have for money. 8 My ...Together with the pleasant breeze. “You, whoever you are, You, whatever be your name, you kept going to my husband’s Place; So it is (none other than) [you] the ‘mother’, Ištar of Babylon, The pretty one, queen of the Babylonians, So you are (then) the (good) mother, the palmtree, a carneol, The most beautiful among the most beautiful, Whose appearance is just so alluring, Who is quite used up—and is still supposed to be beautiful?”’ (IV, 18–22; Edzard 1987:62) [. .] as in the month of D’uzu, the...th day.’ (BM 41107 obv. 1–6) This is the beginning of a large ritual tablet. It may set out the position of the main characters in a ritual that takes place at night or the evening, with S.arpa-nîtu being asleep inside the temple and Marduk going to the roof, where he meets Ištar, while S.arpa-nîtu gives vent to her feelings of betrayal and hatred for her rival. There is a large gap in the text, then the second column takes up with many succinct and often incomprehensible instructions for the priests. ‘Give the concubine water [to drink . .’ Edzard suggested that, given we take S.arpa-nîtu again to be the main speaker, her demand for a drink for her rival may well contain a wish for her to be poisoned (Edzard 1987:63). At any rate the phrase occurs throughout the text. There seems to be a fair amount of movement from one temple to the other, e.g. ‘I will arise and take the road to Cutha. Babylon, seal...[ ] “You are the mother, Ištar of Babylon”, “To the garden of your lover when . .” “When S.arpa-nîtu, full of jealousy, climbs up to the ziggurat”. Past the dais of the Anunnaki, (along) to the street of Eturkalamma up to the (...–) garden [ ] The Lady (=S.arpa-nîtu) passes through the ‘Gate of My Lady’ and will. .[ ] S.arpa-nîtu goes down to the garden and keeps calling for the gardener, “Gardener, gardener, . .[ ] what is the plant you have for my (female) friend S.arpa-nîtu to the garden. .[ ]” (obv.Bii, 2–16; Edzard 1987:64) Maybe the gardener knows the right plant for the wronged wife; on the other hand, she may try to find an aphrodisiac for her own use. The text remains ambiguous. We have also seen that the garden is often no real garden, but a metaphor for the body, or sexual congress. The ‘pleasant breeze’ comes up again and there is mention of ‘the wifehood of sinful and despicable women’ (Edzard 1987:65) and the rubric says That this is (what takes place) on the 4th day at noon and in the evening in the street of Eturkalamma at the river. After more instructions, interspersed with short quotations, or probably only the opening words of a song or speech to be performed, we come to the following section: ‘...Facing the Akîtu of Šarrat-Nippuri she will stand and .... from the Akîtu to the city gate of Uraš. “Into your vulva, in which you set such great store, I shall make a (guard-)dog enter and will tie shut the door.” “Into your vulva, in which you set such great store, instead precious stones before your face(?).” “O vulva of my girl-friend, why do you keep doing that?” “O vulva of my girl-friend, the whole district of Babylon is seeking a rag.”9 “Two-finger genitals,10 why do you keep making trouble?” He/She will. . and will depart from the city gate and facing Hursagkalamma the kurgarrû will kneel and recite prayers and utter his chants. He will arise and sing, ‘let me see great Kish, let me look on lofty Babylon’, (etc.) (obv.iii, 5–14) To us it seems incredible that such words should be said in a public religious ceremony, but the specific instructions on the tablet leave no doubt that this was indeed the case. They appear to be spoken on behalf of the aggrieved wife, S.arpa-nîtu. As in the ‘love-song’ quoted above, S. arpa- nîtu addresses her rival, here sarcastically called ‘girlfriend’, to revile her as whore. I leave it to the reader’s imagination to ‘translate’ the passage into suitably offensive idioms: ‘O vulva of my girl-friend, the whole district of Babylon is seeking a rag [To] wipe your vulva, to wipe your vagina. [Now] let him/her say to the women of Babylon: “The women will not give her a rag to wipe her vulva, to wipe her vagina.” [Into] your vulva, in which you set such great store, instead of.... before your face, Set you [ ] before you, sniff the smell of cattle. Like something not mended by the tailor, like something not soaked by the laundrymen. Into your vulva into which you set such great store, I will make a guard-dog enter and will tie shut the door. I will make a dog enter and will tie shut the door, I will make a hahhuru-bird enter it and it will nest. Whenever I leave or enter I will give order to my (fem.) hahhuru-birds, “Please, my dear hahhuru-bird, Do not approach the.... Ditto, the reek of armpits.’ (LKA 92, 4–17) This particular passage is followed by one addressing Ištar as the ‘beautiful one, the queen of Babylon, a palm of carnelian’. Elsewhere in the text we hear that these are indeed the rituals of S. arpa- nîtu: ‘Pleasure of Marduk, Laments of S.arpa-nîtu, In the ritual of S.arpa-nîtu By night there is not a good housewife, By night there is not a good housewife, By night a married woman creates no difficulty.11 I am a...for S.arpa-nîtu, My hair is flowing and my hands... In my hostility (?) to Ištar of Babylon For shade or open air I have covered my side. These women—so long as he does wrong My hair is flowing and my hands... These women—so long as he is despised- For shade and open air you have covered my side. She who is present...a doll, You (masc.sg.) hold back in everything that is not sound. You are the good housewife—create a family; You (fem.) are the fool—process wool.’ (Lambert 1975b:109, lines 3–20) It is not clear who is speaking here, but both Marduk and S. arpa- nîtu are named at the beginning. Is the goddess here trying to assert her marital rights? The passage is generally obscure, although the line about the hostile attitude to Ištar is typical of S. arpa- nîtu . Does Ištar utter the last two lines, sarcastically telling the wife to be content within the confines of family life? There is also a curious fragment that concerns a vulva, probably Ištar’s: ‘Together with the pleasant breeze... It is cut off... In your vulva is hon[ey(?)] In its recesses . . Rub my seeder plough with oil. . That which is not pleasant of [your] vulva... The sailor of [your] vulva . . The cook of [your] vulva . . The basket-maker of [your] vulva . . The lizard of [your] vulva . . The gecko of your vulva . . The cat of your vulva . . The mouse of your vulva . . (Lambert 1975b:113, lines 1–13) In another tablet a ‘boat of pleasure’ (gišmaqurri s. i-ha-at) is described in highly technical but possibly ambiguous language, after all the vulva of Inanna was also compared to a boat. So far I have not attempted to piece together all these fragments into a sequence of events, and until other texts with more substantial information are found the rituals of S. arpa- nîtu will remain enigmatic. However, it is clear that the rivalry between the official wife and the lover constitute a ritual theme. This is interesting in itself as it poses the question: what could have been the purpose of a ritual that addresses the sexual jealousy of the spouse? Did it appeal to the emuqti, the good housekeeper who sees her husband’s attention diverted to other women? Was S.arpa-nîtu a sort of patron deity of spurned wives? Does the ritual in fact succeed in banishing the extraordinary sexual attractiveness of Ištar? Or does it rather reflect on Marduk’s erotic prowess, who reduces the great Ištar to a mere ‘girlfriend’ and concubine? Another possibility is the exaltation of Ištar as the Concubine, intrinsically related to Ištar the Harlot. There is an interesting Late Babylonian legal document that records the hire of a ‘slave of Ištar’ for the purpose of becoming the concubine of some man (Dandamaev 1984). It is possible that the huge growth of the city during the neo-Babylonian period, together with economic instability, produced a social climate which fostered the commercialization of sexual services. Ištar’s ‘image’ or sexual persona might serve as an indicator of socio-economic circumstances, an idea which I cannot substantiate with any data. Another possible explanation for these rites might be to see them as travesties of the ‘straight’ haddašutu, the ritual of harmonious conjugal love that we know was celebrated for Nabû and Tašmetu, and also for Maduk and S. arpa- nîtu. A possible clue for this hypothesis is the prominent role of the assinnus and kurgarrûs, who represent deviance and liminality in sexual matters and social norms. Here they seem to have been given free rein to stage an elaborate charade, involving the great Bel himself, his august wife and of course their patron deity Ištar. One could imagine that such a wild spectacle had a certain cathartic social function, allowing an outlet for represssed frustration and rage. It seems a characteristic trait of Mesopotamian civilization to cater for deviance, even institutionalize it to some degree, as the role of the kurgarrûs etc. suggests. There is an interesting text from the very late, Arsacid period, an administrative temple document, which could possibly refer to the ‘jealousy’ rituals (Hibbert 1985). It mentions the ‘restless pacing to and fro before my lord’ and a ‘juniper garden’ around Eturkalama, Ištar’s temple in Babylon; the kurgarrûs and assinnus are equally involved here. The misnamed ‘love-lyrics’ remain at present enigmatic, but they point to a polarization of interest between the claims of legitimate relationships and anarchic passion. They also show that chagrin d’amour now affects the gods as well. The love incantation has, at this stage, reached the realm of mythology. Now the great gods need them too.... " Garden of Priapus - 229 The Greco-Roman phallus - Apollo Citharoedus. As noted by Plato above the sexual active partner in the ancient world was the female. In Sumeria it was even more pronounced - the phallus was absent altogether with all focus on the vulva. The modern tech world has gone even further - both phallus and vulva are missing ... That's the world of the sun dragon temple I saw in a recent dream. CG Jung touches on this in his book "Flying Saucers" - the humans are unable to communicate with the solar intelligence and its energy recedes back into the depths of the unconscious psyche: " ... ERECTING THE PHALLUS: ENKI AND CREATION Instead of presenting the available cuneiform sources on sexuality and eroticism in Mesopotamian literature in chronological order, I have found it useful to divide the material according to its content, and furthermore into a group of those texts that deal with the male perspective and those that express primarily the feminine experience. The former is the subject of several fairly long and complex narratives, the latter is mainly found in the poetic repertoire. Both perspectives are represented by a paradigmatic mythological figure: Enki and the goddess Inanna. Enki is the only Mesopotamian deity with explicit phallic characteristics, although one must remember that phallicism never flourished in this culture the way it did after the Aryan invasion of India, or even in Pharaonic Egypt or classical antiquity. The relative rarity of phallic symbolism is also evident in the archaeological remains, where nude male figures or phallic symbols are comparatively rarer than naked females and depictions of the vulva. Inanna, though as complex a mythic personality as Enki, retained her unequivocal association with eroticism in spite of periodical shifts of emphasis in the texts, while Enki’s phallic associations were decidedly more in evidence in Sumerian literature than in Akkadian texts, where his counterpart Ea was mainly revered for his wisdom and magic power. ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) Garden of Priapus - 230 Modern day Apollo Citharoesus - Maybe that was the Roman way to ignite the male ass chakra and the female ass chakra too - the female phallus and the male penis cage ... I'm sure that's what was happening to every Sumerian king in the "passion room" of the roof of every major Ziggurat - an encounter with the phallus of a Harimtu * In this encounter between Dumuzi and Inanna - Inanna plays the male part and demands Dumuzi's fidelity. She also uses a female version of Dumuzi - Dumuzi-Abzu which has caused confusion. My interpretation is from the garden of Priapus - Inanna is asking for the ripe "fruit" of the anus of Dumuzi-Abzu: " ... There is also a highly erotic dialogue which Jacobsen (1987a:97) dubbed the ‘Tavern Sketch’. In deference to the notion of the Sacred Marriage, this was originally interpreted as a confrontation between Inanna and Dumuzi, where the latter is punished by death for the ensuing hubris (Falkenstein 1953:61–2; Kramer 1969; Alster 1985:159–60). Alster (1985:3), while denying the explicit connection with Inanna and Dumuzi, saw the threat and death-penalty applying to the ‘stranger’ from out of town who visits the inn, Jacobsen (1987b:50) called it a ‘crude low-life piece’ in which ‘a stranger, after an evening in the ale-house, makes a play for the tapstress, a plea full of beery sentimentality’. In order to win her confidence, however, he must swear that he is not an enemy. ‘The oath she proposes, the kind taken while touching the genitals of the person to whom one swears, is here clearly an erotic ploy’ (ibid., 50). Sefati (1990) accepted the idea that an oath-taking is involved, but saw it as an oath of chastity that the lover is made to swear to the ‘tapstress’ not to have sex with other women. Alster’s new translation (forthcoming) goes a step further in specifying that the lover’s oath pertains to the period the man had spent away from the woman, in another town. The following translation is based on Alster’s. The first 11 lines are spoken by a man, who addresses his ‘beloved sister’; there are numerous amorous endearments, which are awkward to translate—it helps to imagine them whispered, as the tone is one of extreme intimacy: ‘O my lubi, my lubi, my lubi, My labi, my la[bi, my labi], my honey of the mother who gave birth to her My juicy grape, my honey sweet, my her-mother’s honey- mouth, The glance of your eye delights me, come, my beloved sister, The words of your mouth delight me, come, my beloved sister, Kissing your lips delights me, come, my beloved sister! O my sister, the beer of your grain is delicious, my her- mother’s honey-mouth, The gumeze beer of your wort is delicious, come, my beloved sister, In your house, your passion..., [come] my beloved sister, Your house is...a storehouse, my her-mother’s honey-mouth.’ The next 20 lines contain the woman’s response, but as it is not written in the Emesal dialect, opinions are divided as to where his speech ends and hers begins. ‘You, prince, my [brother of fairest face(?)] Swear to me, that when you dwelt, when you dwelt, Brother, swear to me that, when you dwelt in the out-lying town, Swear to me that a stranger did not touch (you) by the hand, Swear to me that a stranger did not approach (?) (you) by mouth(?)! My one who lifts the thin(?) gown off my vulva for me, My beloved, man of my choice, [for you(?)], let me prepare what belongs to the oath for you, my brother of fairest face. My brother of fairest face, let me prepare what belongs to the oath for you: May you put your right hand in my vulva, With your left stretched towards my head, When you have neared your mouth to my mouth, When you have taken my lips into your mouth, Thus you swear the oath to me, So it is, dragon (?) of women, my brother of fairest face! My blossom-bearer, my blossom-bearer, your charms are sweet! My blossom-bearing garden of apple-trees, your charms are sweet! My fruit-bearing garden of mes-trees, your charms are sweet, Dumuzi-Abzu herself! Your charms are sweet, My pure figurine, my pure figurine, your charms are sweet, Alabaster figurine, tied with lapis-lazuli ornament, your charms are sweet.’ I have mentioned the different current interpretations of the oath- taking above. I believe that Jacobsen’s view of it as an ‘erotic ploy’, as well as the desired confirmation of the temporarily absent lover’s faithfulness, are relevant here. Alster also noted that it ‘remains amazing that the oath is requested of the lover, and not of the girl’. I would suggest that within the context of the man’s departure, her anxiety about his conduct is perfectly natural, and that secondly, the theme of women competing for the sole attention of the man is common in Sumerian poetry—as we shall see later, we have evidence for the expression of female jealousy, but not of men doubting the fidelity of their mistresses or wives. The fact that the man has been away provides us with a scenario for this dialogue: the intimate reunion of the couple, a form of poetic pillow-talk. By referring to the formal gestures of oath-taking she invites her beloved to touch and kiss her, to initiate their lovemaking, to prove by his ardour that he still appreciates her after his absence. Lines 27–32 have so far been taken as the woman’s praise of his manly charm (‘my blossom-bearer’..., etc.). Jacobsen (1987b:62) took all the imagery here to refer to the male member. But I prefer to read these lines as if they were spoken by the man, in praise of her parts, a sort of eulogy of the vulva, and I would propose the following reading: ‘O my blossoming one, my blossoming one—your sex-appeal (or: voluptuousness) is sweet, O my fruiting one in the orchard—your sex-appeal is sweet, O Dumuzi-abzu, herself—your sex-appeal is sweet, (it is) my pure “pin” (Sumerian dìm), my holy “pin”—your sex-appeal is sweet, (it is) my shining ‘ornament’ set in lapis lazuli—your sex- appeal is sweet.’ Dumuzi-abzu cannot be taken to be an epithet for Dumuzi, as she clearly was a female deity, part of the Lagaš pantheon. I would also see the dìm and the ‘fruiting of the orchard’ as a clitorial metaphor, and the dìm giš-nu11-gal suh za-gìn keš-da as an image for the vulva. Although the choice of metaphors is to our sensibility more suggestive of phallic connotations, something which most of the (male) translators have been quick to perceive, the fact that Sumerian love poetry is almost wholly gynocentric, and that the references to male anatomy or enjoyment are almost totally absent (with the exception of the bridal context, where the role of the man as deflorator is given some prominence), we should be careful of assigning such meanings. If we accept that this fictional reunion eavesdrops on the lovers, it would also make better poetic sense to have the lover greet his woman-friend and affirm his continuing delight in her company. Then we have her response and the highly effective oath-ceremony which must have elicited appreciative applause from its audience, and finally his praise of her physical charms and sex- appeal, which was already indicated in his previous speech. As for the setting of the ‘tavern’, I would see that entirely as a figure of speech, with, as Alster again affirms, clear references to her state of arousal. It is certainly ‘secular’ as opposed to ‘religious’ in Falkenstein’s or Kramer’s understanding; and its setting is vague. However, imagery and content place it among the other courtly love-songs of the late UrIII period, and the ‘low-life’ aspect is quite inappropriate to do justice to the highly wrought artifice of seduction. ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) at 128 Garden of Priapus - 231 More Boss lady and a black ass - Rare in erotica - that's the American "Me" - currently blocked up though * Who were the Sumerians? The present day consensus is a mix of Jewish and Arab - but more Hebrew. But my intuition is the base Sumerian culture is black African - I recognised some words in Sumerian the other day - connective Bantu words found in Swahili and Kikuyu. The association with the Jews is really from later Semitic or Akkadian layers - Nimrod has traditionally been depicted as black - and Abraham was also probably black. My inner image of Abraham is not semitic - the image is black African! Like the Sabaeans of Yemen - there were once black African colonies stretching far into Asia and the Pacific - the whole of Pacific Melananesia is black. " ... It is only some hundred and sixty years ago that the modern world rediscovered the tangible remains of Assyria and Babylon. Since then, archaeologists and epigraphists, historians and linguists have been evaluating the reality of Mesopotamian civilization. Through a fortunate historical coincidence, the discovery of a trilingual rock-inscription on the Iranian hills, the key to the decipherment of Akkadian was achieved almost simultaneously (1851 by Rawlinson). Layard’s find of the remains of Ashurbanipal’s great library, with its useful lists of signs, words, synonyms, etc. considerably furthered the advancement of epigraphy. The understanding of Akkadian texts is to some extent helped by the fact that the language is part of the Semitic group, and shares grammatical structures and vocabulary with related languages such as Hebrew and Arabic. The situation is quite different in respect to Sumerian, which has no discernible relation to any known language. We still have to some degree to rely on the attempts by ancient Akkadian grammarians to make sense of the Sumerian texts, as they provided the indispensable bilingual texts and lexical lists. The study of Akkadian has therefore progressed further and more rapidly. At the present time, the dictionary project undertaken by the University of Chicago is nearing completion for the Assyrian dictionary, while work on the Sumerian dictionary will continue until well into the next century. There is also no absolute agreement yet over the grammatical description of Sumerian, and the interpretation of literary texts is by no means unanimous ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) - at page 1. Garden of Priapus - 232 More Boss lady and a black ass - The vulva reigns supreme in Sumeria - but the female phallus seems to be invisible to modern Sumerian scholars. - Sumerian daughters - as well as Egyptian, Greek and Roman daughters inherited their "Me" - the female phallus from their fathers. The father's penis was caged by the mother, but the alpha daughter or queen usually inherits it after the mother leaves the scene * In this scene, Inanna tricks her drunken father Enki into releasing his Me to her - The text is goods and services - but the real meaning is probably Enki's caged phallus ... " ... In the erotic love poetry the state of arousal is signalled by references to the vulva’s ‘wetness’, as we have seen in the bridal text quoted above: ‘My vulva is wet, [my vulva is wet], I, the queen of heaven, [my vulva is wet], Let the man on top [put his hand] on my vulva, Let the potent man [put his] hand on my vulva.’ (Alster 1993:20) or, as in this balbal song to Nanaya, where she addresses her lover: ‘Do not dig a [canal], let me be your canal, Do not plough [a field], let me be your field, Farmer, do not search for a wet place, My precious sweet, let me be your wet place!’ (Alster 1975) Alster proposed that ‘beer is used as a metaphor for the moisture of the woman’s genitals’ when it is said that ‘like beer her vulva is sweet’ (Alster 1993:19), although the references to sweetness may refer more specifically to taste, as in this passage: ‘Like her mouth, her vulva is sweet’ (Alster 1985:133) ... which raises the question whether these lines should be understood as references to cunnilingus. There is no conclusive evidence that such a practice was taboo. It would appear that if female sexuality was taken seriously, as these texts certainly suggest, then oral sex could hardly have been excluded. Inanna’s organ is often called úr-ku(g) (‘the holy lap’), ku(g) is an adjective that is also applied to Inanna herself, as well as to numerous other deities, temples, places and artefacts, and it is usually translated as ‘pure’, ‘holy’; the opposite of ku(g) is KUG-AN=azag (‘taboo’, ‘(ritually) unclean’; also ‘demonic’ and ‘dangerous’). It is well known from anthropological literature that genitals are associated with power and are subject to all kinds of regulations and prescriptions, and it is curious that there is very little material on this subject in Sumerian sources. The notion had much greater currency in the later second and first millennia, especially in connection with magic. The apotropaic use of genitals or genital symbols is well documented from many parts of the world: one need only think of the Sicilian fica or the Celtic Sheilag-na-gig. Inanna’s vulva is a pars pro toto for the goddess herself as deity of sexuality. This is also borne out by the countless figurines and terracotta models of female nudes found all over the ancient Near East and the vulva-shaped votive offerings which were deposited in the temples of Ištar as the most appropriate ex-voto. Finally, to conclude this chapter there is literary myth from the Isin—Larsa period, which has Inanna use her vulva, or rather the power associated with it, to further the prestige and divine status of her city Uruk (Farber-Flügge 1973). The very beginning is fragmentary, but it does state that ‘her vulva was admirable’ (gal4-la-ni u6-didam) and that ‘she spoke confidently to herself, pleased with her vulva’. Then she plans her actions: she will bestow all manner of graces upon the en (or Uruk?) and then she will set foot in Eridu and speak words of flattery to Enki. Enki, however, in his ‘wide understanding’, is aware of Inanna’s intentions. He instructs his minister Isimud to receive the Maid Inanna with customary welcome, offering her cakes, cool water and beer. Later he joins her himself, and they drink beer and wine together until Enki becomes quite intoxicated. Under the dual influence of drink and Inanna’s charm, he begins to hand over to her one by one the me he has in his possession. These include a variety of trades and professions, cult offices and ritual implements, as well as aspects of human behaviour (disputes, lying, slander, peacemaking, reverence, hard work, but also kissing, copulating, prostitution, etc.). The list is enumerated several times in the text. When Enki recovers from the effects of the beer, he discovers that the me are missing. Isimud tells him how Inanna had loaded them all on to the ‘boat of heaven’ and is on the way to Uruk. Enki sends him out with the command to stop the ‘boat of heaven’ with the help of various demonic forces, but Inanna is able to repel them all and get the boat with the me safely to Uruk. The final part of the text is fragmentary; there is a confrontation between Inanna and Enki and some other god who probably mediates between them. In his commentary on this composition (Alster 1975), Alster concentrated on the sexual aspect. Crucial to his argument is his interpretation of Enki’s relationship with Inanna. Since she persistently calls him ‘a-a’ (‘father’), and he addresses her as ‘dumu’ (‘child’), Alster concluded that Enki was ‘presumably her father’ and that ‘the pattern of the myth is a violation of the sexual taboo’, namely that of incestuous temptation: Inanna purposely set out to ‘enchant Enki’, being as she is ‘endowed with enormous sexual attraction’. He also restored some of the fragmentary lines towards the end of the composition with a curse of Enki, in which ‘the vulva of certain women shall be crushed’. Inanna was, as we have seen, usually called the daughter of the moon-god Nannar. There are passages in other texts (notably Inanna’s Descent), where she also speaks to Enki as her father. This could be a term of respect towards an older person, as Farber-Flügge pointed out. While we cannot be absolutely certain as to what the poet intended by this use of the kinship terminology, it is worth considering whether the subject of incest is necessary to the understanding of the work. Inanna sets out to get something belonging to another deity and another city. She trusts in her feminine charm, epitomized by her ‘astonishing vulva’, and travels to Eridu in her má-an-na, the ‘boat of heaven’, which is also sometimes used as a metaphor for her genitals. The alcohol Enki serves in the course of the banquet does the rest. (Inanna also has affinities with beer and the premises where it was consumed, as we shall see later.) She also uses a very efficient spell, which is repeated seven times to repel the demonic hosts of Enki, although the exact meaning is still unclear: ‘Water did not touch your hand, water did not touch your foot.’ There may be a sort of magic contest going on between Enki and Inanna, between the power of the vulva and the power of the phallus, along the lines of the contest in the Enmerkar epics, but more subliminal. The final outcome is at present impossible to determine, although the stylistic closeness of the text to other compositions of the UrIII period (Farber-Flügge 1973:20–34) seem to speak in favour of a positive outcome for Inanna. ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) at 93 Garden of Priapus - 233 Boss lady mounting her husband "To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna" * Innana's theft of Enki's me meant that women were free to have sex outside marriage - In Rome at the time of Augustus this was expected and tolerated by the state - the classic example being the sexually voracious Julia the daughter of the chaste emperor. The penis cage meant that the sex drive of Roman women was much stronger than Roman men. In Greece the ‘hetaira’ continued this practice throughout Alexander's Greek empire - especially in Syria and Egypt. The reign of Marduk seems not to have ended the practice of polyandrous Innana sex: The missing key is the Fibula or penis cage: Greco-Roman marriage - like the Inanna marriage of Babylon was the transfer of the key to the husband's penis cage to the wife - It was symbolically and literally true that the man became the woman and the woman the phallic and sexually voracious man: The Roman man was "bonded and belted" by his wife who attained control of phallic activities in the marriage. * " ... It is not always possible to locate an erotic cuneiform text in a particular social or ritual situation. The persistent obsession of Assyriologists with the Sacred Marriage meant that practically every text with a sexual content was considered to refer to the goddess’ wedding. This overemphasis of a marital context needs to be redressed. I have tried to show that the key-texts concerning the Sumerian king’s relationship with Inanna do not constitute a marriage ceremony. In fact, the marital paradigm is only partially relevant for the sexual affinities described in Mesopotamian literature. ... Terminology is a problem here, as modern languages lack a suitable vocabulary for such persons. ‘Prostitute’ evokes contemporary social conditions and morals; ‘harlot’ rings with biblical and ecclesiastical disapproval; ‘hetaira’ has a specific socio-historical context; and ‘courtesan’ has (etymologically, at least) an aristocratic association (and I have used it for such women in this study). The word ‘hierodule’ was often used by classically educated Assyriologists familiar with Herodotus, to render Sumerian words (nugig, nu-bar and lukur) which were translated in the bilingual lexical and other texts by Akkadian expressions for ‘common prostitute’ (kezertu, harimtu, šamhatu) as well as on occasion by titles for temple employees (naditu, kulmašitu, qadištu). This apparent contradiction between the secular aspect and the religious association was solved by the invention, with a nod to cross-cultural parallels in ancient Greece or India, of the term ‘sacred prostitute’. Like the ‘sacred marriage’, the ‘sacred prostitute’, who engages in sex as a magical rite in the context of some fertility cult or officiates in the rites of Inanna/Ištar, belongs to the ‘Golden Bough’ school of historical anthropology. In a recent survey of the evidence, Lambert noted that while ‘most of these titles have etymologically some implication of religious office...some [women bearing them] at least, and in some areas and period, served as common prostitutes’ (Lambert 1991:141). Georges Bataille (1987:133) remarked that prostitution seems to have been a complement to marriage in the first place. The prostitute was dedicated to a life of transgression. The sacred or forbidden aspect of sexual activity remained apparent in her, for her whole life was dedicated to violating the taboo. Religion, far from opposing prostitution, was able to control its modalities as it could with other sorts of transgression. The prostitutes in contact with sacred things, in surrounding themselves sacred, had a sacredness comparable with that of priests. ... ... It seems that in Mesopotamia, where all sexual behaviour was under the auspices of Inanna/Ištar, sexual acts outside marriage could be condoned and to some extent institutionalized. The goddess is linked with prostitution in several compositions. The long list of Inanna’s me, the divine prerogatives she obtained from Enki (Farber- Flügge 1973) includes the following which relate specifically to sexuality: The standard, the quiver, the wielding of the penis, the kissing of the penis, the art of prostitution, the art of speeding as well as the art of forthright speech, the art of slanderous speech, the art of ornamental speech,—?—, the cult prostitute, the holy tavern (I, v, 29–32) The ‘standard’ and ‘quiver’ are obvious metaphors for penis and vagina; then follows the masculine sexual activity and possibly a reference to fellatio, nam-kar-kid is the standard term for prostitution. The second group has something to do with different kinds of utterances or discourse; ‘scandalous speech’ would fit better than ‘slanderous’; amalu, here rendered as ‘cult prostitute’, is a component sign consisting of ama+dInanna; its proximity to the next term (dam) suggested the translation. We shall come back to the éš-dam below Some of the items of this list seem to belong to the more controversial aspects of sexuality, which will be discussed in a separate chapter. Inanna is identified with libido: You are Inanna (who) in the streets of Kullab make (people) copulate. (Benito 1969: line 364) As a ki-sikil, Inanna lent her name to adolescent sentiments, and the bride was encouraged to identify with this particular aspect of the goddess’s ‘sexual persona’, as the inspiration for conjugal happiness. But the texts also demonstrate that, ultimately, though such an archetypal bride, Inanna was not a ‘proper’ wife: When the cattle has been set loose on the hills, When the cows and sheep are returned to the pen and fold, My queen, you disguise yourself, you put on your neck the pearls of the harlot. From the éš-dam you fetch men. From the lap of Dumuzi, your husband, you sneak away, to make love to your seven nimgir (Alster 1974:84) You are the one who picks up a man in the éš-dam, from the lap of your spouse Dumuzi you sneak away (Ibid.: 84) The prostitute (kar-kid), setting out for the éš-dam, who makes the bed delicious (Volk 1989:219) who says of herself: When I sit by the gate of an inn (éš-dam), I am indeed a prostitute who makes love Lambert suggested that the term kar-kid might be understood to mean ‘she who works the quay’ (Lambert 1991:138, 157), the ancient equivalent of roadsides, as the rivers and canals provided the main means of transport between cities. The word is already attested in Early Dynastic sources and has no religious connotations. This secular aspect of the profession is also born out by the Akkadian equivalents (šamhatu, harimtu, kezertu). kar-kid is not one of Inanna’s official titles, unlike the more ambiguous term nu-gig, which was used by royal wives in the Early Dynastic period and may originally have been the title of a high office. When Inanna abandons the lap of her husband for sexual adventures she goes to the classic locale, the éš-dam, the ‘tavern’, where barley beer was offered. This is described as ‘a place of relaxation, (for) the joy of drinking’ which makes ‘the heart happy again’ (Civil 1976:89). Inanna is the one ‘who frequents the éš- dam’ to pick up customers. There was also an éš-dam-kù, ‘the holy éš-dam’, which seems to refer to one of Inanna’s sanctuaries in Girsu. Hallo and van Dijk (1968:74) surmised that the term originally referred to a temple of Inanna, but that it later came to signify a ‘brothel’. In the absence of relevant earlier, third-millennium texts that substantiate whether or not the éš-dam had anything to do with sexual activity, such pronouncements remain speculative. All we can say is that at the period these texts were written, (during the Old Babylonian period), the éš-dam was associated with alcohol and sex. ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) at 161 Garden of Priapus - 234 More Cuban, Mentule and whip and OG or old guy soldier. Shot blocked. Used workaround - Rome was under the spell of the adolescent Anat - the Vestals retired around 35 years old. Just Anat though - her brother and lover Ba'al was killed ... - Anat is the final iteration of the Sumerian Inanna - and her most militaristic too ... As I said before the floggings the early christians were going through were probably a version of what Roman men could expect from the Roman wife. - Thats probably a capsule summary of Cybele and her castrated Attis - Late Roman emperors were going all the way in their Cybele worship - The famous Cybele orgies can only have been Amazon on male anal sex - The Priapea lays it all out - Attis would then be the dying and resurrected Ba'al ... The resurrected Attis regains his penis though - he's the angel of winter on the seasons sacrcophagus on page 59 of thie website * " ... KYBELE (Cybele) was the great Phrygian mother of the gods, and goddess of motherhood, fertility and the mountain wilds. Her orgiastic cult dominated the central and north-western regions of Anatolia and was introduced to Greece via the island of Samothrake and the Boiotian town of Thebes. Kybele was identified with a number of Greek goddesses including Rheia (in mainland Greece), Demeter (in Samothrake), Aphrodite (on Mt Ida) and Artemis (in Karia). In sculpture she was depicted as a matronly woman with a turret-crown, seated on a throne flanked by lions. The Orgia (Orgiastic festivals) of the Phrygian Mother of the Gods were introduced to Greece by way the island of Samothrake. They were closely connected with the Orgies of the god Dionysos, whose Phrygian counterpart, Sabazios, was described as a son of the goddess. The Phrygian Orgia were overseen by eunuch priests called Gallai who led devotees in nocturnal mountain rites involving much drinking, and frantic dancing accompanied by the music of rattles, kettledrums, flutes and castenets and the ritual cry "evoe saboe," "hyes attes, attes hyes." Young men armed with shield and sword also performed the high-footed, shield-clashing Korybantic dance (which Greek legend described as the dance of the Kourete-protectors of the infant Zeus). The rites also involved ritual mutilation, ranging from flaggelation to the act of self-castration performed by the Gallai priests. The Orgies introduced into Greece and Rome were toned down somewhat to accomodate local sensibilities. ... " theoi Garden of Priapus - 235 19th dynasty Egyptian Anat - Queen Bintanath the daughter of Ramesses II and her daughter - "Queen Bintanath before a god, and her daughter before the goddess Nephtys in QV71. (Drawing based on scene recorded by Lepsius)." Wikipedia Shot blocked used workaround. Daughter and grand-daughter are nude - Egyptian women walked around naked. Their men were penis caged - the cause of the public eros! Granddaughter has the sidelock of youth - she was probably a Harpocrates - the phallic female Horus Garden of Priapus - 236 A nude Queen Bintanath with a whip stands in front of a giant statue of her father King Ramesses II Shot blocked used workaround. - Ramesses II is a giant but he is standing behind his naked daughter - who he married after his wife died "Anat is content" - as Ramesses would say! * " ... Bintanath (or Bentanath) was the firstborn daughter and later Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II. Bintanath was likely born during the reign of her grandfather Seti I. Her mother was Isetnofret, one of the two most prominent wives of Ramesses II. Her name is Semitic, meaning Daughter of Anath, referring to the Canaanite goddess Anath. .... Bentanath became Great Royal Wife around the 25th year of her father's reign. During her time as queen she held many titles including hereditary princess, the great first one (iryt-p`t-tpit-wrt), Lady of The Two Lands (nbt-t3wy), Great King’s Wife (hmt-niswt-wrt), Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt (hnwt-Shm’w -mhw), King’s Daughter (s3t-niswt), and eventually King’s Sister (snt-niswt). ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 237 More Namio Harukawa - Vulva service ... Shot blocked. Used workaround. A naked Queen Bintanath was probably asking the King the question Innana asked Dumuzi: "who will plow my vulva?" Probably during the annual festival of drunkeness ... And any other time she came into sexual heat. ... My guess is the Temple of Amun was the Egyptian version of the Sumerian éš-dam - or Amazon brothel * The other side of Anat - the erect phallus of Min and his lettuce - Lettuce plays a big part in Sumerian erotica - Min's erect phallus is not male! "... The final blessing, too, with the invocation of the gods, has a very official ring to it. But the allusions to the hair, though difficult to understand, and the quotation of praise for ‘the sweet vulva’, introduce a more intimate note. The contrast between the ‘private’ and the ‘official’ tone is even more pronounced in this text, again following Jacobsen’s translation: My ‘wool’ being lettuce he will water it, It being box-(grown) lettuce he will water it and touch the dubdub bird in its hole! My nurse has worked at me mightily, Has done my ‘wool’ up in a ‘stag’ (arrangement), Has gently combed it, And is straightening my ‘May He Come!’ (breast-shields).15 Let him come! Into my ‘wool’, it being the most pleasing of lettuces, I shall with arousing glances induce the brother to enter. I shall make Šu-Suen—all ready—show himself a lusty man, Šu-Suen, to whom my [allure] be without end! [Šu-Suen, whose allure to me] will [never cha]nge! (gap) You are truly our lord! You are truly our lord! Silver wrought with lapis lazuli! You are truly our lord! You are truly our farmer bringing in much grain! He being the apple of my eye, being the lure of my heart, may days of life dawn for him! May Šu-Suen [live long 120 (Jacobsen 1987a:93) Jacobsen explained some of the more obscure metaphors: ‘Wool and lettuce stand in these songs for pubic hair; watering the lettuce for sexual intercourse’ while he assumes that the rather obscure dubdub bird ‘serves apparently as a sobriquet of the clitoris’. I shall discuss the horticultural similies below; but this text is also interesting as it describes the woman’s preparation for her tête-à-tête: the complex hair-do and jewellery, but also the psychological anticipation (again in analogy to the Bridal Songs?). The woman seems to engage in some form of internal monologue while she gets ready to receive him, thus revealing her true intention to seduce him, while the lines actually addressed to ‘Šu-Suen’ are almost overly polite and respectful. The combination of the two make it into an amusingly erotic piece. Metaphors of fruit, lettuce and honey are ubiquitous in love poetry.16 Here is another song from Jacobsen’s collection: Vigorously he sprouted, vigorously he sprouted and sprouted, watered it—it being lettuce! In his black garden of the desert bearing much yield did my darling of his mother, My barley stalk full of allure in its furrow, water it—it being lettuce, Did my one—a very apple tree bearing fruit at the top—water it—it being a garden! The honey-sweet man, the honey-sweet man, was doing sweet (things) to me! My lord, the honey-sweet man, the godly one, my darling of his mother, His hands honey sweet, his feet honeying, was doing sweet (things) to me! His limbs being sweet, sweet honey, he was doing sweet things to me! O my one who of a sudden was doing sweet (things) to the whole (insides up) to the navel, my darling of his mother, My desert-honey loins, darling of his mother, you watered it —it being lettuce!’ (Jacobsen 1987a:94) The translation quoted here suggests that this is phrased like a reminiscence; in Kramer’s version (1963:508, 521) the tense is left more fluid, more like a commentary on present, past and future activity, which to my mind is more fitting. Here, all formal references to either courtly phraseology, or Bridal Songs, are dropped. I prefer to understand the whole as an erotic text that operates on double meaning, pushing the horticultural references to the limit, in order to convey a feminine perspective of sexuality. The first part in particular seems to refer to female genitals. This is conveyed better by Alster’s recent translation (1993:21): It sprouts, it sprouts, it is the lettuce he watered, In the garden of deep shade, bending down his neck, my darling of his mother, My one who fills the grain in their furrows with beauty, he watered, My apple tree bearing fruit at its top, it is the garden he watered. Even this version falls short of making the genital symbolism transparent. Subconscious androcentric perceptions often influence the understanding of such texts (see Winkler 1990:180ff.). In this case, there seems to have been more emphasis on the action of the phallus than the original justifies (note how Jacobsen uses the third- person masculine in the first lines!). I think that ‘it’ is the vulva, here compared to a leafy, fast-growing vegetable, which does not exactly ‘sprout’ but ‘swell’. The two translations differ in detail in line 2, but they also describe the vulva as a flourishing ‘garden’, ‘bearing much yield’. I would, furthermore, suggests that sa6-ga ama-na-mu, which Kramer paraphrased as ‘my favoured of the womb’, might be a reference to the clitoris in this context—literally ‘my (one which is) good/delicious/(part) of its mother’, namely the most important part of the whole. The following two lines stand in apposition: Alster’s ‘the grain in the furrow’ avoids the too phallic connotation conveyed by Jacobsen’s ‘barley stalk’. It is ‘filled with’ hi-li, also the source of sexual enjoyment—so I would read this line as: my barley-corn in the furrow, filled with sexual pleasure, he waters it. The last line summarizes the whole stanza, this time making the image clearly feminine in the context: A fruit tree bearing fruit at the top—such is the garden he waters. At first glance, it is suggestive of a phallic metaphor, and indeed often can be in a different context, such as the royal hymn mentioned above; but here the ‘garden’ is more appropriately seen as the vulva, with its ‘fruit’ at the top. The second part then goes on to describe what the ‘honey-sweet man’ does: ‘he sweetens me ever’. sa6-ga-ama-na-mu is used here again in line 6, following epithets of the man, and it seems to apply here to him rather than the bodily part, another instance of the possibility of several meanings, which is such a typical feature of love poetry. In the last two lines the orgasmic conclusion is described, with a possible reference to penetration—the whole ‘garden’ having been watered. I propose such a reading on the grounds that if one does assume a genital metaphor at all, it is much more in keeping with Sumerian attitudes to describe the vulva than the phallus. I have mentioned before that the latter was not significant as an erotic symbol, while the former is the subject of praise in various texts. Furthermore, the love poetry speaks particularly of woman’s pleasure, her body is the centre of attention, her vulva ‘astonishing’. This should be taken into account when this poetry is studied by a generation of scholars who might have heard of textual deconstruction. The lettuce, mentioned in these texts (hi-issar hassu) is probably Lactuta sativa. In Egypt it was the attribute of the fertility god Min, and the plant was regarded as an aphrodisiac (Rundle-Clark 1959:205; Lurker 1980:76). In Greek mythology the lettuce stands for potency, but also for impotence. In both instances the plant has phallic connotations, easily suggested by the elongated shape and the white sap. In the Sumerian texts it is generally associated with the female organ, and the metaphor is less obvious. Jacobsen thought it represented the pubic hair. Maybe the visual aspect is less important here, although the overlapping leaves and their texture, as well as the milky or clear sap, are quite evocative. Lettuces and similar fastgrowing vegetables, like cucumbers and melons, all of which were grown in Mesopotamian gardens, require frequent watering. I imagine that this association with water might also have contributed to the metaphorical range: the vulva, like lettuce, is said to need the ‘watering’. We have seen above that làl (‘honey’) is frequently used to describe sensual pleasure. The expression ‘to taste the honey-plant’ was a common euphemism for intercourse. Here the lover is equated with the sensation he brings—his very limbs are ‘honey’, but they ‘bring sweetness’, orgasmic enjoyment. The metaphor extends from activity (‘to do the sweet thing’) and personal attributes (‘whose limbs are honey’) to the location: The brother makes me enter his house, He made me lie on the honey-scented (or ‘flowing’) bed’ or (Alster 1993:22) This ‘honey’ was date-syrup rather than the bees’ product. I have to concede that we know nothing about the circumstances which may have prompted the composition of these songs. But I do believe that the references to king Šu-Suen are not as fortuitous as Alster suggests. The refined language, with all the resonances of courtly poetry, locate these texts very much in the royal entourage. Even though we cannot be certain of the fact that these songs were actually composed for royal concubines or educated courtesans, their content suggests the psychological premiss of such an origin. Sexual competition fostered by a polygynous household induces women to be inventive and resourceful in sexual and erotic matters.20 The courts at Ur and Isin were much given to flaunting their cultural sophistication, and in these circumstances it is not altogether surprising to find a highly developed aesthetics of eroticism, which is at odds with the straightforward treatment of sexuality in the myths. Lovemaking in these texts is not the spontaneous off-loading of libidinous urges. The young gods were said to copulate outdoors, wherever lust befell them, and they seemed to care little about their partners’ consent or pleasure, as long as their keen desire to impregnate was fulfilled. Here, things are quite different, as the man is no longer the unwed guruš, who has no legitimate outlet for his sexual energy. On the contrary, the beloved of these texts is the ‘husband’, or indeed the royal husband, who by dint of his social position has access to several women. In this context, he is the object of his wives’ rivalry. In practice, in truly polygamous marriages, where the wives have equal status, there is a rota-system, whereby the husband’s nightly visits are regulated (Fainzang 1988:91). In a more open system, where there are not only official first, second In the house where we sleep, where honey is made to flow, Let us enjoy your sweet sex-appeal 124 This ‘honey’ was date-syrup rather than the bees’ product. ... " Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature (1994) at 120 Garden of Priapus - 238 Young American Amazons whipping an OG or Old Guy in a barn. - That's a Chinese fetish too - the old guy and the young vixens. The Forbidden City was once run by a phallic women - "dragon ladies" and Eunuchs! - Daming up the male libido activates the female phallus. " ... Dragon Lady is usually a stereotype of certain East Asian and occasionally South Asian and or Southeast Asian women as strong, deceitful, domineering, mysterious, and often sexually alluring. Inspired by the characters played by actress Anna May Wong, the term comes from the female villain in the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. It has since been applied to powerful Asian women from certain regions of Asia, as well as a number of Asian and Asian American film actresses. The stereotype has generated a large quantity of sociological literature. "Dragon Lady" is sometimes applied to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. It is also used to refer to any powerful but prickly woman, usually in a derogatory fashion. ... " Wikipedia (July 5, 2021) Just had first dream image of Egyptian penis cage. Saw a woman tying up the phallus in a knot. Followed by second image of a female phallus emerging - I think that's related to the Sumerian lettuce or Min post above. Also had impression that the Min female phallus has not been seen in a long, long time - thousands of years ... The Egyptian female phallus may be missing but there is plenty of that from the Roman Empire - and the caging of the penis started very young - as in this image of a mother-daughter Apollo Citharoedus figure. Both mother and daughter have a phallus and are leaning on Priapus who directs the show Its shrouded in mystery but I am sure thats just a carbon copy of an ancient Egyptian archetype Garden of Priapus - 239 More young American Amazons whipping an OG in a barn. - "Dragon ladies" - the East Asian stereotype may be racist but it also has a grain of truth - some of the hottest BDSM femdom is east Asian! The power drive of the dragon lady is all we see today - the rough and hot femdom sex has disappeared into a forgotten and taboo past .... Garden of Priapus - 240 More young American Amazons whipping an OG in a barn. - The phallic Asian "dragon lady" is the companion of the Buddha! We just don't know it yet ... I began a sketch of this reality in the Konark Sun temple material on page 134 of this website - the Indian Devadasi's eventually evolved into phallic dragon ladies ... - My impression is the female phallus - besides pure pleasure has a spiritual component - maybe even untapped human potentials like Telepathy and action-at-a-distance or Telekinesis - All qualities that are assigned to witches unfortunately Garden of Priapus - 241 Another rare white amazon on black male sex scene: I think I have detected more Babylonian amazon on male sex in the garden - a match between the late Babylonian god of wisdom Nabu and the goddess Tashmetu - one of a long series of such female dominant pairings in Babylon - Nabu has his fruit "plucked" in the garden by the goddess Tashmetu as well as being bound and harnessed like a horse or a donkey: " ... Tašmetu, looking luxuriant, entered the bedroom, [Refrain] She closed her door, [putting in place] the bolt of lapis-lazuli. Refrain. She rinsed herself, climbed up, got on to the bed. Refrain. Into a bowl of lapis-lazuli, into a bowl of lapis-lazuli, her tears flow. Refrain. With a piece of red wool he(?) wipes away her tears. Refrain. Thither, ask, ask, question, question! Refrain. For what, for what, are you adorned, my(?) Tašmetu? Refrain. So that I may [go] to the garden with you, my Nabû. [Refrain] Let me go to the garden, to the garden and [to the Lord(?) Refrain] Let me go alone to the beautiful garden! Refrain. They did not place my throne among the counsellors. Refrain. May my eyes see the plucking of your (masc.) fruit. Refrain. May my eyes hear the twittering of your (masc.) birds! Refrain. Bind and harness (yourself) thither! Refrain. Bind your days to the garden and to the Lord! Refrain. Bind your nights to the beautiful garden! Refrain. Let my Tašmetu come with me to the garden. Refrain. Among the counsellors, her throne is foremost! Refrain. (Break of 4 lines) May her eyes behold the plucking of my fruit! [Refrain] May her ears listen to the twittering of my birds! [Refrain] May her eyes behold, her ears listen! [Refrain] [...] 12. Tablet of Budilu, the scribe . .’ (Livingstone 1989:35ff.) In comparison with the older dialogue between Muati and Nanâ this text employs a more flowery language, abounding in metaphorical descriptions that are not always obvious. An important motif is the ‘going to the garden’, which we often found in the Bridal Songs. On the strength of the imperatives in lines 22–3, Matsushima proposed to see this as a reference to the transport of the statues in some chariot to take them to the garden, where a divine marriage ceremony is to take place (Matsushima 1987:147f.). There is certainly a cultic context for this composition, with its prayer-like introduction, the mention of the incense burning in the sanctuary, etc. However, there is little to suggest that this was a wedding rite. The gods come together at some place, although it is not clear where. Tašmetu begins the dialogue by inviting Nabû to put on her earrings, and he reciprocates with a poetic description of the lower parts of her body, without becoming too intimate. Interestingly, Nabû compares the beauty of Tašmetu to a lapis-lazuli tablet.17 Then they enter the bedchamber, where she begins to weep and Nabû comforts her. It is not clear to me what this means in the given context. Is this an expression of extreme emotion or a metaphorical reference to her physical excitement? The passage is certainly rather oblique and open to several interpretations, as is line 14, which is rendered here as ‘ask, ask, question, question!’ The invitation to go to the ‘garden’ and the whole passage is, I think, largely euphemistic. From a ritual point of view it would make little sense to take the gods first to their bedchamber and then drive them to the garden for some amatory scene. By expressing her wish to go to the garden, Tašmetu may well signal her readiness to make love and to witness the ‘plucking of his fruit’, amid the cries of passion, which the ‘bird’ most likely signifies. The ‘binding’ and ‘harnessing’, again spoken in the imperative, can be taken as a sexual metaphor. Nabû, in a single line (25), affirms that she will indeed ‘go to the garden’ with him. While the general setting of this text may well be the kind of marital chamber ritual we have described above, it is a great deal more subtle than the Old Babylonian version, and the scribes use the literary repertoire of pastoral love poetry to express the conjugal lovemaking of the gods. ..." Gwendolyn Leick "Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian literature" (1994) at 190 Garden of Priapus - 242 Boss lady about to mount a "bound and harnessed" slave the way Tašmetu plucked the fruit of Nabu in the poem above. Juvenal alerted me to the archetypal Assyrian queen Semiramis who was said to model her behaviour after Innana and Ishtar. Queen Semiramis was said to be first woman to castrate a youth before he grew a beard - presumably to maintain his sexual vigor. She was also said to have been the first to develop a male chastity belt to prevent her lovers from straying ... Romans inherited both habits - Roman women castrated youths for sexual purposes, and all Roman men were in the male chastity belt or Fibula. Candace the Ethiopian queen that Alexander met was said to have been a grandaughter of Semiramis - Ancient Africa was under Amazon rule " ... Semiramis was the mythological Lydian-Babylonian wife of Onnes and Ninus, succeeding the latter to the throne of Assyria, as in the fables of Movses Khorenatsi. The legends narrated by Diodorus Siculus, who drew from the works of Ctesias of Cnidus, describe her and her relationships to Onnes and King Ninus, a mythical king of Assyria not attested in the far older and more comprehensive Assyrian King List. Armenians and the Assyrians of Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, and northwest Iran still use the Shamiram as a given name for girls. The real and historical Shammuramat (the original Akkadian and Aramaic form of the name) was the Assyrian wife of Shamshi-Adad V (ruled 824 BC–811 BC), ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and its regent for five years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age and took the reins of power. She ruled at a time of political uncertainty, which is one of the possible explanations for why Assyrians may have accepted her rule (as normally a woman as ruler would have been unthinkable). It has been speculated that ruling successfully as a woman may have made the Assyrians regard her with particular reverence, and that the achievements of her reign (including stabilizing and strengthening the empire after a destructive civil war) were retold over the generations until she was turned into a mythical figure. The name of Semiramis came to be applied to various monuments in Western Asia and Anatolia, the origin of which was forgotten or unknown. Various places in Upper Mesopotamia and throughout Mesopotamia as a whole, Media, Persia, the Levant, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Caucasus bore the name of Semiramis, but slightly changed, even in the Middle Ages, and an old name of the Armenian city of Van was Shamiramagerd (in Armenian it means created by Semiramis). Nearly every stupendous work of antiquity by the Euphrates or in Iran seems to have ultimately been ascribed to her, even the Behistun Inscription of Darius. Herodotus ascribes to her the artificial banks that confined the Euphrates and knows her name as borne by a gate of Babylon. She conquered much of Middle East and the Levant. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 243 Boss lady riding her bound and harnessed mount. Satire 2 of Juvenal is about "unnatural" sexual habits. The assumed reading is male on male homosexual sex - but I disagree - the mention of Amazons like Semiramis and Cleopatra suggest Amazon on male sex. So do mentions of the Athenian Amazon cult of Cotytto and the Amazon cult of Cybele. There is also mention of male brides - My guess is that was gay marriage - but the Amazon on male part was probably just as prevalent - I was reading for example that Cleopatra was the male to Marc Anthony - in Egypt and Babylon that was not abnormal ... " ... SATIRE II. I long to escape from hence beyond the Sarmatians, and the frozen sea, whenever those fellows who pretend to be Curii and live like Bacchanals presume to read a lecture on morality. First of all, they are utterly unlearned, though you may find all their quarters full of busts of Chrysippus. For the most finished scholar among them is he that has bought an image of Aristotle or Pittacus, or bids his shelves retain originals of Cleanthes. There is no trusting to the outside! For what street is there that does not overflow with debauchees of demure exterior? Dost thou reprove abominations, that art thyself the most notorious sink among catamites who pretend to follow Socrates? Thy rough limbs indeed, and the stiff bristles on thy arms, seem to promise a vigorous mind within; but on thy smooth behind, the surgeon with a smile lances the swelling piles. These fellows affect a paucity of words, and a wonderful taciturnity, and the fashion of cutting their hair shorter than their eyebrows. There is therefore more frankness and sincerity in Peribomius; the man that by his very look and gait makes no secret of his depravity, I look upon as the victim of destiny. The plain-dealing of the latter class excites our pity; their very madness pleads for our forgiveness. Far worse are they who in Hercules' vein practice similar atrocities, and preaching up virtue, perpetrate the foulest vice. "Shall I feel any dread for thee, Sextus, unnatural thyself?" says the infamous Varillus. "How am I worse than thou? Let the straight-limbed, if you please, mock the bandy-legged; the fair European sneer at the Ethiop. But who could tolerate the Gracchi if they railed at sedition? Who would not confound heaven with earth, and sea with sky, if a thief were odious to Verres, or a murderer to Milo? If Clodius were to impeach adulterers, or Catiline Cethegus? If Sylla's three pupils were to declaim against Sylla's proscriptions? Such was the case of the adulterer recently defiled by incest, such as might be found in Greek tragedy, who then set himself to revive those bitter laws which all might tremble at, ay, even Venus and Mars, at the same time that Julia was relieving her fruitful womb by so many abortives, and gave birth to shapeless masses, the image of her uncle! Might not then, with all reason and justice, even the very worst of vices look with contempt on these counterfeit Scauri, and if censured turn and bite again?" Lauronia could not endure some fierce reformer of this class so often exclaiming, "Where is now the Julian law? is it slumbering?" and thus silenced him with a sneer: "Blest days indeed! that set thee up as a censor of morals! Rome now must needs retrieve her honor! A third Cato has dropped from the clouds. But tell me, pray, where do you buy these perfumes that exhale from your neck, all hairy though it be! Do not be ashamed to tell the shopman's name. But if old laws and statutes are to be raked up, before all others the Scatinian ought to be revived. First scrutinize and look into the conduct of the men. They commit the greater atrocities; but it is their number protects them, and their phalanxes close serried with their shields. There is a wonderful unanimity among these effeminates. You will not find one single instance of such execrable conduct in our sex. Tædia does not caress Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla. Hispo acts both sex's parts, and is pale with two-handed lust. Do we ever plead causes? Do we study civil law? or disturb your courts with any clamor of our tongues? A few of us perhaps may wrestle, or diet themselves on the trainer's food; but only a few. You men, you spin wool, and carry home in women's baskets your finished tasks. You men twist the spindle big with its fine-drawn thread more deftly than Penelope, more nimbly than Arachne; work, such as the dirty drab does that sits crouching on her log. Every one knows why Hister at his death made his freedman his sole heir, while, when alive, he gave his maiden wife so many presents. She will be rich without a doubt, who will submit to lie third in the wide bed. Get married then, and hold your tongue, and earrings will be the guerdon of your silence! And after all this, forsooth, a heavy sentence is to be passed on us women! Censure acquits the raven, but falls foul of the dove!" From this rebuke so true and undeniable, the counterfeit Stoics recoiled in confusion, For what grain of untruth was there in Lauronia's words? Yet, what will not others do, when thou, Creticus, adoptest muslin robes, and to the amazement of the people, inveighest in such a dress against Procula or Pollinea? Fabulla, thou sayest, is an adulteress. Then let her be condemned, if you will have it so, and Carfinia also. Yet though condemned, she would not put on such a dress as that. "But it is July, it is raging hot, I am on fire!" Then plead stark naked! To be thought mad would be a less disgrace! Is that a dress to propound laws and statutes in, in the ears of the people when flushed with victory, with their wounds yet green, or that noble race, fresh from their plows? What an outcry would you make, if you saw such a dress on the person of a Judex! I ask, would such a robe be suitable even in a witness? Creticus! the implacable, the indomitable, the champion of liberty, is transparent! Contagion has caused this plague-spot, and will extend it to many more, just as a whole flock perishes, in the fields from the scab of one sheep, or pigs from mange, and the grape contracts the taint from the grape it comes in contact with. Ere long you will venture on something more disgraceful even than this dress. No one ever reached the climax of vice at one step. You will by degrees enter the band of those who wear at home long fillets round their brows, and cover their necks with jewels, and propitiate Bona Dea with the belly of a young sow and a huge bowl of wine; but by an inversion of the old custom women, kept far aloof, dare not cross the threshold. The altar of the goddess is accessible to males alone. "Withdraw, profane females!" is the cry. No minstrel here may make her cornet sound! Such were the orgies by the secret torch-light which the Baptæ celebrated, who used to weary out even the Athenian Cotytto. One with needle held oblique adds length to his eyebrows touched with moistened soot, and raising the lids paints his quivering eyes. Another drains a Priapus-shaped glass, and confines his long thick hair with a caul of gold thread, clothed in sky-blue checks, or close-piled yellow stuffs; while his attendant also swears by Juno, the patron deity of his master. Another holds a mirror, the weapon wielded by the pathic Otho, "the spoil of Auruncan Actor," in which he surveyed himself when fully armed, before he gave the signal to engage—a thing worthy to be recorded in the latest annals and history of the day. A mirror! fit baggage for a civil war! O yes, forsooth! to kill old Galba shows the consummate general, to pamper one's complexion is the consistent occupation of the first citizen of Rome; to aspire to the empire as the prize on Bebriacum's plains, and then spread over his face a poultice applied with his fingers! Such an act as neither the quivered Semiramis perpetrated in the Assyrian realms, or Cleopatra flying dejected in her Actian galley. Among this crew there is neither decency of language, nor respect for the proprieties of the table. Here is the foul license that Cybele enjoins, the lisping speech, the aged priest with hoary hair, like one possessed, a prodigy of boundless appetite, open to hire. Yet why do they delay? since long ago they ought after the Phrygian custom to have removed with their knives the superfluous flesh. Gracchus gave four hundred sestertia as his dowry, with himself, to a bugler, or else one that blew the straight trumpet. The marriage deeds were duly signed, the blessing invoked, a great dinner provided, the he-bride lay in the bridegroom's arms. O nobles! is it a censor we need, or an aruspex? You would without doubt be horrified, and deem it a prodigy of portentous import, if a woman gave birth to a calf, or a cow to a lamb. The same Gracchus puts on flounces, the long robe and flame-colored veil, who, when bearing the sacred shields swinging with mysterious thong, sweated beneath the Ancilia! Oh! father of our city! whence came such heinous guilt to the shepherds of Latium? Whence, O Gradivus, came this unnatural lust that has tainted thy race? See! a man illustrious in birth and rank is made over to a man! Dost thou neither shake thy helmet, nor smite the earth with thy lance? Dost thou not even appeal to thy father Jove? Begone then! and quit the acres of the Campus once so severe, which thou ceasest to care for! "I have some duty-work to perform to-morrow at break of day in the Quirinal valley." "What is the occasion?" "Why ask? my friend is going to be married; only a few are invited!" If we only live to see it, these things will be done in the broad light of day, and claim to be registered in the public acts. Meanwhile, there is one grievous source of pain that clings to these male-brides, that they are incapable of bearing, and retaining their lords' affections by bringing them children. No! better is it that nature in this case gives their minds no power over their bodies! They must die barren! Vain, in their case, is fat Lyde with her medicated box; vain the holding out their hands to the nimble Luperci. Yet even this prodigy of crime is surpassed by the trident of Gracchus in his gladiator's tunic, when in full flight he traverses the middle of the arena. Gracchus! more nobly born than the Manlii, and Marcelli, and Catulus' and Paulus' race, and the Fabii, and all the spectators in the front row. Ay, even though you add to these the very man himself, at whose expense he cast his net as Retiarius. That there are departed spirits, and realms beneath the earth—that Charon's pole exists, and the foul frogs in the Stygian whirlpool—and that so many thousand souls cross its waters in a single bark, not even boys believe, save those as yet too young to be charged for their bath.But do thou believe them true! What does Curius feel, and the two Scipios, what Fabricius and the shades of Camillus, what the legion cut off at Cremera, and the flower of Roman youth slaughtered at Cannæ—so many martial spirits—what do they feel when such a shade as this passes from us to them? They would long to be cleansed from the pollution of the contact, could any sulphur and pine-torches be supplied to them, or could there be a bay-tree to sprinkle them with water. To such a pitch of degradation are we come! We have, indeed, advanced our arms beyond Juverna's shore, and the Orcades recently subdued, and the Britons content with night contracted to its briefest span. But those abominations which are committed in the victorious people's city are unknown to those barbarians whom we have conquered. "Yet there is a story told of one, an Armenian Zalates, who, more effeminate than the rest of his young countrymen, is reported to have yielded to the tribune's lust." See the result of intercourse with Rome! He came a hostage! Here they learn to be men! For if a longer tarry in the city be granted to these youths, they will never lack a lover. Their plaids, and knives, and bits, and whips, will soon be discarded. Thus it is the vices of our young nobles are aped even at Artaxata. ... " Juvenal, translated by Lewis Evans and William Gifford (1881) Garden of Priapus - 244 More boss lady riding her bound and harnessed slave My impression from reading the passage above is Juvenal was unable to discuss what he really wanted to - the Amazon female phallus and was forced to hint at it through gay sex. Juvenal was stripped of his property and exiled to Roman Britain - probably because of this very satire. - There was a code of silence around the female phallus that began with the Vestal Virgins and the female phallus in the emperor's hearth fire - the highest deity in the Roman pantheon and the connective "chthonic" or earth bond of the Roman people A code of silence comparable to the classic finger over the mouth image of Harpocrates or the female phallus in ancient Egypt Garden of Priapus - 245 Boss lady and the female phallus about to mount another slave ... In this passage Juvenal hints at what he was really talking about in Satire II: Bacchanals were devotees of the female phallus: "You will not find one single instance of such execrable conduct in our sex. Tædia does not caress Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla. Hispo acts both sex's parts, and is pale with two-handed lust. Do we ever plead causes? Do we study civil law? or disturb your courts with any clamor of our tongues? A few of us perhaps may wrestle, or diet themselves on the trainer's food; but only a few. ..." Juvenal, Satire II, translated by Lewis Evans and William Gifford (1881) Garden of Priapus - 246 Boss lady and the female phallus enjoying her slave ... Bacchanals were devotees of the female phallus - that's the Min phallus in Egypt. My reading is this was how Isis resurrected Osiris - Like a female Ostrich who impregnates the male with a female phallus and fertilizes herself. The Greco Roman Egyptian male phallus was in the fibula and not in operation for long periods - like the dead and dismembered Osiris ... Similar pattern with the death and resurrection of Dionysus and Attis Garden of Priapus - 247 The General about to whip a bound and harnessed "OG" or old guy slave ... * In the following excerpt from Juvenal's Satire VI the pattern of Greco Roman sex is revealed: male slaves submitting to the "halter" of a woman except when young boys were sexually submitting to men ... Plato in another passage confirms this strange sexual pattern. It only makes sense when the penis cage for all young men of the elite class is taken account of. Apples are being plundered in the garden - a complaint about the collapse of ancient chastity - My guess is those apples are the female phallus in the male anus ... " ... SATIRE VI. I believe that while Saturn still was king, chastity lingered upon earth, and was long seen there: when a chill cavern furnished a scanty dwelling, and inclosed in one common shade the fire and household gods, the cattle, and their owners. When a wife, bred on the mountains, prepared a rustic bed with leaves and straw and the skins of the wild beasts their neighbors; not like thee, Cynthia —or thee whose beaming eyes the death of a sparrow dimmed with tears—but bearing breasts from which her huge infants might drink, not suck, and often more uncivilized even than her acorn-belching husband. Since men lived very differently then, when the world was new, and the sky but freshly created, who, born out of the riven oak, or moulded out of clay, had no parents. Many traces of primæval chastity, perhaps, or some few at least, may have existed, even under Jove; but then it was before Jove's beard was grown; before the Greeks were yet ready to swear by another's head; when no one feared a thief for his cabbages or apples, but lived with garden uninclosed. Then by degrees Astræa retired to the realms above, with chastity for her companion, and the two sisters fled together. To violate the marriage-bed, and laugh to scorn the genius that presides over the nuptial couch, is an ancient and a hackneyed vice, Postumus. Every other species of iniquity the age of iron soon produced. The silver age witnessed the first adulterers. And yet are you preparing your marriage covenant, and the settlement, and betrothal, in our days, and are already under the hands of the master barber, and perhaps have already given the pledge for her finger! Well! you used to be sane, at all events! You, Postumus, going to marry! Say, what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving you mad? Can you submit to be the slave of any woman, while so many halters are to be had? so long as high and dizzy windows are open for you, and the Æmilian bridge presents itself so near at hand? Or if, out of so many ways of quitting life, none pleases you, do you not think your present plan better, of having a stripling to sleep with you, who lying there, reads you no curtain lectures, exacts no little presents from you, and never complains that you are too sparing in your efforts to please him? ... " Juvenal, Satire VI, translated by Lewis Evans and William Gifford (1881) Garden of Priapus - 248 Boss lady plundering the "apples" of a harnessed slave - Without a doubt Roman sex was superior to the cave-man sex that Juvenal describes in Satire VI. Why? because in Roman sex, women only had sex when they wanted to - In contrast to cave man sex which is always one way or male only! Also, from personal experience in the dream state - the anal orgasm is much stronger than the penis orgasm - The ass is the center of the sex chakra - Muladhara or root chakra ... Garden of Priapus - 249 Boss lady sodomizing her husband topless. That was the Roman temple of Aphrodite at midnight and her sacred prostitutes or the more ancient Sumerian cult of Innana and Dumuzi " ... You, Postumus, going to marry! Say, what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving you mad? Can you submit to be the slave of any woman, while so many halters are to be had? so long as high and dizzy windows are open for you, and the Æmilian bridge presents itself so near at hand? ... " Juvenal, Satire VI, translated by Lewis Evans and William Gifford (1881) "Halter: a rope or strap with a noose or headstall placed around the head of a horse or other animal, used for leading or tethering it. ... " Wikipedia That's as close as we are going to get at what happened in the Greco-Roman bedroom! By the time Roman men reached the married and haltered state they had practice in this through the garden of Priapus - my guess from as young as 7 years old - the age of Giton in the Satyricon. From 14 to 25 Roman men were in a bronze fibula or penis cage. A combination of the cage and caged anal sex was the cause of the deep male tan that indicated Roman upper class ; - the inner sun - the same sun or burning of first born sons in the Asherah cult that the Jewish prophets were railing against! As in Sumeria - naked Jewish noblemen probably presented a basket of fruit to the robed high priestess as they entered the sacred sex chamber after walking through an Asherah pole doorway. Inside they answered the priestess' ancient question: "who will plow my vulva?" And were themselves plowed anally by the sacred "horn" or female phallus produced by that plowing ... "An Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother goddess Asherah, consort of El." - Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 250 More boss lady sodomizing her husband - as a Nazi prison guard - Boss lady has stopped using this uniform because of complaints - but in modern day Israel the Nazi dominatrix is a well documented BDSM fetish Roman femdom sex: in this passage Juvenal notes the extreme rarity of a chaste monogamous Roman matron - like birds Roman women were polyandrous - also there is a rare mention of the Roman Fibula or penis cage - Sometimes it came off or was "unbuckled" by wealth Roman women wanting normal sex - in this case an amourous Roman matron removes the buckle of an actor for a large sum of money: " ... But Ursidius is delighted with the Julian law —he thinks of bringing up a darling heir, nor cares to lose the fine turtledove and bearded mullets, and all the baits for legacies in the dainties of the market. What will you believe to be impossible, if Ursidius takes a wife? If he, of yore the most notorious of adulterers, whom the chest of Latinus in peril of his life has so often concealed, is now going to insert his idiot head in the nuptial halter; nay, and more than this, is looking out for a wife possessed of the virtues of ancient days! Haste, physicians, bore through the middle vein! What a nice man! Fall prostrate at the threshold of Tarpeian Jove, and sacrifice to Juno a heifer with gilded horns, if you have the rare good fortune to find a matron with unsullied chastity. So few are there worthy to handle the fillets of Ceres; so few, whose kisses their own fathers might not dread. Wreathe chaplets for the door-posts, stretch thick clusters of ivy over the threshold. Is one husband enough for Iberina? Sooner will you prevail on her to be content with one eye. "Yet there is a great talk of a certain damsel, living at her father's country-house!" Let her live at Gabii as she lived in the country, or even at Fidenæ, and I grant what you say of the influence of the paternal country-seat. Yet who will dare assert that nothing has been achieved on mountains or in caves? Are Jupiter and Mars grown so old. In all the public walks can a woman be pointed out to you, that is worthy of your wish. On all their benches do the public shows hold one that you could love without misgivings; or one you could pick out from the rest? While the effeminate Bathyllus is acting Leda in the ballet, Tuccia can not contain herself, Appula whines as in the feat of love, Thymele is all attention to the quick, the gentler, and the slow; and so Thymele, rustic as she was before, becomes a proficient in the art. But others, whenever the stage ornaments, packed away, get a respite, and the courts alone are vocal (since the theatres are closed and empty, and the Megalesian games come a long time after the plebeian), in their melancholy handle the mask and thyrsus and drawers of Accius. Urbicus provokes a laugh by his personification of Autonoe in the Atellan farce. Ælia, being poor, is in love with him. For others, the fibula of the comic actor is unbuckled for a large sum. Some women prevent Chrysogonus from having voice to sing. Hispulla delights in a tragic actor. Do you expect then that the worthy Quintilianus will be the object of their love? You take a wife by whom Echion the harper, or Glaphyrus, or Ambrosius the choral flute-player, will become a father. Let us erect long lines of scaffolding along the narrow streets. Let the door-posts and the gate be decorated with a huge bay, that beneath the canopy inlaid with tortoise-shell, thy infant, Lentulus, supposed to be sprung from a noble sire, may be the counterpart of the Mirmillo Euryalus. ... " Juvenal, Satire VI, translated by Lewis Evans and William Gifford (1881) Garden of Priapus - 251 Boss lady and friends caning a harnessed slave - My impression is this is more ancient Roman than today. BDSM today is mostly the opposite - caveman sex! This despite the me too movement - or maybe because of it? *** Queen Semiramis of Sumeria was said to be the mother of Nimrod - so she was probably an African Amazon. According to Roman writers she was the first queen to castrate youths before sexual maturity and also introduced a male chastity device - Although the Romans seemed to condemn her, they did the same thing with the Roman fibula and Roman castration - There's probably a link to the inner sun that here that is not visible today: [Ammianus Marcellinus in 353 AD writing of Amazon soldiers and Eunuchs during the time Orfitus was the governor of the Eternal City [Rome]. In 353 AD the Amazon castration cult of Cybele was fully legal with Roman emperors depicting themselves on coins as the castrated Attis.] - "who are conspicuous by wands fastened to their right hands" probably refers to emblems of Priapus - ie large dildos carried by female baccanates - "near the front of the carriage march all the slaves concerned in spinning and working" - probably refers to the ancient Sumerian Amazon practice of turning men into women - "next to them come the blackened crew employed in the kitchen;" probably refers to male sex workers in the Roman "stews" Altogether this was probably a nocturnal procession like something out of the Brazilian Sambadrome today " ... And many matrons, imitating these men, gallop over every quarter of the city with their heads covered, and in close carriages. And as skilful conductors of battles place in the van their densest and strongest battalions, then their light-armed troops, behind them the darters, and in the extreme rear troops of reserve, ready to join in the attack if necessity should arise; so, according to the careful arrangements of the stewards of those city households, who are conspicuous by wands fastened to their right hands, as if a regular watchword had been issued from the camp, first of all, near the front of the carriage march all the slaves concerned in spinning and working; next to them come the blackened crew employed in the kitchen; then the whole body of slaves promiscuously mixed up with a gang of idle plebeians from the neighbourhood; last of all, the multitude of eunuchs, beginning with the old men and ending with the boys, pale and unsightly from the distorted deformity of their features; so that whichever way any one goes, seeing troops of mutilated men, he will detest the memory of Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate male youths of tender age; doing as it were a violence to nature, and forcing it back from its appointed course, which at the very first beginning and birth of the child, by a kind of secret law revealing the primitive fountains of seed, points out the way of propagating posterity. ... " Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History A.D. 353. Book 14. pp.1-45., Translated by C. D. Yonge (1862) Garden of Priapus - 252 More boss lady caning a bound and harnessed slave - as she grabs his balls - My guess is the elite Roman suppression of the balls was designed to enable what I call "mounting" by an Amazon spirit. Same as the mounting by "loas" occurs during Haitian voodoo ceremonies. Juvenal has already revealed above that the ideal Roman husband was the bound and harnessed slave of his wife - Juvenal's problem with marriage was that it was limited to one Amazon - he prefered being mounted by many! Garden of Priapus - 253 More boss lady and friends caning a bound and harnessed slave Blog post: Queens of Mesopotamia – Part I: Semiramis [Dea Syria - an Assyrian mermaid goddess associated with Semiramis required castration of her priests - and like Artemis many images feature her covered in the balls of her devotees. - Not sexual in a conventional sense - but men have another sexual organ - the ass! The Muladhara or root chakra is the site of a very powerful sex chakra!] " ... In his Histories, Herodotus discusses two famous Assyrian women who ruled ancient Babylon (among many other cities in the Neo-Assyrian Empire): Semiramis and Nitocris. Our historical knowledge of these leaders is scant, but there are plenty of colorful legends. We will first take a look at Semiramis, and consider Nitocris in a later post. Herodotus says of Semiramis: Many sovereigns have ruled over this city of Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its walls and the adornment of its temples, of whom I shall make mention in my Assyrian history. Among them were two women. Of these, the earlier, called Semiramis, held the throne five generations before the later princess. She raised certain embankments well worthy of inspection, in the plain near Babylon, to control the [Euphrates] river, which, till then, used to overflow, and flood the whole country round about. George Rawlinson, translator of the above lines, says in a footnote that Semiramis was the wife of Rammannirari III (812-783 B.C.) and that she may have introduced the worship of Nebo (or Nabu), the Assyrian-Babylonian god of wisdom and writing, into the great northern Assyrian city of Nineveh, near modern-day Mosul in Iraq. He pointedly adds: “Herodotus gives none of the wild tales attached to the mythical Semiramis.” Historians today believe Semiramis (or Shammuramat) was the wife and queen of Assyrian King Shamsi-Adad IV, who ruled from 824-811 B.C. Semiramis is said to have ruled on her own as regent for four years from the death of her husband until her son Adad-nirari III came of age. Scholars question whether Semiramis was formally named regent during this period, but there is no doubt she was an influential force in the Neo-Assyrian Empire of the day. Diodorus Siculus and other historians who related the legends surrounding Semiramis apparently drew much of their information from the accounts of Ctesias of Cnidus. Here is one description of the legends, which notes that Semiramis was believed to be the daughter of a fish-goddess and that she eventually became the wife of a mythical Assyrian king named Ninus: According to the legend as related by Diodorus, Semiramis was of noble parents, the daughter of the fish-goddess Derketo of Ascalon in Syria and a mortal. Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. The child was fed by doves until she was found and brought up by Simmas, the royal shepherd. Afterwards she married Onnes or Menones, one of the generals of Ninus. Ninus was so struck by her bravery at the capture of Bactria that he married her, forcing Onnes to commit suicide. She and Ninus had a son named Ninyas. After King Ninus conquered Asia, including the Bactrians, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. Semiramis then masqueraded as her son and tricked her late husband's army into following her instructions because they thought these came from their new ruler. After Ninus's death she reigned as queen regnant, conquering much of Asia. Not only was she able to reign effectively, she also added Ethiopia to the empire. She restored ancient Babylon and protected it with a high brick wall that completely surrounded the city. She is also credited with inventing the chastity belt. Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus credits her as the first person to castrate a male youth into eunuch-hood: "Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate male youths of tender age" (Lib. XIV). Edwin Murphy, translator of Diodorus Siculus, says of Semiramis: It is probable that Semiramis was originally a Semi-Divine Syrian Empress, (part goddess part-human), perhaps the same who was linked to the [deity] worshipped at Ascalon under the name of Astarte, or the Oriental Aphrodite, associated with the Babylonia Ishtar, from the Sumerian Innana, the Persian Anaitis, and the Armenian Saris to whom the dove was sacred. Hence the stories of her voluptuousness which were current even in the time of Augustus. The historical figure behind this legendary queen is to be identified with, and almost certain, the real Queen "Sammura-mat", the palace wife of Shamsi-Adad V, king of Assyria, and mother of King Adad-Nirari III; she lived towards the end of the ninth century (regent to 810-805 B.C.), and is known to us from ancient Assyrian inscriptions. Numerous operas, plays, and novels are still current that celebrate the fame of this greatest of queens "Semiramis"... who never really lived. Murphy explores even further the legend that Semiramis was the daughter of a fish-goddess (mermaid?), a concept also discussed by Lucian in his De Dea Syria: Diodorus has preserved the traces of some authentic Semitic religious lore. Ascalon was the site of a famous temple to the goddess Atargatis, or Adargatis, of whose name Derceto is a variant. Atargatis herself was a combination of two deities: Athtar (contracted to Atar, an Aramaic form of Phoenician Astarte, Babylonian Ishtar, Old Testament Astoreth); and Athe, a Palmyrene divinity. The Talmudic and Armenian rendition, Tar'atha, shows this duality quite well. The worship of Atargatis was a goddess of increase and fertility, sometimes identified by Greek writers with Hellenic Aphrodite. She was linked with the ideas of the life-giving power of water and the fertility of fish, and associated, at least in Palestine, with the male deity Dagon, who was also represented as part fish, reminiscent of Oannes, the enigmatic amphibious culture-bringer of the Chaldaeans. Many Syrians reverence fish and observed taboos on eating them. Lucian, in the second century A.D., described the practice at Hieropolis in northern Syria, the other great center of Derceto worship: "Others think that Semiramis ... founded this site, not for Hera, but for her own mother ... Derceto. There was a likeness of Derceto in Phoenicia, a strange sight! It is a woman for half of her length, but from the thighs to the tip of the feet a fish's tail stretches out. The Derceto in Hieropolis, however, is entirely a woman... They consider fish sacred and never touch one... There is also a lake not far from the sanctuary, in which sacred fish of all kinds are raised" (De Dea Syria 14,15). A fragment of Mnaseas adds: "Whenever they pray to the goddess, they offer fishes made of silver and gold; each day the priests offer her real fish, delicately cooked, on a table". Many classical authors mention the Syrians' abstention from fish, and connect this in various ways with Atargatis, whom some rationalized simply as a cruel queen of ancient Syria who instituted this practice. Interestingly, Murphy finds a possible connection between Onnes, husband of Semiramis, and Oannes, the part-man part-fish creature who according to ancient legend emerged from the Persian/Arabian Gulf and brought knowledge and culture to ancient Mesopotamia: It is possible that Onnes represents, in a disguised and attenuated form, Oannes, the semi-human fish-like being who, according to the Babylonian History of Berosus, brought culture to ancient Mesopotamia. Oannes was Berosus' name for the Babylonian god Ea (equivalent to Sumerian En-ki). His widespread cult was adopted by the Assyrians, among others, who erected a temple to him at Nineveh. Ea's special domain was water and the deep, and this plus his icthyomorphic appearance and his worship at Nineveh may reflect a flimsy connection with the Semiramis legend through the fish-goddess Derceto, her mother. But the point should not be pressed too far, the evidence is only inferential. The slight resemblance between the name Derceto and that of Damkina, Ea's consort, may be coincidental. But it is curious that Hydaspes, mentioned below as a son of Onnes, bears the same name as a river in India: for Ea was of the deep or abyss, the source of all streams. Thus, as we often find, legends and myths about historical figures frequently have more importance than the so-called factual data. We find Semiramis has connections to the great goddess of the Middle East and to the mysterious knowledge-bringer of early Mesopotamia. As a mythic and metaphoric figure, she has survived to the present day, has been featured in numerous plays and works of literature, including Dante’s Inferno and the Snopes trilogy of William Faulkner. ... " rlebling Garden of Priapus - 254 Marble statue Augusta Livia as Ceres, Rome, c. A.D. 15. Marble, Paris, Louvre Museum. The cornucopia in her hand or the horn of plenty brimming with fruits may also have a phallic meaning. The "horn" associated with the vulva of Innana. The horn of plenty is also found on male statues though ... Behind her is a naked and penis caged athlete or god - and Livia's nipples are erect! - On page 150 of this website are more explicit statues of women with the bearded face of Priapus and erections penetrating a fruit basket ... The apples are the ass of a penis caged catamite - the penis cage creates a "cornucopia" by daming up the male libido * " ... Mythology offers multiple explanations of the origin of the cornucopia. One of the best-known involves the birth and nurturance of the infant Zeus, who had to be hidden from his devouring father Cronus. In a cave on Mount Ida on the island of Crete, baby Zeus was cared for and protected by a number of divine attendants, including the goat Amaltheia ("Nourishing Goddess"), who fed him with her milk. The suckling future king of the gods had unusual abilities and strength, and in playing with his nursemaid accidentally broke off one of her horns, which then had the divine power to provide unending nourishment, as the foster mother had to the god. In another myth, the cornucopia was created when Heracles (Roman Hercules) wrestled with the river god Achelous and ripped off one of his horns; river gods were sometimes depicted as horned. This version is represented in the Achelous and Hercules mural painting by the American Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton. The cornucopia became the attribute of several Greek and Roman deities, particularly those associated with the harvest, prosperity, or spiritual abundance, such as personifications of Earth (Gaia or Terra); the child Plutus, god of riches and son of the grain goddess Demeter; the nymph Maia; and Fortuna, the goddess of luck, who had the power to grant prosperity. In Roman Imperial cult, abstract Roman deities who fostered peace (pax Romana) and prosperity were also depicted with a cornucopia, including Abundantia, "Abundance" personified, and Annona, goddess of the grain supply to the city of Rome. Hades, the classical ruler of the underworld in the mystery religions, was a giver of agricultural, mineral and spiritual wealth, and in art often holds a cornucopia. ... " Wikipedia * The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi (D. Wolkenstein, Inanna [Harper & Row 1983], 30-49) " ... (1) The brother spoke to his younger sister. The Sun God, Utu, spoke to Inanna, saying: —Young Lady, the flax in its fullness is lovely. Inanna, the grain is glistening in the furrow. I will hoe it for you. I will bring it to you. A piece of linen, big or small, is always needed. Inanna, I will bring it to you. —Brother, after you've brought me the flax, Who will comb it for me? —Sister, I will bring it to you combed. —Utu, after you've brought it to me combed, Who will spin it for me? —Inanna, I will bring it to you spun. —Brother, after you've brought the flax to be spun, Who will braid it for me? —Sister, I will bring it to you braided. —Utu, after you've brought it to me braided, Who will weave it for me? —Sister, I will bring it to you woven. —Utu, after you've brought it to me woven, Who will bleach it for me? —Inanna, I will bring it to you bleached. —Brother, after you've brought my bridal sheet to me, Who will go to bed with me? Utu, who will go to bed with me? —Sister, your bridegroom will go to bed with you. He who was born from a fertile womb, He who was conceived on the scared marriage throne, Dumuzi, the shepherd! He will go to bed with you. (2) Inanna spoke: —No, brother! The man of my heart works the hoe. The farmer! He is the man of my heart! He gathers the grain into great heaps. He brings the grain regularly into my storehouses. Utu spoke: —Sister, marry the shepherd. Why are you unwilling? His cream is good; his milk is good. Whatever he touches shines brightly. Inanna, marry Dumuzi. You who adorn yourself with the agate necklace of fertility, Why are you unwilling? Dumuzi will share his rich cream with you. You who are meant to be the king's protector, Why are you unwilling? Inanna spoke: —The shepherd? I will not marry the shepherd! His clothes are course; his wool is rough. I will marry the farmer. The farmer grows flax for my clothes, The farmer grows barley for my table. Dumuzi spoke: —Why do you speak about the farmer? Why do you speak about him? If he gives you black flour, I will give you black wool. If he gives you white flour, I will give you white wool. If he gives you beer, I will give you sweet milk. If he gives you bread, I will give you honey cheese. I will give the farmer my leftover cream. I will give the farmer my leftover milk. Why do you speak about the farmer? What does he have more than I do? Inanna spoke: —Shepherd, without my mother, Ningal, you'd be driven away, without my grandmother, Ningikuga, you'd be driven into the steeps, without my father, Nanna, you'd have no roof, without my brother Utu— Dumuzi spoke: —Inanna, do not start a quarrel. My father, Enki, is as good as your father, Nanna. My mother, Sirtur, is as good as your mother, Ningal. My sister, Geshtinanna, is as good as yours. Queen of the palace, let us talk it over. The word they had spoken Was a word of desire. From the starting of the quarrel Came the lovers' desire. The shepherd went to the royal house with cream. Dumuzi went to the royal house with milk. Before the door, he called out: —Open the house, My Lady, open the house! Inanna ran to Ningal, the mother who bore her. Ningal counseled her daughter, saying: —My child, the young man will be your father. My daughter, the young man will be your mother. He will treat you like a father. He will care for you like a mother. Open the house, My Lady, open the house! (3) Inanna, at her mother's command, Bathed and anointed herself with scented oil. She covered her body with the royal white robe. She readied her dowry. She arranged her precious lapis beads around her neck. She took her seal in her hand. Dumuzi waited expectantly. Inanna opened the door for him. Inside the house she shone before him. Like the light of the moon. Dumuzi looked at her joyously. He pressed his neck close against hers. He kissed her. (4) Inanna spoke: —What I tell you Let the singer weave into song. What I tell you, Let it flow from ear to mouth, Let it pass from old to young: My vulva, the horn, The Boat of Heaven, Is full of eagerness like the young moon. My untilled land lies fallow. As for me, Inanna, Who will plow my vulva? Who will plow my high field? Who will plow my wet ground? As for me, the young woman, Who will plow my vulva? Who will station the ox there? Who will plow my vulva? Dumuzi replied: —Great Lady, the king will plow your vulva. I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva. Inanna: —Then plow my vulva, man of my heart! Plow my vulva! At the king's lap stood the rising cedar. Plants grew high by their side. Grains grew high by their side. Gardens flourished luxuriantly. (5) Inanna sang: —He has sprouted; he has burgeoned; He is lettuce planted by the water. He is the one my womb loves best. My well-stocked garden of the plain, My barley growing high in its furrow, My apple tree which bears fruit up to its crown, He is lettuce planted by the water. My honey-man, my honey-man sweetens me always. My lord, the honey-man of the gods, He is the one my womb loves best. His hand is honey, his foot is honey, He sweetens me always. My eager impetuous caresser of the navel, My caresser of the soft thighs, He is the one my womb loves best. He is lettuce planted by the water. (6) Dumuzi sang: —O Lady, your breast is your field. Inanna, your breast is your field. Your broad field pours out the plants. Your broad field pours out grain. Water flows from on high for your servant. Bread flows from on high for your servant. Pour it out for me, Inanna. I will drink all you offer. (7) Inanna sang: —Make your milk sweet and thick, my bridegroom. My shepherd, I will drink your fresh milk. Wild bull Dumuzi, make your milk sweet and thick. I will drink your fresh milk. Let the milk of the goat flow in my sheepfold. Fill my holy churn with honey cheese. Lord Dumuzi, I will drink your fresh milk. My husband, I will guard my sheepfold for you. I will watch over your house of life, the storehouse, The shining quivering place which delights Sumer— The house which decides the fates of the land, The house which gives the breath of life to the people. I, the queen of the palace, will watch over your house. Dumuzi spoke: —My sister, I would go with you to my garden. Inanna, I would go with you to my garden. I would go with you to my orchard. I would go with you to my apple tree. There I would plant the sweet, honey-covered seed. Inanna spoke: —He brought me into his garden. My brother, Dumuzi, brought me into his garden. I strolled with him among the standing trees, I stood with him among the fallen trees, By the apple tree I knelt as is proper. Before my brother coming in song, Who rose to me out of poplar leaves, Who came to me in the midday heat, Before my lord, Dumuzi, I poured out plants from my womb. I placed plants before him, I poured out plants before him. I placed grain before him, I poured out grain before him, I poured out grain before my womb. Inanna sang: —Last night as I, the queen, was shining bright, Last night as I, the Queen of Heaven, was shining bright, As I was shining bright and dancing, Singing praises at the coming of the night— He met me—he met me! My lord Dumuzi met me. He pushed his hand to my hand. He pressed his neck close against mine. My high priest is ready for the holy loins. My lord Dumuzi is ready for the holy loins. The plants and herbs in his field are ripe. O Dumuzi! Your fullness is my delight! (8) She called for it, she called for it, she called for the bed! She called for the bed that rejoices the heart. She called for the bed that sweetens the loins. She called for the bed of kingship. She called for the bed of queenship. Inanna called for the bed: —Let the bed that rejoices the heart be prepared! Let the bed that sweetens the loins be prepared! Let the bed of kingship be prepared! Let the bed of queenship be prepared! Let the royal bed be prepared! Inanna spread the bridal sheet across the bed. She called to the king: —The bed is ready! She called to her bridegroom: —The bed is waiting! He put his hand in her hand. He put his hand to her heart. Sweet is the sleep of the hand-to-hand. Sweeter still is the sleep of heart-to-heart. (9) Inanna spoke: —I bathed for the wild bull, I bathed for the shepherd Dumuzi, I perfumed my sides with ointment, I coated my mouth with sweet-smelling amber, I painted my eyes with kohl. He shaped my loins with his fair hands. The shepherd Dumuzi filled my lap with cream and milk, He stroked my pubic hair, He watered my womb. He laid his hands on my holy vulva, He smoothed my black boat with cream, He quickened my narrow boat with milk, He creased me on the bed. Now I will caress my high priest on the bed, I will caress the faithful shepherd Dumuzi, I will caress his loins, the shepherdship of the land, I will decree a sweet fate for him. The Queen of Heaven, The heroic woman, greater than her mother, Who was presented the divine powers by Enki, Inanna, the First Daughter of the Moon, Decreed the fate of Dumuzi: —In battle I am you leader, In combat I am your armor-bearer In the assembly I am your advocate, On the campaign I am your inspiration. You, the chosen shepherd of the holy shrine, You, the king, the faithful provider of Uruk, You, the light of An's great shrine, In all ways you are fit: To hold you head high on the loft dais, To sit on the lapis lazuli throne, To cover you head with the holy crown, To wear long clothes on your body, To bind yourself with the garments of kingship, To carry the mace and sword, To guide straight the long bow and arrow, To fasten the throw-stick and sling at your side, To race on the road with the holy scepter in your hand, And the holy sandals on your feet, To prance on the holy breast like a lapis lazuli calf. You, the sprinter, the chosen shepherd, In all ways you are fit. May your heart enjoy long days. That which An has determined for you—may it not be altered. That which Enlil has granted—may it not be changed. You are the favorite of Ningal. Inanna holds you dear. Ninshubur, the faithful servant of the holy shrine of Uruk, Led Dumuzi to the sweet thighs of Inanna and spoke: —My queen, here is the choice of your heart, the king, your beloved bridegroom. May he spend long days in the sweetness of your holy loins. Give him a favorable and glorious reign. Grant him the king's throne, firm in its foundations. Grant him the shepherd's staff of judgment. Grant him the enduring crown with the radiant and noble diadem. From where the sun rises to where the sun sets, From north to south, From the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, From the land of the huluppu-tree to the land of the cedar, Let his shepherd's staff protect all of Sumer and Akkad. As the farmer, let him make the fields fertile, As the shepherd, let him make the sheepfolds multiply, Under his reign let there be vegetation, Under his reign let there be rich grain. In the marshland may the fish and birds chatter, In the canebrake may the young and old reeds grow high, In the steppe may the deer and wild goats multiply, In the orchards may there be honey and wine, In the grasslands may the lettuce and cress grow high, In the palace may there be long life. May there be floodwater in the Tigris and Euphrates, May the plants grow high on their banks and fill the meadows, May the Lady of Vegetation pile the grain in heaps and mounds. O my Queen of Heaven and Earth, Queen of all the universe, May he enjoy long days in the sweetness of your holy loins. The king went with lifted head to the holy loin. He went with lifted head to the loins of Inanna. He went to the queen with lifted head. He opened wide his arms to the holy priestess of heaven. Inanna spoke: —My beloved, the delight of my eyes, met me. We rejoiced together. He took his pleasure of me. He brought me into his house. He laid me down on the fragrant honey-bed. My sweet love, lying by my heart, Tongue-playing, one by one, My fair Dumuzi did so fifty times. Now, my sweet love is sated. Now he says: "Set me free, my sister, set me free. You will be a little daughter to my father. Come, my beloved sister, I would go to the palace. Set me free..." Inanna spoke: —My brother-brearer, your allure was sweet. My blossom-bearer in the apple orchard, My bearer of fruit in the apple orchard, Dumuzi-abzu, your allure was sweet. My fearless one, My holy statue, My statue outfitted with sword and lapis lazuli diadem, How sweet was your allure..." The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi (D. Wolkenstein, Inanna [Harper & Row 1983], 30-49) Garden of Priapus - 255 Pan and Olympus - What happened to penis caged Greco-Roman youths in the garden of Priapus. - Only pan was almost certainly a phallic woman penetrating the penis caged or catamite Roman youth. Compare with Pan and Daphnis - where pan teaches females his sexual arts Pan and Olympus relief . Florentine School - 16th century AD, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Italy - Looks authentic to me - either pre-christian or a good copy - (Aug 8, 2021) The inner dream images associated with this post are female sexual aggression - not male. Pan was a male god but a god of female not male sexuality ! * Juvenal on of the dangers of being a beautiful boy: Castration by a rich Roman matron. Once Roman men became bearded they ceased being sexually alluring ... All Roman baths had a statue of a phallic matron - thats what what going on in there ... And the Trojan or Roman goddesses like Artemis and Cybele all required castration of their priests - Artemis covered in balls is a Trojan icon ... The Trojan phallus was female! " ... The anxious mother, when she visits Venus' temple, prays for beauty for her boys with subdued whisper; with louder voice for her girls, carrying her fond wishes even to the verge of trifling. "But why should you chide me?" she says; "Latona delights in the beauty of Diana." But, Lucretia forbids a face like hers to be the subject of your prayers: Virginia would gladly give hers to Rutila, and receive her wen in exchange. But, a son possessed of exquisite person keeps his parents in a constant state of misery and alarm. So rare is the union of beauty with chastity. Though the house, austere in virtue, and emulating the Sabines of old, may have handed down, like an inheritance, purity of morals, and bounteous Nature with benignant hand may give, besides, a chaste mind and a face glowing with modest blood (for what greater boon can Nature bestow on a youth? Nature, more powerful than any guardian, or any watchful care!), still they are not allowed to attain to manhood. For the villainy of the corrupter, prodigal in its guilt, dares to assail with tempting offers the parents themselves. So great is their confidence in the success of bribes! No tyrant in his cruel palace ever castrated a youth that was deformed; nor did even Nero carry off a stripling if club-footed, or disfigured by wens, pot-bellied, and humpbacked! Go then, and exult in the beauty of your darling boy! Yet for whom are there greater perils in store? He will become the adulterer of the city, and dread all the punishments that angry husbands inflict. Nor will he be more lucky than the star of Mars, even though he never fall like Mars into the net. But sometimes that bitter wrath exacts even more than any law permits, to satisfy the husband's rage. One dispatches the adulterer with the sword; another cuts him in two with bloody lashes; some have the punishment of the mullet. But your Endymion, forsooth, will of course become the lover of some lady of his affections! But soon, when Servilia has bribed him, he will serve her whom he loves not, and will despoil her of all her ornaments. For what will any woman refuse, to get her passions gratified? whether she be an Oppia, or a Catulla. A depraved woman has all her morality concentred there. "But what harm does beauty do one that is chaste?" Nay, what did his virtuous resolve avail Hippolytus, or what Bellerophon? Surely she fired at the rejection of her suit, as though treated with indignity. Nor did Sthenobæa burn less fiercely than the Cretan; and both lashed themselves into fury. A woman is then most ruthless, when shame sets sharper spurs to her hate. Choose what course you think should be recommended him to whom Cæsar's wife purposes to marry herself. This most noble and most beautiful of the patrician race is hurried off, poor wretched man, a sacrifice to the lewd eyes of Messalina. She is long since seated with her bridal veil all ready: the nuptial bed with Tyrian hangings is openly prepared in the gardens, and, according to the antique rites, a dowry of a million sesterces will be given; the soothsayer and the witnesses to the settlement will be there! Do you suppose these acts are kept secret; intrusted only to a few? She will not be married otherwise than with all legal forms. Tell me which alternative you choose. If you refuse to comply, you must die before nightfall. If you do commit the crime, some brief delay will be afforded you, until the thing, known to the city and the people, shall reach the prince's ears. He will be the last to learn the disgrace of his house! Do you meanwhile obey her behests, if you set so high a value on a few days' existence. Whichever you hold the better and the safer course, that white and beauteous neck must be presented to the sword! ... " Juvenal, Satire X, translated by Lewis Evans and William Gifford (1881) But you don't need balls if all sex is going to be female phallus sex - Cybele was a goddess of Amazon orgies - no male balls needed! If you view a lot of Egyptian art you will notice men with a lack of beards and many fully bald heads - To me that indicates the balls came off before puberty - No balls means not need for the fibula or penis cage. In Egypt women were free to walk around naked because the male phallus was absent for the most part... The male libido was dammed up at a collective level creating sexually voracious women and docile men .. Garden of Priapus - 256 Boss lady about to mount her "man-pony". Shot blocked. Used workaround Juvenal calls Roman marriage the placing of the halter on the male slave. I do not think he was speaking metaphorically - all Roman men were placed in an unremovable bronze penis cage at 14. At 25 the cage came off - but control of it moved to the wife or "horse-rider". * In “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Roman sexual behavior is one sided - female sexual aggression and promiscuity that did not diminish with old age. The pattern was marriage as a required legal form then rampant extramarital female sex “ … Of the vices mentioned by both writers, the most numerous examples by far occur in the category of promiscuity. The basic difference in treatment lies in the fact that Juvenal rails more at the promiscuous activities of married women than does Martial. Although Martial lambasts both married and single women for promiscuity, the general tone of his poems on the subject is more frivolous and not quite as strident. Juvenal appears to view the illicit conduct of married women as a genuine threat to the strength of the Roman moral fiber. In his more comprehensive view of feminine promiscuity, Martial deals with both the professional who plays for pay and the amateur who plays for fun. Specifically, in the latter case, he reserves special attention for those women who have married to circumvent the Julian laws of Augustus, which had been revitalized by Domitian; he also examines the aging, lecherous witches of wealth who have the money to buy their satisfaction. The most numerous examples, however, simply concern wayward wives who distinguish themselves by either their zestful eagerness or their spectacular capacity for illicit affairs. Finally, in the general area of promiscuity Martial deals with a number of subjects which are Pornography for the sake of pornography -- the ancient world's dirty jokes, a few of which will be mentioned and summarized but which have no true bearing on Martial's feeling towards women, falling in the category of the average male's repertoire of off-color stories. ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 257 Boss lady riding her mount The sexual appetite of Roman matrons seems to have intensified with age and experience - Very little analysis as to why this is so - but my guess is the penis cage and the collective dammed up libido of the Roman male. This was even more intense in Africa and Asia where a similar pattern existed as well as an ancient tradition of male castration - ancient Ethiopians were famed for the large female clitoris and a tendency of Red sea people to remove the penis entirely ...The Queen of Sheba in Arabia had a goat-leg and many lovers! “ … in the category of enthusiastically unfaithful wives, Martial suggest in Book III the married woman's fondness for reading erotic texts when he addresses the Roman matron and invites her to continue reading his book of poems, which will become more licentious and erotic in content. … More castigating, however, is Martial toward those adulterous wives who practice their vices with audacious disregard for public morality and their husbands' feelings. Of especially reprehensible character is the Paula of XI, who has given up caring about appearances in regard to her husband and, quotens placet ire fututum, simply tells him the truth without attempting to conceal the purpose of her expeditions from home. Correspondingly, in III Martial's "wife" brazenly asks him to put up with a lover of hers. To Martial's credit in handling this promiscous audacity, he threatens to castrate his hypothetical rival (huic ego non oculos eruo, Galle, duos?). The tone in this poem and in XI , towards the female adulterers is obviously critical.. The casual unconcern of both women is a source of irritation to the poet as indicated by his stated reaction in XI . The audacity of these two women pales before that of the wife of Gallus, perhaps a governor in Libya, who not only cuckolds her husband but also does so with black lovers; she passes from the range of practicing amateur to notorious nymphomaniac. The report of the crime of greed, expressed in a chiasmus in II , inmodicae foedo crimine avaritiae, which first brings the married slut to Martial's attention, actually refers to avarice in terms of lust. The simplicity of vocabulary and the brevity of sentence structure makes this criticism crisply cutting. In this four line epigram, only four words comprise the second line; and six, the fourth. Dalliance with non-Italian nationalties, however, was not restricted to a governor's wife. Marulla in VI has given birth to seven children, all sired by members of the troupe of slaves connected with her household. The descriptive catalogue of the offspring makes it clear that each child has sprung from his mother's union with a non-Italian national. … “ “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 258 Boss lady's husband servicing two Amazons Rome was sexually reversed by the fibula or penis cage and female sexual domination did not end with the removal of the penis cage at 25. - I think that by that age a life long pattern had been set - with all sexual aggression focused on women and not men. The Roman female libido did not diminish with age ... " ... The category of lusting witches of wealth mentioned in the introduction to the general topic of promiscuity comprise those poems which Martial devotes to aging women, either widowed or single, whose sexual cravings have increased, rather than decreased, with age. The extent of their desire is in direct proportion to their own diminished physical appeal. Their conduct, unseemly to their age and social position, merits a number of Martial's most stinging sallies. To Matronia's immodest question in III 32 whether he could love an old woman, Martial crushingly replies- that he could possibly love an old woman (vetulam) but that she could not qualify even as a vetulam since she was already a corpse (mortua). Sed tu mortua, ~ vetula ~ es· Again an answer to a hypothetical question allows Martial the structural basis for a poetically incisive attack. The crone in VII 75 exceeds Matronia's immodesty by desiring free carnal services, cum••• deformis anusque. To such a res perridicula, Martial gives a scathing:judgment of the old woman: vis dare nee dare vis. The play on the two meanings_ of dare -- one obscene and one, not -- is typical of Martial's genius in utilizing a simple vocabulary and loading it with meaning. Of similar desire but with a more accurate assessment of her own desperate situation, Sila in XI 23 is willing to marry Martial on any terms (nubere ••• nulla ~ lege). To such an offer, Martial proposes a number of degrading stipulations to the hypothetical match including no marital relations, separate beds, and freedom for Martial to dally. His proviso in regard to the giving of kisses in line 14, ~quasi nupta debis sed quasi mater anus, leaves no doubt in regard to his feeling concerning her proper social role. For those aging women who are unsuccessful in solliciting the attentions of a free-born Roman, there is always recourse to slaves. In II 34, Galla has redeemed her favorite, eros, with her entire dowry (tota ••• dote) and has thus put her three sons in dire financial straits (perire fame). The cano ••• cunno in line 3, meant as a reference to Galla, provides the reader with an alliterative obscenity and clearly reveals Martial's feelings. Reprehensible as Galla's conduct may seem, she must be given credit for at least pursuing adults. Telesina in II 49, besides being a moecha, pueris dat. Martial sarcastically plays on the double meaning of dat and commends Telesina for her kindness. Again, Martial uses simple lan- guage for maximum effect. Telesina's fondness for boys is mirrored in the actions of the Chloe in IV 28 and the "love'' of Martial in VII, 14. Chloe has bestowed the richest of gifts on her tenero Luperco, hoping, as the lover of smooth- skinned boys (glabraria), to hold his attention. Martial's coining of the term_glabraria from the masculine substantive, glaber •_"beardless slave," constitutes a stylistically effective hapax legomenon. Angered bemusement makes Martial linguistically creative. An older girl friend of Martial has a similar romatic predilection as Chloe. Martial remonstrates that, unlike Catullus's Lesbia who mourned her sparrow, his girl friend grieves over the_loss of a twelve-year-old boy. Martial's comparison in lines 9 and 10 between the boy's age and the size of his membrum virile (senos.••annos, mentula.•• sesquipedalis) demonstrates Martial's ability to combine the amusingly obscene with critical social satire. In the same coarse vein is XI 29, in which Martial remonstrates with a certain Phyllis who begins lanquida•••vetula_tractare virilia ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) - "Mentula" here is not the penis of the 9 year old. It's more probably the female dildo that was inserted into him by his female seducer. The fibula or penis cage was an absolute for Roman men until a mature age - 25 or older Garden of Priapus - 259 The General about to mount an OG or old guy The ideal Roman marriage - the OG haltered up to submit to the mentula or mentule of a vigorous young bride ... Augustus required that all Roman men marry - or all Roman men submit to the supreme Roman deity - the female phallus of Vesta ... That was the real meaning of Roman marriage And the energy of the female phallus had to be real - it clearly drove Roman matrons wild with lust - In the modern world that energy still exists - you can see it in the Sambadrome in Brazil - sponsored by Lebga and the Orisha's * Polyandry - like birds and their female phallus and 2 or 3 mates, Roman women had an expectation of polyandry after haltering their first “horse”. Greek women too as the examples of Socrates and Plato show - and I am sure all Egyptians and Africans as well: “ … In VI 90, a concise two-liner, Martial sarcastically implies that no moral airs can be. exhibited by Gellia, the"wife of two"(~•••duorurn). Galla would like to be known just as the "wife of two," but the presence of an unwanted baby confuses the issue. “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 260 The General riding the OG. When done right that's hotter sex - it's direct contact with the seat of the male sex chakra! And unlike most sex its two way - a Greek dialogue as opposed to a Yahweistic monologue. Yahweh needs to remember his wife! - A younger me could never have said that - I was a believer. The older me is threatened daily by the real thing! El has a sense of humour - he seems more like a African king with a taste for beer & goats & women Garden of Priapus - 261 The General roughly riding the OG - There is a Roman sex scene like this recorded on a previous page - The women strips naked and like a goddess warns her partner to "fight like a man" in the contest ahead where she will not turn her back to him! That's a strange image, but makes more sense when the female phallus in the male vulva or anus is imagined * The Roman male phallus was not needed for sex! As far as sex goes eunuchs were fine - like the priests of Cybele: "Caelia 3 consorts with eunuchs only (volt futui Caelia nee parere)" “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) That implies a female or Amazon phallus Garden of Priapus - 262 The General finishing up Like the phallic Vesta, the fire of the Roman female phallus was the property of the community - not a single husband - despite the often mentioned prohibition on adultery “ … None of the preceding cases, however, can compare with the implied profligacy of the wife of Candidus in III 26. Although the poem is primarily intended as a slashing jab at the pretentious Candidus who prides himself on his exclusive ownership of various valuable posessions, the concluding line of the epigram, labeling Candidus's wife as a property of the people (uxorem••• ~ populo), delineates in three words the nadir of feminine adultery. …” “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 263 Black skinned Statue of Artemis Ephesus - Greek bronze and alabaster sculpture created in 2 BC. Naples National Archaeological Museum. Italy. There are no images of Vesta besides an erect and winged phallus rising from the flames of her temple - But she probably looked like this black skinned Artemis bathed in the fire of all the men who sacrificed their balls to her - either through the Fibula or penis cage - or though castration. Underneath the dress, it goes without saying, is a large female phallus - Black skinned - because she's chthonic or of the earth - but also because she was an African goddess ! (August 11, 2021) Dream images associated with this post is a sexual female fish being - cross species sex! - But a female with a phallus I feel fairly certain those are human balls - not bulls. The inner image is transfer of control the male sexual fire to the goddess represented in daily life by the wife. * " ... Artemis of Ephesus The goddess was originally, before her cult was taken over by the Greeks, called "Artimus", and her temple - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - received gifts from the Lydian king Croesus (c.560-c.547). She is related to other Anatolian mother goddesses, like Cybele. The Ephesians believed that Artemis was born in Ephesus (and not on Delos, as was commonly assumed), and accepted the shrine as an asylum. Later, the Persians patronized the cult; the high priest was called the "Megabyxus", a Persian name that means "the one set free for the cult of the divinity". The original cult statue was made of wood, but was probably lost after the great fire of 356 BCE. Although the statue as we know it was a substitute for the lost original, it retains several archaic traits (e.g., her static pose). Still, many aspects cannot be dated in the archaic age, and the statue from Lepcis that is next to this article illustrates this very well: on the upper part of her chest, she wears a zodiac, a symbol invented in fourth-century Babylonia. On other copies, Artemis wears a mural crown, a Mesopotamian and Syrian motif that became popular in the Hellenistic age. The winged Victories to the left and right appear to be innovations as well, although they have archaic antecedents. On other copies, these elements are absent (e.g., instead of the Victories, we see lions), and they may be closer representations of the original. However, the fact that a statue with zodiac had been found in Ephesus, strongly suggests that the astrological aspect was not altogether absent from the Ephesian cult. One of Artemis' characteristics is that she protects fertility. This may be symbolized by the spherical objects that cover the lower part of her chest, but the common assumption that they are female breasts is incorrect. They probably represent the testicles of a bull, although they may also be gourds, which were known in Asia as fertility symbols for centuries. Artemis' robe is always decorated with lions, leopards, goats, griffins, and bulls, which represent Artemis' title of Lady of the Animals. ... " livius Garden of Priapus - 264 Ball control transfer: Boss lady and a friend with a large black strap on dildo preparing a slave in the penis cage for rough anal sex while in the penis cage. * This was Roman sex from the Emperor on down. Augusta Livia had Augustus Caesar locked in one of these penis cages. That was the source of her cornucopia - or horn of plenty! The habit was Trojan - like Artemis of Ephesus - and as noted above - also Syrian, Persian and Mesopotamian. In Syria the penis cage was a component of Dea Syria - a mermaid who required castration of her priests. There had to be a benefit to penis lock up that we cannot see today though: "Later, the Persians patronized the cult; the high priest was called the "Megabyxus", a Persian name that means "the one set free for the cult of the divinity". Livius Garrden of Priapus - 265 Boss lady riding her slave in the penis cage The Mentula or Mentule ! Same as the Fascinum that the Vestal Virgins presented to conquering Roman generals to protect them from the "evil eye". That's always assumed to be a male phallus - but the weight of evidence says female phallus not male ... The winged female phallus of the supreme Roman deity - Vesta * Free sex in Rome was female not male - anti adultery laws were created to prevent female not male bed hopping. To me that proves that the phallus in Rome was female, not male - Thats the Roman branch of Innana's sacred prostitutes and the es dam or Amazon brothel " ... The attention Martial gives to individuals attempting to circumvent the Julian laws concerning marriage probably originated more from Martial's desire to please Domitian than from a gnawing sense of legal transgression. The Julian laws of 19 B.C. and 18 B.C., which aimed at the restoration of family life, the encouragement of marriage, and the discouragement of childlessness by placing disabilities upon unmarried and childless persons, were raised from the level of de iure to de facto by Domitian in order to quell the tide of casual divorce and illicit affairs. Regardless of his true intent, Martial still managed a number of poetically effective attacks on those women attempting to circumvent legally the intent of Domitian's program of moral reform. The epigrams dealing with the feminine transgressors of the Julian laws were actually devoted to those women who satisfied the strict legal intent of the stipulation against adultery, but not its moral intent. Rumored liaisons suddenly materialized into marriage, and Martial was not fooled in regard to the true character of the women involved by such legalistic maneuvering. Typical of Martial's expressed anger is I 74 in which Paula has married her lover, making the former liaison obvious. Particularly effective, stylistically, is Martial's use of a two-word statement to begin the first line and a three-word exclamation to begin the second in this concise two-liner. Moechus erat: ••• / ecce vir est. The brevity of the statements underlines the speed of the transition. A straightforward statement concerning the same legal maneuvering is V 75, ~n wh:L..ch Laelia marries Quintus legis causa and now may be called his uxorem••• legitimam. No poetic or stylist~c devices are to be found in this poem. In VI 7, Martial introduces us to a hardy soul named Telesilla, who, hyperbolically, has married her tenth husband in thirty days, tricesima lux est, I et nubit decimo iam Telesilla viro. Martial, master of the ~o~cise cut, spears her.nicely in line 5: adultera lege est. In only three words, Martial has summed up the position of Telesilla and all the rest who have sought to avoid punishment under the Julian laws; they are adulteresses by form of law ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garrden of Priapus - 266 Boss lady and friends sodomizing a slave in the Egyptian "Bes" style. I am sure the phallus was female in Egypt too. The penis cage only came out on rare cases - In Rome it was Bronze and welded shut My gut feeling is in Egypt women were more sexually aggressive than in Rome - we just have no evidence so far. - The Theban riddle: Egyptian and Ethiopian women were famous for their large clitoris ... * Roman Bath culture - From Martial we learn that women bathed naked in Roman baths. - All Roman baths proudly displayed a statue of a phallic Matron or Hermaphroditus. - The implication was clear - female phallus in the male anus sex My guess from the grandeur of female phallus statutary is the Roman bath was the true Roman version of the Sumerian es-dam - the Amazon brothel - even more so than the garden of Priapus and the Roman brothels or "stews". Page 150 of this website is full of these highly sensual and well made statutes example: Athletic woman with a phallus and a Dionysus style leopard skin over her shoulder - The catamite or sexually passive Dionysus was paired with a phallic Ampelus in many statutes - That was probably the holy of holies in Egyptian religion ... Rebirth through the female phallus of a Harpocrates Example - lithe athletic woman - posing nude and with a phallus " ... Martial must enjoy creating surprises. A surprise is also in store for the reader of III 8~, in which Martial reports the rumor concerning a certain Chione. This lady is said to be chaste, nihil cunno purius esse tuo. Martial, however, is annoyed that Chione calls attention to her virtue by bathing-covered. To show his annoyance, the poet ends with a stinging insult, si pudor est, transfer subligar in faciemj Poor Chione evidently did not have to beat off too many challenges to her virtue. Although the poet demonstrated no special constructions to underline his disdain for Chione, the reader probably could guess his derogatory feelings before the last line as he describes her chastity in terms of an obscenity (cunnus). ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 267 Boss lady sodomizing a penis caged slave in the Egyptian "Bes" style. Garden of Priapus - 268 Girls with a penis. Common in Roman statuary but no analysis - My theory is the Roman bath was the Roman "es-dam" or Sumerian Amazon brothel. Martial casually mentions a prostitute with a penis - who "rides" three men at the same time! "... In IX 32, Martial reveals the existence and presence in Rome of a lower echelon of paid prostitute -- hanc•••quam redimit totam denarius alter. This rather unprepossessing woman consorts with Martial's slave (puero ••• dedit ••. meo) and presents her person to ·three lovers at the same time (pariter sufficit una tribus). When Martial states that she is the girl whom possideat crassae mentula Burdigalae, the reader is left with· no doubt as to·the poet's disgust. ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) "she is the girl whom possideat crassae mentula Burdigalae" or "she is the girl with a fat Bordeaux mentula" - Mentula translated as penis Garden of Priapus - 269 The General riding a bound-up or holstered man in a warm wood vacation hut Martial advised a young man to go down to the Roman red-light district to overcome his sexual shyness. This is probably what happened down there - prostitutes in Rome sodomized their customers - that's the only sex a young gentleman in the fibula or penis cage could have ... " ... In advice to Victor, an inexperienced young friend in XI 78, he recommends that he become versed in the ways of love, utere femineis conplexibut, implying that a young new bride is not going to be able to help him overcome his shyness, metuit teli vulnera prima novi. The poet's advice: take yourself down to the red-light district of Rome, ergo Suburanae tironem trade magistrae. The first half of the last line -- illa virum faciet -- constitutes advice often given over the centuries; thus, Martial, in addition to his poetic prowess, can be said to have an understanding of young men inexperienced in human sexuality. That the girls of the Subura district fulfilled a necessary social function did not preclude the poet from exhibiting the usual disdain straight society is accustomed to display towards ladies of the evening; VI 66, which deals with the slave sale of a girl of questionable reputation, shows that clearly when Martial terms the girl as famae non nimium bonae ••• / quales in media sedent Subura. To say that Martial is a practicing hypocrite is incorrect, however, in II 31, the poet begins his epigram by flatly stating: saepe ego Christinam futui. When Marianus asks how she performs, Martial unblushingly answers that she is a consummate artist, supra quod fieri nil,- --potest. Again, in terms of structural style, Martial has posed a hypothetical question and answered it -- in this case, with a crisp six-word reply. ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 270 Boss lady riding a slave ... Roman prostitutes like Roman women had a strong craving for sex for its own sake - and many either gave the sex for free or even paid for it. That does not make sense! The only way that could be true is if the women were the ones doing the penetrating! The female phallus penetrating the ass of a penis caged seems to have been a very powerful aphrodisiac! " ... In x 75, the poet refers to a certain Galla who comes down on her price with the passage of time· until she "gives" for free. The last two lines of this rather involved fourteen-liner comprise the kernel of the poem, and again Martial turns to the method of rhetorical question to conclude his epigram crisply and give it an appropriately cutting edge: inferius num quid potuit descendere? fecit./ dat gratis, ultra dat mihi Galla: nego. The vocabulary and sentence structure continue to be of the simplest kind. Galla, at least, has something on the Lesbia of XI 62; this girl, according to Martial, does not charge; she pays. Martial, however, does not state the situation as an unadorned fact. In one of his most amusing and effective epigrams, the poet states: Lesbia se iurat gratis numguam esse fututam. / verum est. Cum futui, vult, numerare solet. In this poem, which has been stated entire, Martial exhibits a straightforward humor which-.is refreshing. ..." “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 271 Boss lady and a friend enjoying a penis caged slave " ... [Juvenal] reserves more space for the lascivious action marring the supposedly secluded and secret rites of the Bona Dea. The meetings are devoted, so says Juvenal, to sex games and enactments (lenorum ancillas ••. Saufeia ••• provocat), in which nothing is left to the imagination (nil ibi per ludum simulabitur). ... Juvenal comments on the reactions of the female audience: -Tune prurigo morae impatiens, tum femina simplex. The latter phrase is particularly illuminating: "then woman is as she is." ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) * - The Trojan heroes were catamites: " In these games nothing is counterfeit, all is acted to the life; so that even the aged Priam, effete from years, or Nestor himself, might be inflamed at the sight.... " Juvenal, Satire VI I found that image baffling- but it seems to be true! * -(Aug 14, 2021) My guess is the sex being enacted during the Bona Dea was Innana related - ie: "Who will plow my vulva?" Followed by the birth of the "horn" and female on male anal sex. - I think there was one more iteration of the Innana cult after the fall of Rome: "She" - an Arab Anat - maybe Syrian Augusta - probably maintained the Innana fire somewhere in central Africa until the fall of the Fatimid empire in the 12th century AD Garden of Priapus - 272 More Korean action - a rough whipping in the penis cage and hooded head Roman men talking about sex was mostly female on male anal sex - thanks to the fibula-locked penis of the Roman man. Martial was able to take four Mentula's in a night - but with one female bull named Telessilla - only one night in four years! "... IX 97 can be construed as either a compliment or a cut. It has been included in the category of the former, since the latter is more numerously documented. In this epigram, Martial admits to being able to dally-with four women in one night, but with a certain Telesilla he maintains that it would be the death of him to spend one night in four years, sed quattuor annis si possum, peream, te, Telessilla, semel. The complimentary implication is that Telesilla is more than a physical match for the poet; the uncomplimentary implication is that she is so.ugly that the poet would perish from disgust just from being in proximity to her. There occur no special stylistic devices in this epigram, except for the play on numbers, Martial being content to let the reader decide how he will judge its purpose. ... " * Martial was probably one of the three horses that a slave with a fat Burgandian Mentula above was riding! - Burton has passages in the Priapea where brothel slaves were able to buy their freedom after servicing wealthy Roman men ... Garden of Priapus - 273 The Korean whipping an OG or old guy. He could not take the whole treatment though ! That's Sumerian - the phallic bull in the family was the mother - followed by her phallic daughters or Harpocrates ... All eros flowing from the Fibula or penis cage ... * Fibula - watching naked actors or dancers or singers or gladiators in the Fibula was supposed to be x-rated for Roman women and richer matrons were known to pay lavishly to remove the penis cage for regular sex. My general insight though is the Fibula rarely came off - and all Roman sex was female phallus sex ... " ... In lines 63-66, Juvenal deals with the lustful reactions of three women to the performance of a male dancer. The poet's choice of vocabulary in regard to the first two clearly manifest his disdain: Tuccia cannot control herself (non imperat) and Apula sighs as if in sexual embrace (Apula gannit / sicut in amplexu subito). Impero as a verb is frequently used in a military context and connotes a sense of control; Tuccia because of her lustful inclinations is obviously not in command· of herself. Gannie as a verb frequently refers to a guttural groan and could be considered onomatoepoetic;: Apula connot restrain herself from simulating .sexual ecstasy even in the theater. On the same general subject are lines 71-75, which deal with the love of certain women for the comedian, the singer, and the tragedian. One would think that such diversion would preclude a certain degree of wealth, ~ut diligit Aelia pauper. As in the case of the farm girl, Juvenal is ready to note that social rank and wealth are far from being the sole criteria for lascivious action. The rich, however, may have more opportunity solvitur his magno comoedi fibula. The use of fibula as a metaphor to symbolize the comedian's craft is probably stock, but effective." ..." “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 274 Nude Roman male and female - Pompeii wall painting - "Perseus freeing Andromeda" - Andromeda was an Ethiopian princess - but is here represented as white. Perseus has almost black skin, a very small phallus and athletic body - That's the fibula or penis cage effect. The same pattern can be found in Egyptian statues - upper class men are always much darker skinned than their wives. - What is not clear here is the sex drive - the phallus was all female in Pompeii and the rest of the classical world! " ... In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of the king of Aethiopia, Cepheus, and his wife, Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia boasts that she is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia as divine punishment. Andromeda is chained to a rock as a sacrifice to sate the monster, but is saved from death by Perseus, who marries her and takes her to Greece to reign as his queen. ... " Wikipedia * (Aug 14, 2021) When trying to clear up one mystery I opened another - Andromeda! African, but painted white by the Romans - There may be some truth there - the subject I was covering above - "She" a white queen in the middle of Africa - maybe a Syrian or Mesopotamian colony in the dark continent. * The race of Andromeda - My insight is from Semiramis - the Amazon queen of Sumeria claimed to have conquered Ethiopia and Queen Candace who met Alexander the Great was said to be a granddaughter of Semiramis. My interest lies more in the Amazon sexuality of Andromeda and her mother Cassiopeia. That was a classic Amazon mother daughter pair - no doubt with bull female phalli! In this case the "horn" or sexuality and eros is more important than race! They probably call east Africa the "horn" of Africa because of ancient Amazon fire! That's a binary condition though - Its either there or its not there and there is no middle ground * According to Wikipedia: " ... Andromeda was the daughter of the king and queen of Ethiopia (Aithiopia/Aethiopia), which ancient Greeks located at the edge of the world of the lands south of Egypt (Nubia). The term Aithiops was generally applied to Nubians and other peoples who dwelt above the equator, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, being derived from the Greek words α?θω and ?ψ (aitho 'I burn' + ops 'face'), translating as burnt-face in noun form and red-brown in adjectival form, as a reference to the Black African natives of the Kingdom of Kush. Homer says the Ethiopians live "at the world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East," an idea echoed by Ovid, who located Ethiopia next to India, close to where the sun rises each day. The 5th century BC historian Herodotus writes that "Where south inclines westwards, the part of the world stretching farthest towards the sunset is Ethiopia", and also included a plan by Cambyses II of Persia to invade Ethiopia (Kush). By the 1st century BC a rival location for Andromeda's story had been established, however: an outcrop of rocks near the harbor of the ancient port city of Joppa (Iope or Jaffa, today part of Tel Aviv, Israel) had become associated with the place of Andromeda's chaining and rescue, as reported by Pliny the Elder, the traveler Pausanias, the geographer Strabo, and the historian Josephus. A case has been made that this new version of the myth was exploited to enhance the fame and serve the local tourist trade of Joppa, which also became connected with the biblical story of Jonah featuring yet another huge sea creature. This was, of course, at odds with Andromeda's African origins, adding to the confusion already surrounding her ethnicity, as reflected in 5th century Greek vase images showing Andromeda attended by dark-skinned African servants and wearing clothing that would have looked foreign to Greeks, yet with light skin. Elizabeth McGrath, in her article The Black Andromeda, discusses the tradition, as promoted by the influential Roman poet Ovid, of Andromeda being a dark-skinned woman of either Ethiopian or Indian origin. In his Heroides Ovid has Sappho explain to Phaon: "though I'm not pure white, Cepheus's dark Andromeda/charmed Perseus with her native color./White doves often choose mates of different hue/and the parrot loves the black turtle dove"; the Latin word fuscae Ovid uses here for "dark Andromeda" refers to the color black or brown. Elsewhere he says that Perseus brought Andromeda from "darkest" India and declares “Nor was Andromeda’s color any problem/to her wing-footed aerial lover” adding that “White suits dark girls; you looked so attractive in white, Andromeda”. Ovid's account of Andromeda's story follows Euripides' play Andromeda in having Perseus initially mistake the chained Andromeda for a statue of marble, which has been taken to mean she was light-skinned; but since statues in Ovid's time were commonly painted to look like living people, her skin tone could have been of any color. The Aethiopica, a Greek romance attributed to the 3rd century AD writer Heliodorus of Emesa, reflects the ambiguity between dark-skinned and light-skinned Andromedas in Late Antiquity. In the kingdom of Meroë (modern Sudan), Queen Persinna gives birth to her daughter, Chariclea who, despite having black parents, is born with white skin. The mother's explanation is that, during the moment of conception, she was gazing at a picture of a white-skinned Andromeda "brought down by Perseus naked from the rock, and so by mishap engendered presently a thing like to her." After being long separated from her parents, living in Egypt and Greece, Princess Chariclea returns home with her lover Theagnes and proves both her heritage and her mother's story as true by showing her parents a single black spot upon her elbow. Like the mythical Andromeda, Chariclea thus 'passes' as a member of the Greek/Roman world as well as of her African birthplace. This ambiguity is also reflected in a description by the 2nd century AD sophist Philostratus of a painting depicting Perseus and Andromeda. He emphasizes the painting's Ethiopian setting, and notes that Andromeda "is charming in that she is fair of skin though in Ethiopia," in clear contrast to the other "charming Ethiopians with their strange coloring and their grim smiles" who have assembled to cheer Perseus in this picture. ... " Wikipedi Garden of Priapus - 275 More Korean action - This horse in the penis cage and the hooded head goes the distance ... - In the passage below, Martial is unable to find a Roman woman who will say no to having sex with him. My only question is what "having sex" means. Roman women like Sumerian women were the phallus to the male vulva or anus! " ... In IV 38, another Galla is addressed ; Martial warns her to refuse his advances and thus heighten the excitement of the pursuit -- satiatur amor nisi gaudia torquent. The poet cautions her, however, not to refuse too long, sed noli nimium, Galla, negare diu. In content, the epigram indicates the poet's realization of the power of a woman's coyness; in style, the effective use of alliteration of the initial "n" sound in the last line just quoted recreates the sound of the artful coquette saying "no, no, no" to the blandishments of a suitor. At the opposite extreme of conduct are the girls who never say no. In IV 71, Martial bemoans the fact that he has searched the city and nulla puella negat. Obviously, these overeager women need lessons in romantic strategem; deceit, if it is wisely and moderately used, can be a definite virtue rather than a vice, or so Martial implies. Stylistically, the epigram is effectively written. At the end of each even line in·this six-liner, the poet closes with the word negat. The refrain pounds home to the reader Martial's disgust with the promiscuous nature of Roman women. “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 276 More Korean action: - Playing with the penis cage key. Roman sex was like horse riding - Nobody finds it strange to find a petite girl mastering large beasts! And not just one ... horse girls are polyandrous ! Straightforward polyandry - In this poem by Martial Paula openly informs her husband of her sexual tours: " ... Book XI:7 Paula’s strategy When you want to go visit a distant lover, for sure, now, Paula, you’ll not be telling that stupid husband of yours, 'Caesar’s ordered me off to Alba tomorrow first thing, Caesar: Circeii.’ The age of such tricks has gone. Under Nerva’s rule it’s all right to be a Penelope: but those ‘needs’ of yours, your true nature, won’t let you. Bad girl, what can you do? Discover an ailing friend? Your husband would stick fast to his lady himself and go with you, if it were brother, mother, or father. So, my ingenious one, what ruse do you consider? Some other adulteress would say, for her nerves, she needed to take the waters at Sinuessa. You do better, Paula, when you want to go fucking, you choose to tell that husband of yours the truth! ... " Martial Garden of Priapus - 277 Perseus holds up Medusa's head so Andromeda may safely see its reflection in the pool below - fresco, 1st century AD, Pompeii - Again Andromeda has much lighter skin that Perseus - That's the Fibula or penis cage effect - West Africans have a similar myth of Poseidon chaining up the Ethiopian Amazons - Ogun chained the phallic female orisha's under the sea at the request of Obatala I guess they have partly escaped at the Brazilian Carnaval - In ancient Rome the Amazon female phallus was - openly celebrated and worshipped as the highest divinity Vesta and her rutting winged Fascinus ...And the male vulva or anus too - created by the penis cage - you can't have one without the other * Ethiopian Amazons - painted white by the Romans who knew how to paint Negroes - My guess is they were Sumerian - a Sumerian or Mesopotamian colony in black Africa - which had a traditional system of rule by Amazon already in place: " ... In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, king and queen of ancient Ethiopia. Her mother Cassiopeia foolishly boasts that she is more beautiful than the Nereids, a display of hubris by a human that is unacceptable to the gods. To punish the queen for her arrogance, Poseidon floods the Ethiopian coast and sends a sea monster named Cetus to ravage the kingdom's inhabitants. In desperation, King Cepheus consults the oracle of Ammon, who announces that no respite can be found until the king sacrifices his daughter, Andromeda, to the monster. She is thus chained to a rock by the sea to await her death. Perseus is just then flying near the coast of Ethiopia on his winged sandals, having slain the Gorgon Medusa and carrying her severed head, which instantly turns to stone any who look at it. Upon seeing Andromeda bound to the rock, Perseus falls in love with her, and he secures Cepheus' promise of her hand in marriage if he can save her. Perseus kills the monster with the magical sword he had used against Medusa, saving Andromeda. Preparations are then made for their marriage, in spite of her having been previously promised to her uncle, Phineus. At the wedding, a quarrel between the rivals ends when Perseus shows Medusa's head to Phineus and his allies, turning them to stone. Andromeda follows her husband to his native island of Serifos, where he rescues his mother, Danaë. They next go to Argos, where Perseus is the rightful heir to the throne. However, after accidentally killing Argos' king, his grandfather, Acrisius, Perseus chooses to become king of neighboring Tiryns instead. Perseus and Andromeda have seven sons: Perses (who, according to folk etymology, is the ancestor of the Persians), Alcaeus, Heleus, Mestor, Sthenelus, Electryon, and Cynurus as well as two daughters, Autochthe and Gorgophone. Their descendants rule Mycenae from Electryon down to Eurystheus, after whom Atreus attains the kingdom. The great hero Heracles (Hercules in Roman mythology) is also a descendant, his mother Alcmene being Electryon's daughter, while (like his grandfather Perseus) his father is the god Zeus. The goddess Athena (or her Roman version Minerva) places Andromeda in the northern sky at her death as the constellation Andromeda, along with Perseus and her parents Cepheus and Cassiopeia, in commemoration of Perseus' bravery in fighting the sea monster Cetus. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 278 Married life: Boss lady working a large phallus on penis caged slave. Shot blocked. Used workaround In Rome wealthy Roman men had this done by their slaves ... Martial sort of admits this when discussing the excellent work done by "the girl whom possideat crassae mentula Burdigalae" - That's a startling image though! The masters being ridden by the slaves - But backed up by the world of the Fibula or penis cage And wealthy Roman matrons did this to their slaves " ... For pure irony, though~ there is the match of Alauda and his wife in XII 58; he is an ancillariolum or lover of servant maids, and she is a lecticariola or lover of litter-bearers. The pair seem to deserve each other {estis--pares). ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) * " ... Book XII:58 Two for a pair Your wife says you’re fond of slave-girls, she’s fond of boys, the ones who carry her litter: Alauda, you’re two for a pair. ..." Martial * In the Golden Ass of Apuleius a Roman is turned into a donkey who has a series of misadventures - One of them is being bought by an amorous Roman matron. She forces the donkey to have sex with her - but I not sure the image we have is right - She probably penetrated the donkey rather than being penetrated by the donkey! That was just the way Trojan sex worked - Roman women had the libido of a well endowned Ass! * The Golden Ass of Apuleius also has a scene featuring Eunuchs of Cybele - they called themselves "girls" and were using a slave boy they purchased to sexually service them... I suppose that's why boys were so prized sexually in Rome - they were not yet penis caged But my guess is the Cybele orgies featured phallic Roman matrons sodomizing the Eunuch priests of Cybele - not slave boys. The Roman religion of the female phallus was an ultimate taboo - Romans did not talk about it - But the ever present winged fascinum with its aroused female rider leave few doubts in my mind as to the sexually dominant role of phallic Roman matrons and girls. " Book VIII:26-28 With the wandering Eunuchs Taking possession of his new follower, he dragged me home with him, and reaching the doorway cried: ‘Look what a pretty slave I’ve bought you, girls!’ The ‘girls’ were his troop of eunuchs who began dancing in delight, raising a dissonant clamour with tuneless, shrill, effeminate cries, thinking no doubt his purchase was a slave-boy ready to do them service. But on seeing me, no doe replacing a sacrificial virgin, but an ass instead of a boy, they turned up their noses, and made caustic remarks to their leader. ‘Here’s no slave,’ one cried, ‘but a husband of your own.’ And ‘Oh,’ called another, ‘don’t swallow that little morsel all by yourself, give your little doves the occasional bite.’ Then amidst the banter they tied me to the manger. Now in that house was a corpulent lad, a fine flute-player, bought in the slave-market with the funds from their begging-plate, who circled around playing his pipes when they lead the goddess about, but at home played the part of concubine, sharing himself around. Seeing me now he smilingly set a heap of fodder before me, and said with delight: ‘At last you’re here to take turns at this wretched work. Live to please our masters, and give my weary muscles a rest.’ On hearing this I began to wonder what new ills were in store. Next day they prepared to do their rounds, dressing in bright array, beautifying their faces un-beautifully, daubing their cheeks with rouge, and highlighting their eyes. Off they went, in turbans and saffron robes, all fine linen and silk, some in white tunics woven with purple designs and gathered up in a girdle, and with yellow shoes on their feet. The goddess they wrapped in a silken cloak and set her on my back, while they, arms bare to the shoulder, waving frightful swords and axes, leapt about and chanted, in a frenzied dance to the stirring wail of the flute. Passing a few small hamlets in our wanderings, we came to a rich landowner’s country house. On reaching the gate, they rushed in wildly, filling the place with tuneless cries, heads forward, rotating their necks in endless circling motions, their long pendulous hair swinging around them, now and then wounding their flesh savagely with their teeth, and at the climax slashing their arms with the double-edged knives they carried. One in their midst began to rave more ecstatically than the rest, heaving breaths from deep in his chest, simulating a fit of divine madness, as if filled with inspiration from some god, though surely the presence of a deity should make men nobler than themselves, not disorder them or make them lose their senses. But behold the benefit he won from these ‘heavenly powers’. Raving like a prophet, he began to chastise himself with a concocted tale of some sin of his against the sacred laws of religion, and demanded self-punishment for his guilt. Then he snatched up the whip, the insignia of those emasculated creatures, with its long tufted strands of twisted sheep’s hide strung with those animals’ knuckle bones, and scourged himself savagely with strokes of its knotted lash, showing amazing fortitude given the pain from his gashes. The ground grew slippery with blood from the flashing blades and flailing whips, and I grew very uneasy at this gory flood from the countless wounds lest this Syrian goddess might have a stomach for ass’s blood, yearning for it as some humans do for ass’s milk. But when they were weary at last of self-flagellation, or at least were sated, they ceased their antics and took up a collection, people vying for the pleasure of dropping copper coins, and even silver, into the ample folds of their robes. They were also given a fat jar of wine, with milk and cheese, cornmeal and flour, and even a feed of barley for me, the goddess’ beast of burden. They gathered it greedily, piled it into sacks presciently acquired to carry the takings, and heaped them on my back. Now weighed down by a double load, I was a walking shrine and a storage-chest in one. ... " The Golden Ass of Apuleius Translated by A. S. Kline (2013) Garden of Priapus - 279 Boss lady galloping her horse Shot blocked. Used workaround. Roman prostitutes enjoyed their work with the mentule so much that many gave it away for free. Here Martial complains of one of them who gives the mentule to all men in Rome with the exception of Romans themselves! " ... Of similar moral turpitude as Lesbia is the Thais of IV 12. No payment exchanges hands in either direction, but Thais is ready for anything: nulli, Thai, negas. Her principal shame, so says the poet, is the fact that she denies nothing. In this two-liner, there are two pivotal words -- pudet and negare; Their use and repetition form the structural basis of the epigram. Martial's ability to take a simple structure and use it as a springboard for a telling cut is one of his most obvious attributes as a writer. The Caelia of VII 30 shares the promiscuous proclivities of Thais; she "gives" to almost every nationality under the Roman sun but has an unexplainable aversion to the indigenous Roman male. Martial gives the reader a geography lesson by listing Caelia's lovers or customers; this list sets up the poet's final obscene question: quod Romana tibi mentula nulla placet? This poem reverses the form of XI 27 which began with an obscenity; Martial apparently wishes to have the reader associate in his mind the name of Caelia with a lewd phrase. The placement of a phrase...is, undoubtedly, a method of emphasis in Martial's writing arsenal. Along with Caelia and· Thais, the Lesbia of I 34 must be placed in the lowest rank in the category of paid professional. Her interest in.her business goes beyond the usual -- plus spectator quam to delectat adulteri She qualified, then, as a genuine exhibitionist, who, Martial says, would even disgust the average rneretrix. ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) - Not sure about translation of "mentula" below: "quod Romana tibi mentula nulla placet?" Mentula is female phallus! "Book VII:30 Hard to please You do Germans, and Parthians, and Dacians, Caelia, you don’t scorn Cappadocian, Cilician beds; and fuckers from Memphis, that Pharian city, and Red Sea’s black Indians sail towards you. You’d not flee the thighs of a circumcised Jew, not an Alan goes by, with Sarmatian horse too. What’s the reason, then, since you are a Roman, not one Roman member pleases you, woman? ... " Martial,VII 30 Translated by A. S. Kline (2006) "You’d not flee the thighs of a circumcised Jew" - tells me that the uncaged penis was the cause of alarm for Roman women! Roman sex was mentula or female phallus in the male vulva or anus - The Trojan way Garden of Priapus - 280 More Korean action - whipping in the penis cage Roman porn: Maritial warns the Roman matron that scenes in his books of male nudity in wrestling matches, at the baths and in the garden of Priapus are not for modest matrons The bronze Fibula or penis cage meant that Roman men were the sex objects of the ancient world ... They were mounted or whipped or penetrated by the mentula or female phallus Martial Book 3 LXVIII " ... A warning matron, this book for you is writ, Thus far: you ask about the rest? 'Tis meant for men like me-its wit Perhaps is somewhat scantily dressed. 'Tis stripped quite bare to run its race And cannot wear a modest guise The wrestling-ground and bathing-place Are sights unmeant for matron's eyes. The rose's scent, the flowing bowl, Have wrought on my Terpsichore, Henceforward she doth scorn control And recks not that her speech is free. As when Priapus' figure stands O'er garden-plots his watch to keep, Prudes veil their face with modest hands And yet between their fingers peep. So you had laid aside the book As dull and wearisome to you; But now will take another look Thereon-and read the volume through. ... " Martial Book 3 LXVIII, Translated by J. A. Pott and F. A. Wright (1920) Garden of Priapus - 281 More whipping in the penis cage - Boss lady and a friend working on a slave. The Eunuchs of Cybele were associated with self whipping - The tradition continues today with many Shi'ite muslim sects - That was probably self whipping for a goddess at the end of Rome - Persia was under the rule of the castrating mermaid goddess Dea Syria * The Amazons of Cybele were the "men" to the Eunuch "girls" - and many times the Amazon sexual aggression was too much even for the perverted Roman man - For example: "A level of degradation similar to that of Catulla is reached by a lasciva puella in IX 67, cuius nequitias vincere nulla potest. In this girl, Martial, himself no shrinking violet in the matter.of sexual adventures, finds someone whose complaisance is gained only by consent to a vile sexual proviso condicione mala. The poet does not detail the requirements of the stipulation, but the fact that he left her (puram) is a thundering admission in regard to the perverted nature of the request. " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) * The Islamic "anima" is today a degraded form of Inanna - maybe the icon of the Medusa I received above is the solution to the extreme violence of modern Islam ! Perseus would then be the Persian hero who slays the Medusa and frees Andromeda the loving Amazon ... Garden of Priapus - 282 More whipping in the penis cage - Boss lady getting ready for to administer another whipping to her slave in the caged dog position. That's the Amazon icon - the caged dog! And the double headed axe - the Labrys ... * The extramarital sex of Roman wives was not all in the penis cage - Rich Roman women had access to abortion - which meant the penis cage came off for the woman who could afford to pay for it ... In this passage Martial advises the husband of a sporting woman to provide the services of an abortionist or risk ending up the father of an Ethiopian or black child! " ... In these lines, Juvenal abhors the fact that the rich feminine profligate has recourse to the services of an abortionist -- sed iacet aurato vix ulla puerpera licto. The poet's saracasm echoes that of Martial's when he advises the husband to give his wayward wife the.abortionist.'s concoction(bibendum •••quidquid erit) ; for if the husband does not, esset Aethiopis fortasse pater. ... " “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) Garden of Priapus - 283 Boss lady and a friend dance - galloping their slave-horse in his penis cage! The Roman penis-cage was put in by women at 14 - mothers or aunts - and held by them until the Roman got married and his wife inherited control. Images of women at Egyptian "circumcisions" have convinced me of that - That was a form in sexual breaking in or "haltering a horse" by an older female relative. Those freshly locked beardless boys were the most desirable mates for older women in the garden of Priapus. Their punishment for entering the garden was clearly spelt out - anal sodomy! " ... A fitting close to the sub-category of lust as practiced by older women would be the stepmother of Gallas, who attempts to avoid the public notice of her romantic by-play by keeping it in the family. Gallus, the object of his stepmother's affection, cannot be termed reluctant, but the hypocrisy of this de iure incest angers Martial sufficiently to cause him to eschew any linguistic or stylistic cuteness. IV 16 is a straight- forward criticism of both Gallus and his stepmother. ..." Garden of Priapus - 284 Tall Amazon "plucking" the apples of a black mount - The rare black male ass in femdom BDSM porn! When I used to watch straight porn in the late 1990's you had to go to separate labels to see black American porn. If you wanted to see inter-racial porn you went to Hungary or Brazil ... Not sure what's going on today in porn - the fire seemed to dim for me early in the 2000's. Evil Angel was my favorite porn label ... * Roman sex - more Female on male - or Amazon - than male on female. Plato describes it best - Female over male - and male over boys! It makes no sense but there you have it! In Rome it was female over male and female over boys too! " ... In an analysis of those epigrams dealing with the promiscuous conduct of single women, a certain difficulty exists in the establishment of a distinction between the poems treating the playing amateur and the poems encompassing the activities of the paid professional. Poems concerned with the adventures of unattached women, where specific vocabulary does not indicate the contrary, are assumed to be referring to the amateur single. The prevailing tone of the majority of the poems dealing with these amateur singles tends to be obscene. Perhaps, because the single girl has neither children nor a husband to injure, Martial feels freer to express himself in direct terms. In I 100, for example, the reader is introduced to a free- spirit named Afra, who is said to have "mammas and dadas" (mammas atque tatas). From this initial statement, Martial expands the description by saying that Afra is the mammarum maxima mamma. By the very effective use of alliteration and the double meaning of manuna to refer· to physical attributes and to promiscuous tendency, the poet in just two lines makes his cutting point. ..." “Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" Lawrence Phillips Davis” (1973) * Martial 1.100 Mammas atque tatas habet Afra, sed ipsa tatarum Dici et mammarum maxima mamma potest. In many modern readings Afra is read as African or black - a large black "mami" or nurse - But I think Martial was talking about the "Theban Riddle" - ie. the large Egyptian clitoris - or Mentule ... Garden of Priapus - 285 More tall Amazon "plucking" the apples of a black mount - boots and spurs galloping ... Martial 7.67.1 Pudicat pueros tribas Philaenis et tentigine saevior mariti undenas dolat in die puellas That tribade Philaenis sodomizes boys, and with more rage than a husband in his stiffened lust, she works eleven girls roughly every day - The Tribade was supposedly a Greek thing! This does not usually come through the history books except with a very close reading of Plato - for example. But the Amazon behaviour of the Minoan bull-jumpers was probably inherited by Greek women ... " ... Martial ironically describes Philaenis refusing to perform fellatio because it was "unmanly", but yet engaging in cunnilingus, an activity which Martial deems so utterly feminine that only the most demented person would consider it manly. Martial emphasizes Philaenis's Greek character by peppering his epigrams against her with Greek phrases and loanwords, such as harpasto ("handball"), haphe ("yellow sand"), halteras ("jumping weights"), palaestra ("wrestling ring"), and colyphia ("meat dishes"). His descriptions of Philaenis and other masculine women bear close similarities to the descriptions found in the writings of the poet Seneca the Younger, who lived about a generation before Martial, and indicate that Martial was probably drawing inspiration either from Seneca himself or from the same tradition from which Seneca also drew his inspiration. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 286 More Korean action - whipping in the penis cage ... --Martial, Epig. VII.70 Ipsarum tribadum tribas, Philaeni, recte, quam futuis, vocas amicam. Tribade of tribades, Philaenis, rightly do you call whom you fuck your girl-friend - John Donne - The story of the Yoruba sky god Obatala losing the satchel of creation to his mermaid sister when drunk is almost exactly the same as Sumerian deities like Enki losing the sacred me to his daughter Innana and is probaby based on the same mythic truth ... The satchel of creation is the power of the phallus ... Rome was under the power of the female phallus - Or the Roman Phallus was under the control of Roman women - the bronze Fibula or penis cage ... Garden of Priapus - 287 Martial 1.90 "At tu, pro facinus, Bassa, fututor eras. Inter se geminos audes committere cunnos mentiturque uirum prodigiosa Venus." "Bassa, you were in fact a fucker. You dare to rub together two vulvas, and your clitoris plays the role of a male." Boss lady and a friend working on a slave. Modern reading of Roman Tribades all focus on lesbian sex. My initial inner dream images , however, were all female on male BDSM femdom. - That's the cause of the "piles" removed by surgeons from the smooth asses of virile Roman men in Juvenal's satires - The bacchantes "emblem of Priapus" or a large clitoris - a "prodigiosa Venus". Again, the missing link is the restrained phallus or Fibula of the Greco-Roman man - "At tu, pro facinus, Bassa, fututor eras" seems to me to be not really "you were a good fucker "- but more you were "pro facinus" - facinus being the dildo of Vesta - but also "pro facinus" being " pro crime" - Also In the previous poem - the "girls" that the Tribade Philaenis has rough sex with seem more to be the Eunuchs of Cybele - who called themselves "girls" - than actual Roman girls who appeared to be raised in a sexually closed off or even prudish space Garden of Priapus - 288 More boss lady and a friend working on a slave. The Theban riddle or Egyptian sex: The virile female phallus "mentiturque virum prodigiosa Venus. commenta es dignum Thebano aenigmate monstrum." "To play the man, unnatural dreams you nourish! Only the Sphinx could read this riddle right" In this poem Martial cites the riddle of the Sphinx as to how all female sex can amount to adultery - Bassa was having sex like a man and practicing adultery without men ... Again - my reading is those men she was sodomizing were the Eunuchs of Cybele - who called themselves girls - Also men in the penis cage below the age of emancipation or 25 were regarded as girls ... - And all men invited into all female festivals like the Bona Dea or the orgies of Cybele - or just basic bacchanals had to go dressed as women - and in the penis cage or castrated ... - Another reason Bassa was not sexually penetrating women in all women orgies is the well know truth of "Lesbian bed-death" - Without men and the phallus hanging around to stoke the flames women always lose interest in sex. On Bassa by Martial - Epigram XC, Book I Quod numquam maribus iunctam te, Bassa, videbam quodque tibi moechum fabula nulla dabat, omne sed officium circa te semper obibat turba tui sexus, non adeunte viro, esse videbaris, fateor, Lucretia nobis: at tu, pro facinus, Bassa, fututor eras. inter se geminos audes committere cunnos mentiturque virum prodigiosa Venus. commenta es dignum Thebano aenigmate monstrum. hic, ubi vir non est, ut sit adulterium. Insomuch, Bassa, as I never saw You join male company, nor yet, in truth, Has rumour e'er asserted that you draw In happy slavery one favoured youth; But for each duty crowds of women press Around you, hidden from man's impure eye; I thought you a Lucretia I confess; Yet meanwhile you were fucking on the sly. Oh, horrible! You dare two cunts unite! To play the man, unnatural dreams you nourish! Only the Sphinx could read this riddle right: With males renounced, adultery can flourish. Garden of Priapus - 289 Boss lady manually penetrating her penis caged slave The Theban riddle: Ovid associated Thebes, Egypt with Tiresias and Hermaphroditus. Tiresias who had lived both as a man and a woman was blinded by Hera the wife of Zeus for truthfully reporting that sex as a woman was stronger than sex as a man. [I read that as Tiresias being blinded by the "inner sun" - or his anima who is an earth sun and a phallic goddess as well - she controls a man's erections ... ] Hermaphroditus the alluring phallic Roman matron was ubiquitous in Roman public statuary. The Roman phallus was female, not male! - It goes back to Osiris, who lost his penis to Set ... Ovid also narrated the myth of Iphis who was born a girl but transformed into a man by Isis ... "According to the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ligdus and Telethusa were a poor couple who could not afford a dowry if their unborn child was born a girl. Ligdus was forced to come to the conclusion that they had to kill his wife's child if it wasn't a boy. Telethusa despaired, but was visited in the middle of the night by the Egyptian goddess Isis, attended by Anubis, Bubastis and Apis, who advised her to accept whatever was going to happen after the child's birth, guaranteeing assistance to the woman. When Telethusa gave birth to a girl, she concealed her daughter's sex from her husband and raised her daughter as a boy. Ligdus named the daughter, who he believed was a son, Iphis after his own father (the child's grandfather), and Telethusa was glad to have her named that as the gender-neutral name would fit in any case. As Iphis reached the age of adolescence, Ligdus, still unaware of the truth, arranged for his "son" to marry the beautiful Ianthe, daughter of Telestes. Unaware of the truth and taking her suitor for a man like everyone else did, Ianthe fell in love with Iphis. Iphis fell deeply in love with Ianthe, and prayed to Juno for assistance, as she wished to marry Ianthe, but knew it would be impossible as she was actually a woman. One day before the wedding, the deeply concerned Telethusa brought Iphis to the temple of Isis and prayed to the goddess to help her daughter. Isis responded by transforming Iphis into a man. The male Iphis married Ianthe and the two lived happily ever after, their marriage being presided over by Juno, Venus, and Hymenaios, the god of marriage. The story of Iphis is similar to that of Leucippus from Phaestus, Crete, and could be a variant thereof. ... " Wikipedia * It seems from the evidence that Roman girls got a "prodigiosa Venus" or female phallus at 13 or the start of puberty from an Isis cult - the myth of Iphis. There are many statues of young girls with a female phallus on page 150 of this website. Puberty or 13 is the same moment the Roman men lost their penis to the fibula or penis cage which came off at 25 years old ... The male ass then became a vagina that was penetrated in the garden of Priapus by phallic matrons! * (Sept 7, 2021) Thebes in the time of Rome had dwindled greatly from the Luxor of ancient days. But the Theban riddle seems to have survived the fall of Egypt. - ie Young men and women seem to have switched genders at puberty - the Tiresias penis cage for men and the Iphis "prodigiosa Venus" or female phallus for women Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo who also had second sight - like I said above that's a gift of the "inner sun" or Anima - Homer was similarly said to be both blind but all - seeing ! "... In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself. Eighteen allusions to mythic Tiresias, noted by Luc Brisson, fall into three groups: the first recounts Tiresias' sex-change episode and later his encounter with Zeus and Hera; the second group recounts his blinding by Athena; the third, all but lost, seems to have recounted the misadventures of Tiresias. Like other oracles, how Tiresias obtained his information varied: sometimes, he would receive visions; other times he would listen for the songs of birds, or ask for a description of visions and pictures appearing within the smoke of burnt offerings or entrails, and so interpret them. Pliny the Elder credits Tiresias with the invention of augury. On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, as Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes, he hit the pair with his stick. Hera was displeased, and she punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children, including Manto, who also possessed the gift of prophecy. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias again found mating snakes; depending on the myth, either she made sure to leave the snakes alone this time, or, according to Hyginus, trampled on them. Either way, as a result, Tiresias was released from his sentence and permitted to regain his masculinity. This ancient story was recorded in lost lines of Hesiod. In Hellenistic and Roman times Tiresias' sex-change was embellished and expanded into seven episodes, with appropriate amours in each, probably written by the Alexandrian Ptolemaeus Chennus, but attributed by Eustathius to Sostratus of Phanagoria's lost elegiac Tiresias. Tiresias is presented as a complexly liminal figure, mediating between humankind and the gods, male and female, blind and seeing, present and future, this world and the Underworld. According to the mythographic compendium Bibliotheke, different stories were told of the cause of his blindness, the most direct being that he was simply blinded by the gods for revealing their secrets. An alternative story told by Pherecydes was followed in Callimachus' poem "The Bathing of Pallas"; in it, Tiresias was blinded by Athena after he stumbled onto her bathing naked. His mother, Chariclo, a nymph of Athena, begged Athena to undo her curse, but the goddess could not; instead, she cleaned his ears, giving him the ability to understand birdsong, thus the gift of augury. In a separate episode, Tiresias was drawn into an argument between Hera and her husband Zeus, on the theme of who has more pleasure in sex: the man, as Hera claimed, or, as Zeus claimed, the woman. As Tiresias had experienced both, Tiresias replied, "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only." Hera instantly struck him blind for his impiety. Zeus could do nothing to stop her or reverse her curse, but in recompense he did give Tiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of seven lives. He is said to have understood the language of birds and could divine the future from indications in a fire, or smoke. However, it was the communications of the dead he relied on the most, menacing them when they were late to attend him. Tiresias makes a dramatic appearance in the Odyssey, book XI, in which Odysseus calls up the spirits of the dead (the nekyia). "So sentient is Tiresias, even in death," observes Marina Warner "that he comes up to Odysseus and recognizes him and calls him by name before he has drunk the black blood of the sacrifice; even Odysseus' own mother cannot accomplish this, but must drink deep before her ghost can see her son for himself." As a seer, "Tiresias" was "a common title for soothsayers throughout Greek legendary history" (Graves 1960, 105.5). In Greek literature, Tiresias' pronouncements are always given in short maxims which are often cryptic (gnomic), but never wrong. Often when his name is attached to a mythic prophecy, it is introduced simply to supply a personality to the generic example of a seer, not by any inherent connection of Tiresias with the myth: thus it is Tiresias who tells Amphitryon of Zeus and Alcmena and warns the mother of Narcissus that the boy will thrive as long as he never knows himself. This is his emblematic role in tragedy (see below). Like most oracles, he is generally extremely reluctant to offer the whole of what he sees in his visions. Tiresias appears as the name of a recurring character in several stories and Greek tragedies concerning the legendary history of Thebes. In The Bacchae, by Euripides, Tiresias appears with Cadmus, the founder and first king of Thebes, to warn the current king Pentheus against denouncing Dionysus as a god. Along with Cadmus, he dresses as a worshiper of Dionysus to go up the mountain to honor the new god with the Theban women in their Bacchic revels. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Oedipus, the king of Thebes, calls upon Tiresias to aid in the investigation of the killing of the previous king Laius. At first, Tiresias refuses to give a direct answer and instead hints that the killer is someone Oedipus really does not wish to find. However, after being provoked to anger by Oedipus' accusation first that he has no foresight and then that Tiresias had a hand in the murder, he reveals that in fact it was Oedipus himself who had (unwittingly) committed the crime. Outraged, Oedipus throws him out of the palace, but then afterwards realizes the truth. Tiresias also appears in Sophocles' Antigone. Creon, now king of Thebes, refuses to allow Polynices to be buried. His niece, Antigone, defies the order and is caught; Creon decrees that she is to be buried alive. The gods express their disapproval of Creon's decision through Tiresias, who tells Creon 'the city is sick through your fault.' Tiresias and his prophecy are also involved in the story of the Epigoni. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 290 The emblem of Priapus at work on a slave in the Fibula "...On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, as Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes, he hit the pair with his stick. Hera was displeased, and she punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera ... " Wikipedia In this poem, Martial reproaches a sacred prostitute who enjoys performing in public That's what happened in the Bona Dea - a public performance of the female phallus or the "prodigiosa Venus" penetrating a male guest invited as a female Martial XXXIV. To Lesbia. " ... You always take your pleasure, Lesbia, with doors unguarded and open, nor are you at any pains to conceal your amusements. It is more the spectator, than the accomplice in your doings, that pleases you, nor are any pleasures grateful to your taste if they be secret. Yet the common courtesan excludes every witness by curtain and by bolt, and few are the chinks in a suburban brothel. Learn something at least of modesty from Chione, or from Alis: even the monumental edifices of the dead afford hiding-places for abandoned harlots. Does my censure seem too harsh? I do not exhort you to be chaste, Lesbia, but not to be caught. ... " Garden of Priapus - 291 Boss lady sodomizing her husband with her hands ... Hera sodomized Zeus! Etruscan images of the couple have Zeus as the naked and penis caged sex object. Hera turned Tiresias into a woman for seven years and forced him into her priesthood as a priestess - Ovid traces this legend to Thebes, Egypt and was probably an ancient Egyptian and African custom - Men were compelled to live life as the passive sexual partner of phallic women for a period of many years - The penis cage or castration were the mechanism ... Images of the goddess Sekhmet - Min proudly brandishing a phallic object from the 18th dynasty back this up Garden of Priapus - 292 Boss lady mounting her husband with her large "prodigiosa Venus" after a course with two whippings In Juvenal Satire VI he complains that wealth and power had contaminated Rome with the eastern vice of "Luxury" - by which he means Greek and Egyptian sexual luxury - by which he means female not male sexual promiscuity ... This odd fact is rarely remarked upon - modern power and wealth do not lead to female sexual promiscuity ! - Again my analysis is this was caused by the distorting effect of the male penis cage or Fibula " ... Yet should you ask whence are these unnatural prodigies, or from what source they spring; it was their humble fortune that made the Latin women chaste in days of yore, nor did hard toil and short nights' rest, and hands galled and hardened with the Tuscan fleece, and Hannibal close to the city, and their husbands mounting guard at the Colline tower, suffer their lowly roofs to be contaminated by vice. Now we are suffering all the evils of long-continued peace. Luxury, more ruthless than war, broods over Rome, and exacts vengeance for a conquered world. No guilt or deed of lust is wanting, since Roman poverty has disappeared. This was the source whence Sybaris flowed to these seven hills, and Rhodes too, and Miletus, and Tarentum crowned with garlands, insolent and flushed with wine! Money, the nurse of debauchery, was the first that introduced foreign manners, and enervating riches sapped the sinews of the age with foul luxury. For what cares Venus in her cups? All difference of head or tail is alike to her who at very midnight devours huge oysters, when unguents mixed with neat Falernian foam, when she drains the conch, when from her dizziness the roof seems to reel, and the table to rise up with the lights doubled in number. Go then, and knowing all this, doubt, if you can, with what a snort of scorn Tullia snuffs up the air when she passes the ancient altar of Chastity; or what Collatia says to her accomplice Maura. Here they set down their litters at night, and bedew the very image of the goddess with copious irrigations, while the chaste moon witnesses their abominations, over which, when morn returns, you pass on your way to visit your great friends. ... " Juvenal Satire VI Garden of Priapus - 293 Boss lady galloping her husband under her large "prodigiosa Venus" According to Juvenal women speaking Greek was not just a sign of education but more importantly a form of erotica ... Juvenal accepted this in young girls but found it annoying in older women! The "prodigiosa Venus" - the female phallus was Greek and Egyptian ... Looking above, we can see why - Hera the wife of Zeus confiscated the penis of Tiresias for seven years and forced him to live as a woman and as her priestess. This was probably a Greek universal after puberty and an inheritance from ancient Egypt ... The "Theban riddle" " ... There are some things, trifling indeed, and yet such as no husband can tolerate. For what can be more sickening than the fact that no one woman considers herself beautiful, unless instead of Tuscan she has become a little Greek—metamorphosed from a maid of Sulmo to a "maid of Athens." Every thing is in Greek. (While surely it is more disgraceful for our countrywomen not to know their mother tongue.) In this language they give vent to their fears, their anger, their joys and cares, and all the inmost workings of their soul. Nay more, they kiss à la Grecque! This in young girls you may excuse. But must thou, forsooth, speak Greek, that hast had the wear and tear of six and eighty years? In an old woman this language becomes immodest, when interspersed with the wanton Ζω? κα? ψυχ?. You are employing in public, expressions one might think you had just used under the counterpane. For whose passion would not be excited by these enticing and wanton words? It has all the force of actual touching. Yet though you pronounce them all in more insinuating tones than even Hæmus or Carpophorus, your face, the tell-tale of your years, makes all the feathers droop. ... " Juvenal Satire VI Garden of Priapus - 294 Boss lady and her large "prodigiosa Venus" about to mount her husband - That's probably what was called "the glory of Hera" According to Juvenal the honest Roman should prepared to be lorded over by his wife - to "bow your head with neck prepared to bear the yoke." - he should also expect multiple lovers for his wife, and all this would all be made more intense if his wife's mother involved herself in the marriage ... " ... If you are not likely to love her that is contracted and united to you in lawful wedlock, there seems no single reason why you should marry, nor why you should waste the wedding dinner and bride cakes which you must dispense, when their complimentary attendance is over, to your bridal guests already well crammed; nor the present given for the first nuptial night, when, in the well-stored dish, Dacicus and Germanicus glitters with its golden legend. If you are possessed of such simplicity of character as to be enamored of your wife, and your whole soul is devoted to her alone, then bow your head with neck prepared to bear the yoke. You will find none that will spare a man that loves her. Though she be enamored herself, she delights in tormenting and fleecing her lover. Consequently a wife is far more disastrous to him that is likely to prove a kind and eligible husband. You will never be allowed to make a present without your wife's consent. If she opposes it, you must not sell a single thing, or buy one, against her will. She will give away your affections. That good old friend of many long years will be shut out from that gate that saw his first sprouting beard. While pimps and trainers have free liberty to make their own wills, and even gladiators enjoy the same amount of privilege, you will have your will dictated to you, and find more than one rival named as your heirs. "Crucify that slave." "What is the charge, to call for such a punishment? What witness can you produce? Who gave the information? Listen! Where man's life is at stake no deliberation can be too long." "Idiot! so a slave is a man then! Granted he has done nothing. I will it, I insist on it! Let my will stand instead of reason!" Therefore she lords it over her husband:—but soon she quits these realms, and seeks new empires and wears out her bridal veil. Then she flies back, and seeks again the traces of the bed she scorned.She leaves the doors so recently adorned, the tapestry still hanging on the house, and the branches still green upon the threshold. Thus the number grows: thus she has her eight husbands in five years. A notable fact to record upon her tomb! All chance of domestic happiness is hopeless while your wife's mother is alive. She bids her exult in despoiling her husband to the utmost. She teaches her how to write back nothing savoring of discourtesy or inexperience to the missives of the seducer. She either balks or bribes your spies; then, though your daughter is in rude health, calls in Archigenes, and tosses off the bedclothes as too oppressive. Meanwhile the adulterer, concealed apart, stands trembling with impatient expectation. Do you expect, forsooth, that the mother will inculcate virtuous principles, or other than she cherishes herself? It is right profitable too for a depraved old hag to train her daughter to the same depravity. ... " Juvenal, Satire VI Garden of Priapus - 295 Hera on an antique fresco from Pompeii - Hera was the goddess of marriage - As Juvenal points out in Greco - Roman marriage the honest Roman should prepared to be lorded over by his wife - to "bow your head with neck prepared to bear the yoke." And as the example of Tiresias above shows she was also probably the goddess of the penis cage and the female phallus. All Greek and Roman men had to serve her as women ie. in the Fibula or penis cage for not less than seven years. Girls on the other hand received a "prodigiosa Venus" or female phallus from her and older goddesses like Isis " ... Hera is the goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth in ancient Greek religion and mythology, one of the twelve Olympians and the sister and wife of Zeus. She is the daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. Hera rules over Mount Olympus as queen of the gods. A matronly figure, Hera served as both the patroness and protectress of married women, presiding over weddings and blessing marital unions. One of Hera's defining characteristics is her jealous and vengeful nature against Zeus' numerous lovers and illegitimate offspring, as well as the mortals who cross her. Hera is commonly seen with the animals she considers sacred, including the cow, lion and the peacock. Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may hold a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. Her Roman counterpart is Juno. The name of Hera has several possible and mutually exclusive etymologies; one possibility is to connect it with Greek ?ρα h?ra, season, and to interpret it as ripe for marriage and according to Plato ?ρατ? erat?, "beloved"as Zeus is said to have married her for love. According to Plutarch, Hera was an allegorical name and an anagram of a?r (??ρ, "air").So begins the section on Hera in Walter Burkert's Greek Religion. In a note, he records other scholars' arguments "for the meaning Mistress as a feminine to Heros, Master." John Chadwick, a decipherer of Linear B, remarks "her name may be connected with h?r?s, ?ρως, 'hero', but that is no help since it too is etymologically obscure." A. J. van Windekens, offers "young cow, heifer", which is consonant with Hera's common epithet βο?πις (bo?pis, "cow-eyed"). R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Her name is attested in Mycenaean Greek written in the Linear B syllabic script as ?? e-ra, appearing on tablets found in Pylos and Thebes, as well in the Cypriotic dialect in the dative e-ra-i. ... According to Walter Burkert, both Hera and Demeter have many characteristic attributes of Pre-Greek Great Goddesses. In the same vein, British scholar Charles Francis Keary suggests that Hera had some sort of "Earth Goddess" worship in ancient times, connected to her possible origin as a Pelasgian goddess (as mentioned by Herodotus). In the Temple of Hera, Olympia, Hera's seated cult figure was older than the warrior figure of Zeus that accompanied it. Homer expressed her relationship with Zeus delicately in the Iliad, in which she declares to Zeus, "I am Cronus' eldest daughter, and am honourable not on this ground only, but also because I am your wife, and you are king of the gods." ... Hera was most known as the matron goddess, Hera Teleia; but she presided over weddings as well. In myth and cult, fragmentary references and archaic practices remain of the sacred marriage of Hera and Zeus. At Plataea, there was a sculpture of Hera seated as a bride by Callimachus, as well as the matronly standing Hera. ... In Hellenistic imagery, Hera's chariot was pulled by peacocks, birds not known to Greeks before the conquests of Alexander. Alexander's tutor, Aristotle, refers to it as "the Persian bird." The peacock motif was revived in the Renaissance iconography that unified Hera and Juno, and which European painters focused on. A bird that had been associated with Hera on an archaic level, where most of the Aegean goddesses were associated with "their" bird, was the cuckoo, which appears in mythic fragments concerning the first wooing of a virginal Hera by Zeus. Her archaic association was primarily with cattle, as a Cow Goddess, who was especially venerated in "cattle-rich" Euboea. On Cyprus, very early archaeological sites contain bull skulls that have been adapted for use as masks (see Bull (mythology)). Her familiar Homeric epithet Boôpis, is always translated "cow-eyed". In this respect, Hera bears some resemblance to the Ancient Egyptian deity Hathor, a maternal goddess associated with cattle. Scholar of Greek mythology Walter Burkert writes in Greek Religion, "Nevertheless, there are memories of an earlier aniconic representation, as a pillar in Argos and as a plank in Samos." ... " Wikipedia Sept 10, 2021: Dreams images associated with this post - massive roll out of cut lumber in a forest - I read that as massive "djed" posts - and sudden interest in my work - like an obstruction has been removed - One image was my laptop being stolen! I woke up to a cold sweat to that one! Hera is above Zeus - and she was jealous about his loose penis! That's the penis cager of the Greco-Roman empire ... But she was also a sex goddess - She confiscated Tiresias penis for seven years for disrupting two snakes having sex! Seven years was an ancient Egyptian measure of time ... And Hera is associated with an ancient cow-godddess - that would be Hathor - the queen of the Egyptian female bull phallus! - Harpocrates - the female Horus ... Garden of Priapus - 296 Boss lady with a large "prodigiosa Venus" about to mount her husband The glory of Hera: A snapshot by Juvenal of the tyranny of a Roman nobleman's wife. Greek and Egyptian wives were also like this - lording over their husbands ... I think the bath scene below was not private - From Martial we learn Roman women frequented public baths with naked but penis caged men in attendance. All Roman baths were dedicated to a nude and phallic goddess - Hermaphroditus ... ".... If she takes delight in singing, the fibula of none of these fellows that sells his voice to the prætor holds out: the instruments are forever in her hands; the whole lyre sparkles with the jewels thickly set. She runs over the strings with the vibrating quill, with which the soft Hedymeles performed: this she holds in her hands; with this she consoles herself, and lavishes kisses on the plectrum, dear for its owner's sake. One of the clan of the Lamiæ, a lady of lofty rank, inquired with meal-cake and wine of Janus and Vesta, whether Pollio might venture to hope for the oaken crown at the Capitoline games, and promise it to his lyre. What more could she do were her husband sick? What, if the physicians had despaired of her infant son? She stood before the altar, and thought no shame to veil her head for a harper: and went through in due form the words prescribed, and grew pale as the lamb was opened. Tell me now, I pray, tell me, thou ancientest of gods, father Janus! dost thou return answer to these? Great must be indeed the leisure of heaven! There can be no business there, as far as I see, stirring among you. One woman consults you about comic actors; another would fain commend a tragedian to your notice: the soothsayer will become varicose. But let her rather be musical than fly through the whole city, with bold bearing; and encounter the assemblies of men, and in her husband's presence herself converse with generals in their scarlet cloaks, with unabashed face and breasts exposed. She too knows all that is going on in the whole world—what the Seres or Thracians are engaged in—the secrets of the step-mother and her son—what adulterer is in love, or is in great request. She will tell you who made the widow pregnant—in what month it was—in what language and manner each act of love takes place. She is the first to see the comet that menaces the Armenian and Parthian king; and she intercepts at the gates the reports and freshest news. Some she invents as well. That Niphates has overwhelmed whole nations, and that the whole country is there laid under water by a great deluge; that cities are tottering, the earth sinking down—this she tells in every place of resort to every one she meets. And yet that vice is not more intolerable, than that, though earnestly entreated, she will seize upon her poor neighbors, and have them cut in two with lashes. For if her sound slumbers are disturbed by the barking of a dog, "Bring the clubs here at once!" she cries: and orders the owner first to be beaten with them, and then the dog. Terrible to encounter, most awful in visage, she enters the baths by night—by night she orders her bathing vessels and camp to be set in motion. She delights in perspiring with great tumult; when her arms have sunk down wearied with the heavy dumb-bells; and the sly anointer has omitted to rub down no part of her body. Her poor wretches of guests meanwhile are overcome with drowsiness and hunger. At last the lady comes; flushed, and thirsty enough for a whole flagon,which is placed at her feet and filled from a huge pitcher: of which a second pint is drained before she tastes food, to make her appetite quite ravenous. Then having rinsed out her stomach, the wine returns in a cascade on the floor—rivers gush over the marble pavement, or the broad vessel reeks of Falernian—for thus, just as when a long snake has glided into a deep cask, she drinks and vomits. Therefore her husband turns sick; and with eyes closed smothers his rising bile. ... " Juvenal Satire VI Garden of Priapus - 297 The General in a Hathor bull phallus and a penis caged OG or old guy in the classic Egyptian "bes/Hathor "erotica position. Shot blocked. Used workaround. Had an insight that's like what an evil sith was able to do in "Star Wars" - create life! (The Tragedy Of Darth Plagueis) The "jinn" like her but a bit too risky for my prudish Catholic soul! But when low energy - Watching the general working an OG always brings me to life! * More from From Juvenal Satire VI: A glimpse of the life of a noble Roman matron - featuring no sex but free standing poetic images. That seems to have been a penis caged world driven by wild even sex-crazed women ... Again, my theory is the Roman female sexual frenzy was caused by the male penis-cage ... In the Priapiae Bacchus, the god of the wine frenzy is described as "effeminate" - that was the Roman male before 25 years old - in the penis cage ... " ... Another, on the left hand, draws out and combs her curls and rolls them into a band. The aged matron assists at the council, who, having served her due period at the needle, now presides over weighing out the tasks of wool. Her opinion will be first taken. Then those who are her inferiors in years and skill will vote in order, as though their mistress's good name or life were at stake. So great is the anxiety of getting beauty! Into so many tiers she forms her curls, so many stages high she builds her head; in front you will look upon an Andromache, behind she is a dwarf—you would imagine her another person. Excuse her, pray, if nature has assigned her but a short back, and if, without the aid of high-heeled buskins, she looks shorter than a Pigmy maiden; and must spring lightly up on tip-toe for a kiss. No thought meanwhile about her husband! not a word of her ruinous expenditure! She lives as though she were merely a neighbor of her husband's, and in this respect alone is nearer to him—that she hates her husband's friends and slaves, and makes grievous inroads on his purse. But see! the chorus of the maddened Bellona and the mother of the gods enters the house! and the huge eunuch (a face to be revered by his obscene inferior) who long ago emasculated himself with a broken shell; to whom his hoarse troop and the plebeian drummers give place, and whose cheek is covered with his Phrygian tiara. With voice grandiloquent he bids her dread the approach of September and the autumn blasts, unless she purifies herself with a hecatomb of eggs, and makes a present to him of her cast-off murrey-colored robes: that whatever unforeseen or mighty peril may be impending over her may pass into the tunics, and at once expiate the whole year. She will break the ice and plunge into the river in the depth of winter, or dip three times in Tiber at early dawn, and bathe her timid head in its very eddies, and thence emerging will crawl on bleeding knees, naked and shivering, over the whole field of the haughty king. If white Io command, she will go to the extremity of Egypt, and bring back water fetched from scorching Meroë, to sprinkle on the temple of Isis, that rears itself hard by the ancient sheepfold. For she believes that the warning is given her by the voice of the goddess herself. And this, forsooth, is a fit soul and mind for the gods to hold converse with by night! He therefore gains the chief and highest honor, who, surrounded by his linen-robed flock, and a bald-headed throng of people uttering lamentations, runs to and fro personating the grinning Anubis. He it is that supplicates for pardon whenever the wife does not refrain from nuptial joys on days to be observed as sacred, and a heavy penalty is incurred from the violation of the snowy sheeting. And the silver serpent was seen to nod his head! His are the tears, and his the studied mumblings, that prevail on Osiris not to withhold pardon for her fault, when bribed by a fat goose and a thin cake. When he has withdrawn, some trembling Jewess, having quitted her basket and hay, begs in her secret ear, the interpretess of the laws of Solyma, the potent priestess of the tree—the trusty go-between from highest heaven! And she crosses her hand with money, but sparingly enough: for Jews will sell you any dreams you please for the minutest coin. The soothsayer of Armenia or Commagene, handling the liver of the dove still reeking, engages that her lover shall be devoted, or promises the rich inheritance of some childless rich man; he pries into the breasts of chickens and the entrails of a puppy; sometimes too even of a child—he does acts of which he will himself turn informer! But their confidence in Chaldæans will be greater still: whatever the astrologer tells them, they will believe reported straight from the fountain of Ammon; since at Delphi the oracles are dumb, and darkness as to the future is the punishment of the human race. However, of these he is in the highest repute who has been often banished; by whose friendship and venal tablets it came to pass that a citizen of high rank died, and one dreaded by Otho. Hence arises confidence in his art, if both his hands have clanked with chains, and he has been long an inmate of the camp-prison. No astrologer that has never been condemned will have any reputation for genius; but he that has hardly escaped with his life, and scarcely had good fortune enough to be sent to one of the Cyclades,and at length to be set free from the confined Seriphos, he it is whom your Tanaquil consults about the death of her jaundiced mother, for which she has been long impatient; but first, about yourself! when she may hope to follow to the grave her sister and her uncles; whether her adulterer will survive her, for what greater boon than this have the gods in their power to bestow? And yet she is ignorant what the ill-omened planet of Saturn forebodes; with what star Venus presents herself in fortunate conjunction; what is the month for ill-luck; what seasons are assigned to profit. ... " Juvenal, Satire VI Garden of Priapus - 298 The General and the penis caged OG after "Bes/Hathor" horse sex ... Shot blocked. Used workaround. That's Hector and his wife, Andromache the classic Trojan Amazon sex coupling. "... Andromache is from Thebes. Her father and brothers were all killed by the Greek hero Achilles, and her mother died as well, leaving Andromache alone. Hector, the oldest son of the Trojan King Priam, weds Andromache and brings her back to Troy. ... " study - Thebes, Egypt was the citadel of "Bes/Hathor" Amazon sex! - Originally African or Ethiopian sex. There was a sexual undercurrent when I went to high school in Ethiopia - but I missed it - my head was fixed firmly in my books ... My father did not miss it though! One of our maids, who had a Brazilian "bum bum" used to joke that the 8 or 9 year old white son of our neighbor was a dirty word translated as a vulva! I found that strange - that a boy could be called a erotic female orifice - but that's an ancient Roman image ... Garden of Priapus - 299 The General and a friend in large horse phalli working on an OG or old guy in the penis cage. That's why Romans of Juvenal's class were open about commerce with the gods. Above a certain level of eros the doorway to the spirit level opens up even for overeducated intellectuals and aristocrats. - That's Mr. Legba in Voodoo - eros brings the gods down to the human world. * More from Juvenal VI: Women were clearly not the kinder more civilized sex in Rome! Just the opposite is seems. Sex with Ethiopian or black men out of the Fibula is also mentioned here - Noble matrons had a taste for those - Mostly from Libya and Egypt is seems. Ancient Libya was a black African state. But many modern European states also had large black populations - Minoan Crete seems to have been heavily black and ancient Etruria too - the home tribe of Julius Ceasar. For example - Virgil the father of Roman poetry was rendered as a negro by Roman artists! I have a very striking mosaic of this on page 150 of this site And I am sure many wealthy Roman matrons were black African too - wealth in the Roman world was from the south and east " ... Remember to shun even a casual meeting with her in whose hands you see, like the unctuous amber, their calendars well thumbed; who instead of consulting others is now herself consulted; who when her husband is going to join his camp or revisit his home, will refuse to accompany him if restrained by the calculations of Thrasyllus. When it is her fancy to ride as far as the first mile-stone, the lucky hour is taken from her book; if the corner of her eye itches when she rubs it, she calls for ointment after a due inspection of her horoscope: though she lies sick in bed no hour appears suited to taking food, save that which Petosiris has directed. If she be of moderate means, she will traverse the space on both sides of the pillars of the circus, and draw lots, and present her forehead and her hand to the fortune-teller that asks for the frequent palming. The rich will obtain answers from some soothsayer of Phrygia or India hired for the purpose, from some one skilled in the stars and heavens, or one advanced in years who expiates the public places which the lightning has struck. The destiny of the plebeians is learnt in the circus, and at Tarquin's rampart. She that has no long necklace of gold to display, inquires in front of the obelisks and the dolphin-columns, whether she shall jilt the tapster and marry the old-clothes man. Yet these, when circumstances so require, are ready to encounter the perils of childbirth, and endure all the irksome toils of nursing. But rarely does a gilded bed contain a woman lying-in: so potent are the arts and drugs of her that can insure barrenness, and for bribes kill men while yet unborn. Yet grieve not at this, poor wretch! and with thine own hand give thy wife the potion, whatever it be: for did she choose to bear her leaping children in her womb, thou wouldst perchance become the sire of an Æthiop; a blackamoor would soon be your sole heir, one whom you would not see of a morning. I say nothing of supposititious children, and all a husband's joys and fond hopes baffled at the dirty pools; and the Pontifices and Salii selected thence, who are to bear in their counterfeit persons the noble name of Scauri. Fortune, that delights in mischief, takes her stand by night and smiles upon the naked babes. All these she cherishes and fosters in her bosom: then proffers them to the houses of the great, and prepares in secret a rich sport for herself. These she dotes on: on these she forces her favors; and smiling, leads them on to advancement as her own foster-children. One fellow offers a wife magical incantations. Another sells her love potions from Thessaly, to give her power to disturb her husband's intellects, and punish him with the indignity of the slipper. To these it is owing that you are reduced to dotage: hence comes that dizziness of brain, that strange forgetfulness of things that you have but just now done. Yet even this is endurable, if you do not go raving mad as well, like that uncle of Nero for whom his Cæsonia infused the whole forehead of a foal new dropped. Who will not follow where the empress leads? All things were wrapped in flames and with joints disruptured were tottering to their fall, exactly as if Juno had driven her spouse to madness. Therefore the mushroom of Agrippina had far less of guilt: since that stopped the breath but of a single old man, and bade his trembling head descend to heaven, and his lips that slavered with dribbling saliva. Whereas this potion of Cæsonia calls aloud for fire and sword and tortures, and mangles in one bloody mass both senators and knights. So potent is a mare's offspring! Such mighty ruin can one sorceress work! Women hate their husbands' spurious issue. No one would object to or forbid that. But now it is thought allowable to kill even their husbands' sons by a former marriage. Take my warning, ye that are under age and have a large estate, keep watch over your lives! trust not a single dish! The rich meats steam, livid with poison of your mother's mixing. Let some one take a bite before you of whatever she that bore you hands you; let your pedagogue, in terror of his life, be taster of your cups. All this is our invention! and Satire is borrowing the tragic buskin, forsooth; and transgressing the limits prescribed by those who trod the path before us, we are wildly declaiming in the deep-mouthed tones of Sophocles a strain of awful grandeur, unknown to the Rutulian hills and Latin sky. Would that it were but fable! But Pontia with loud voice exclaims, "I did the deed. I avow it! and prepared for my own children the aconite, which bears palpable evidence against me. Still the act was mine!" "What, cruelest of vipers! didst thou kill two at one meal! Two, didst thou slay?" "Ay, seven, had there haply been seven!" Then let us believe to be true all that tragedians say of the fierce Colchian or of Progne. I attempt not to gainsay it. Yet they perpetrated atrocities that were monstrous even in their days—but not for the sake of money. Less amazement is excited even by the greatest enormities, whenever rage incites this sex to crime, and with fury burning up their very liver, they are carried away headlong; like rocks torn away from cliffs, from which the mountain-height is reft away, and the side recedes from the impending mass. I can not endure the woman that makes her calculations, and in cold blood perpetrates a heinous crime. They sit and see Alcestis on the stage encountering death for her husband, and were a similar exchange allowed to them, would gladly purchase a lapdog's life by the sacrifice of their husband's! You will meet any morning with Danaides and Eriphylæ in plenty; not a street but will possess its Clytæmnestra. This is the only difference, that that famed daughter of Tyndarus grasped in both hands a bungling, senseless axe. But now the business is dispatched with the insinuating venom of a toad. But yet with the steel too; if her Atrides has been cautious enough to fortify himself with the Pontic antidotes of the thrice-conquered king...." Juvenal, Satire VI Garden of Priapus - 300 More General and a friend in horse phalli working on an OG in the penis cage. That's the key to the cage around the General's neck. - On plate fullbeshathor130 are three caged phalli as votive offerings to an Etruscan god - On plate fullbeshathor98 is a statuesque naked Roman matron riding a large erect dog-phallus like a riding a horse. - On plate fullbeshathor126 is Hathor with the horns of a bull and a large erect phallus - The "Theban riddle" Garden of Priapus - 301 Boss lady in military garb working in a restrained and penis caged slave Roman colonial life: Libyan tribes under the Roman yoke were complaining of the sexual greed of the governor's wife! It's usually the other way around - but the governor was called Galle which probably means in the penis cage. Libya, like the rest of northern Africa - Carthage, Africa, Egypt was also in the penis cage ... One of the finest sculptures of a phallic goddess with a lyre is from Roman Libya ... Martial Book II. LVI AMONGST Libyan tribes your wife, Gallus, has a bad reputation ; they charge her foully with insatiate greed. But these stories are simply lies ; she is not at all in the habit of receiving favours. What, then, is her habit ? To give them. GENTIBUS in Libycis uxor tua, Galle, male audit inmodicae foedo crimine avaritiae. sed mera narrantur mendacia : non solet ilia accipere omnino. quid solet ergo ? dare. * (Sept 18, 2021) I do not think a man can escape compulsion without activating his ass chakra - What seems a form of weakness is actually a from of psychic and spiritual self-defense** Garden of Priapus - 302 More boss lady in military garb sodomizing a restrained and penis caged slave Sexually ravenous Roman women were not above helping themselves to their slaves - Her slaves fibula as family property was a free unlock for a Roman matron! In this poem the wife of.Roman has made him the father of seven children - some black - and all fathered by his slaves. From the example of Augustus and Livia wealth and power passed through women in Rome - and sometimes - as in another poem by martial the family wealth passed to a slave ... Rome was a female bull civilization! Any lens that fails to see this is faulty! (Sept 18, 2021) - This is the way Rome ended up in black Africa - sexual inheritance ! BOOK SIX * XXXIX A FAMILY MAN MARULLA has made you the father of seven, But they are not your children or your neighbour's even. Conceived in slaves' beds or on mats where she lay, Their faces your wife's peccadilloes betray. This curly-haired rascal we see by his look Is a Maurus [black], the offspring of Santra the cook. The next, blubber-lipped, with a flat, crushed-in nose, The wrestler Pannychus' own image shows. The third is blear-eyed and you know who's his maker If you've ever beheld blear-eyed Dama the baker. The fourth is pale-cheeked, with a catamite's face; To Lygdus your minion his birth we can trace. The fifth, with sharp head and two long asses' ears, Is the son of your fool Cyrta, so it appears. Last of all the two sisters, one dark-haired, one red, From your bailiff and Crotus the flautist were bred, While your Niobid troupe would have been at least ten Had Coressus and Dindymus only been men. XXXIX Pater ex Marulla, Cinna, factus es septem Non liberorum: namque nec tuus quisquam Nec est amici filiusve vicini, Sed in grabatis tegetibusque concepti Materna produnt capitibus suis furta. Hic, qui retorto crine Maurus incedit, Subolem fatetur esse se coci Santrae. At ille sima nare, turgidis labris Ipsa est imago Pannychi palaestritae. Pistoris esse tertium quis ignorat, Quicumque lippum novit et videt Damam? Quartus cinaeda fronte, candido voltu Ex concubino natus est tibi Lygdo: Percide, si vis, filium: nefas non est. Hunc vero acuto capite et auribus longis, Quae sic moventur, ut solent asellorum, Quis morionis filium negat Cyrtae? Duae sorores, illa nigra et haec rufa, Croti choraulae vilicique sunt Carpi. Iam Niobidarum grex tibi foret plenus, Si spado Coresus Dindymusque non esset. Garden of Priapus - 303 More boss lady as a female bull - visibly enjoying mounting her husband. In Rome the institution of prostitution was upgraded from acceptable during the time of Augustus to a big business taxed like any other business during the reign of Caligula When you factor in the penis cage of Fibula - that was mostly a female bull industry! The Galli requesting sex in this poem by Horace was probably what most of the sex going on in the Roman brothels was about - female on male anal sex ... " It’s prostitutes or Roman wives at issue? Take Villius. In Fausta he became The son-in-law of Sulla. Snared by the name, How dear he paid for that affair: attacked By fist and sword, the door slammed in his face, While Longarenus had her in the house. Suppose the fellow’s Dick piped up, “Hey, what’s With you? I’m hard but not unreasonable. Have I, when red with lust, insisted on A well-appareled cunt some consul sired?” “But her father’s prominent,” he’d answer. Now Nature, well-endowed to furnish what One needs, gives better counsel quite opposed To this misguided tack, if only you Weigh matters properly and not mix up The things one ought to seek with what should be Avoided. Do you really think it makes No difference whether troubles come from your Mistakes or from the human situation? Avoid the sort of sex that you’ll regret. I mean adultery. The thrill’s not worth The hardships. Snow-white pearls and emeralds Can’t, no matter what you think, Cerinthus, Make the lady’s thigh more satiny, Can’t give her lovelier legs. A prostitute’s The better deal. And add to this: she shows Her goods without deception. What you see Is what you get. And if she has some charms, She doesn’t lay them on to mask her flaws. Rich people, when they bid on thoroughbreds, Have the steeds they’re looking at be covered. This way the buyer won’t be taken in By lovely horseflesh, finely tapered head, And towering neck, and miss the weak, soft hoof. That’s smart. Don’t be a sharp-eyed Lynceus When looking at the best her body boasts, But then be blinder than Hypsaea when It comes to seeing things that mar her looks. “What lovely legs! What arms!” But don’t omit To note the runty ass, enormous nose, Truncated torso, those prodigious feet. With married women, everything is veiled Other than the face (excepting Catia). But if you crave forbidden sex, the sort Surrounded by defensive walls – the harder It is, the crazier you are – so much Will block your progress: body-guards, her litter, The stylists curling her hair, the sycophants, Her ankle-touching dress and heavy cloak. Countless obstacles block your viewing her. The other route is clear and unobstructed. Diaphanous chemise of Coan silk Can’t hide uncomely legs or ugly feet. Your eye can measure her from top to bottom. But maybe you enjoy the part of patsy; The sap who pays before inspecting goods. The lover sings of how the huntsman tracks A hare through drifts of snow, but will not touch A rabbit put in front of him. He adds, “Just so my passion loves the chase and flies Past whatever’s nigh.” You hope a clever Epigram will somehow cool erotic Fever, help you staunch the seething wound Desire has dealt your heart? Would not it serve You better if you explored these inquiries: What limit Nature sets for passion, what You wouldn’t miss, and what, if lost, would cost You dear. You’d then distinguish void from solid. When you’re parched, you need a golden goblet? When starving, must it be turbot or peacock? So when a certain body part swells up, And pretty slaves or houseboys are right at hand, You would rather burst than pounce? I wouldn’t. I love an easy Venus, one who comes At call. A woman stringing you along With “Wait a little” or “I’d like another Gift” or “Only when my husband’s out” is, As Philodemus says, fit only for The Galli. All he asks is that a woman Not cost a lot or make you wait whenever You order sex. She ought to be good looking And glamorous, but not made up so much You think she’s better than she really is. When such a woman slips her body under Mine, she’s Ilia or Egeria; I give the tart whatever name I like. While fucking her, I needn’t fear a husband Suddenly returning from the country, The dog barking, the door torn off its hinges, The house in wild uproar, the woman pale With panic jumping out of bed, her maid (My accomplice) shrieking – everyone in Terror: one of being whipped, the other Of losing dowry, I of losing life. Barefoot, tunic half on, off I scramble To save my ass, my cash and reputation. Getting caught is really bad. I’d wager That even Fabius would second that. ... " Horace, Satire 1.2 Translated by John Svarlien (from Horace Satires, Hackett 2012) with notes by David Mankin. Garden of Priapus - 304 Boss lady and friend working on a penis caged slave with large phalli - The Sumerian es-dam and the Aphrodite temple prostitutes were probably all the same thing in Rome with the regular Roman brothel - a socially acceptable place for the Roman female bulls to sate their sexual thirst - The poems above make it clear that lust in Rome was female, not male - the Empress Messalina herself worked in the brothels ... This paper does not have that angle of vision - the female bull and the male penis cage is missing! * "The most sought- after and expensive women were called meretrix while the sex workers who charged less for their work were called scortum, and sometimes lupa (wolf)." Lauren Weisner, The Social Effect the Law had on Prostitutes in Ancient Rome Empress Messalina - the highest of the high was nicknamed the "she-wolf" for her after hour passions in the Roman brothels ... That was a female on male situation! The Trojan way ... " ... Prostitution quickly became a popular source of income and pleasure for the Roman population, but it seemed to be viewed dichotomously. Between 200 B.C.E. and 250 C.E., “prostitution was both socially approved and suspect for moral reasons.” Although the people went to brothels for pleasure and companionship, they were also scared of the ethical implications of paying for sexual relations. Despite this conflict, brothels were a common sight in Roman cities. For example, brothels in Pompeii were located throughout the “elite and impoverished residential and commercial neighborhoods.” No matter how accepted prostitution appeared to be, early laws prohibiting the activities inside these buildings seemed to contradict social acceptance. It was not until taxes regulating the profession were enacted in 40 C.E. by the state that prostitution seemed to be accepted as a legitimate business entity by the government and citizens alike. Although we do not have any direct accounts from the prostitutes themselves, early documented laws that regulated them socially and financially help to paint a picture of their lives and what they experienced. It is interesting to examine the effects these laws had upon the prostitutes; while doing so, it can be concluded that the laws passed regulating prostitutes and pimps of ancient Rome had contradicting social effects upon these people. The first laws controlling prostitution hindered prostitutes socially, while the tax later placed upon them seemed to indicate that the state, and therefore the community, approved of their actions. It can be said that this shift was the result of a changing attitude; the state finally realized it could profit from something that was previously frowned upon. Prostitution in ancient Rome can be defined by three components: sex, money, and the emotional indifference between partners. Prostitutes were usually raised in this profession; it was common for children to be purchased by entrepreneurs and then brought up as sex workers. As the workers grew older, they began to understand the unspoken rules of their job. The prettier the prostitutes were, the more exclusive they were able to be by selectively choosing customers. The cheaper they were, the higher the chance that they were less attractive. As for the brothel keepers, they allowed their workers to uphold the three key aspects that characterized the profession. In the words of Dio Chrysostom, a Roman philosopher, they “[brought] people together for intercourse...and the fulfillment of lust without love, all for the sake of profit.” Owners did this by giving each worker a stall—much like a room—of their own, where they serviced their customers. The workers usually stood outside their stalls, giving potential customers the ability to evaluate the “product” before purchasing it. Horace, a lyric poet during the time of Emperor Augustus (who ruled from 27 B.C.E.- 14 C.E.), describes a prostitute in a common brothel scene: “In Coan silk she’s nearly nude, and can’t hide a malformed leg or gnarly foot. You may measure her body with your eye. Or do you prefer to be swindled and separated from your money, before you even see the goods?” This inspection was a common courtesy for the clients at a brothel. There was a very important unspoken rule: the more clothes a girl wore outside her stall, the higher the chances she had a hidden deformity. Along with writings of the time, we are able to gather information on what it was like to be a prostitute from architectural remains. What is left of the city of Pompeii provides us with the best remains of brothels, and studying them gives us a fantastic inside look.8 The walls of brothels occasionally contained graffiti from the workers and customers alike. One prostitute advertised herself, writing “I am yours for an As”. During Roman times, an As was the lowest form of currency, and here the woman is clearly attempting to cheaply advertise herself to the masses. This would indicate her lack of selectivity when it came to customers, suggesting she was not an extremely popular worker. Another common theme was ratings from the customers. One statement found on a wall is a great example of this: “Sabina, you suck, you do not do it well”. Clients rated their experience with a prostitute publicly as a reference for potential clients. This graffiti also reflects the social status of the women inside the brothels, as people felt no qualms about writing about them like products. They did not feel the need to refrain from publicly writing about women who had sex for money. In ancient Rome, social status was directly correlated with “sexual honor, more acutely and directly for women”. If a woman of Rome was regarded as unchaste, she was immediately viewed negatively by the community. In an ideal situation, the family was expected to uphold the image of the women in their family by controlling their sexual behavior. The role of the men in a family was to protect the pure and innocent image of their sisters, wives, and daughters. Legally, most prostitutes were slaves. They had no male relatives to protect their image in society. Instead their pimps were in charge of them, basically controlling their whole lives, as seen in the comedy Pseudolus written by the Roman author Plautus. Here, we have a pimp named Ballio addressing his sex workers and instructing them as to what he expects. He says, “See to it that today many gifts come to me from your lovers. For unless annual provisions come to me today, tomorrow I’ll prostitute you to the common herd”. Although from a comedy, this scene accurately reflects the complete control pimps had over their women. They were allowed to tell them when to work, whom to work for, and how much they were expected to charge. Due to their slave status, the people of Rome considered prostitutes social equals with actors and gladiators, two groups that were not looked upon highly. The ancient Romans felt strongly about the sense of sight; they believed it was as powerful as physically touching a person. Because actors and gladiators were commonly viewed by a huge crowd of people, they were basically being “touched” by a large audience. This placed them on the same social level as prostitutes, people who were physically touched on a regular basis. Because of their lowly status, prostitutes and their pimps were even omitted from certain responsibilities that a full citizen of Rome would enjoy. This social standing was due to prostitutes’ impure actions and line of work. Actually, prostitutes were “regarded as so impure that a priestess could not even encounter one without dishonor”. The women of the brothels were not allowed to participate in certain religious cults, and the fact that they were not allowed to encounter a priestess reflects just how negatively the people of Rome viewed them. In actuality, early laws set up by the Republic treated prostitutes as lowly people, which influenced the way the people of Rome viewed them. This first statute, the lex Iulia et papia, did not allow prostitutes or their pimps to marry outside of the ranks of ex-slaves. By creating this law, the government had set them up for social failure. Because sex workers were not allowed to marry anyone who was not a former slave, they had to no opportunity to ever move up the social ladder. The common people of Rome could easily use this rationale to explain why they did not treat these people as Roman citizens. Why waste time worrying about someone who would never be more than an ex-slave? The statute that began the great shift in the view on prostitutes and pimps was the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis. This law, enacted by Augustus, banned sex workers from the penalties that all other citizens received for illicit sexual relations.18 We know for sure that this law covered adultery and “criminal fornication,” but it is unclear as to whether or not incest and rape were covered as well. This ban caused a larger separation between the normal citizens and prostitutes. While regular people were expected to return to the older, more moral ways, prostitutes and pimps were allowed to continue their unchaste acts. While this law caused regular citizens to look down on prostitutes due to the large social gap between them, it is also clear that the same law was paramount when it came to accepting prostitution as a legitimate means of making money. Because Augustus did not make prostitution illegal, or ban these people from the sexual acts they were selling, he appeared to be approving of them. With this law, there seemed to be a simultaneous approval from the state coupled with a degradation of the workers themselves. Even though the Republic was allowing the workers to profit from sexual acts, they could still be condemned by the citizens themselves for these actions. Ultimately, the Republic’s laws directly affected how the Romans felt toward prostitutes. The feelings toward prostitutes and the laws that came about to regulate them are very similar to the chicken and egg debate. Were the laws restricting prostitutes responsible for the social rifts, or was it the social rifts that caused the laws? Either way, it is plain to see that the decree enacted by the Republic fueled the fire of dislike towards prostitutes by making them dishonorable individuals and controlling what they were able to do with their personal lives. As stated earlier, there was a hierarchy within the prostitutes of Rome. The most sought- after and expensive women were called meretrix while the sex workers who charged less for their work were called scortum, and sometimes lupa (wolf).20 This separation between the higher and lower paid workers was not a large problem until the emperor Caligula came into power in 37 C.E. (and ruled until 41 C.E.). He made a statute that required prostitutes to register for both tax and identification purposes. This tax required a large portion of a prostitute’s income (from seventeen to seventy-five percent) to be paid to the state. This tax made it a lot less common for part-time prostitutes to continue with the profession. The amount they owed did not change relative to how much they worked, so a prostitute who charged a lot less would have to pay the same amount of money to the state as a worker who was able to charge more for their work. To prevent evasion of this tax, Caligula made sure to cover his tracks by taxing pimps as well as prostitutes that got married. This enabled him to collect money from anyone even associated with prostitution thereby allowing him to procure more money for the state. At first, Caligula collected the profits from this tax via the publicani without regard to whether or not the taxpayer lived in Rome. The job was eventually transferred to the Praetorian Guard (body guards to the Roman emperors) for those who resided in Rome. Outside of Rome, the money was collected from ordinary army troops and then transferred over to the emperor. This way of collecting money was used for security and ensured that the maximum profit was collected. The army was the largest source of manpower that the emperors had, as well as the most intimidating. It would have been extremely hard to collect the money from such a large empire any other way. The creation of a tax specifically designated for prostitution resulted in a major shift in attitude towards sex workers and what they did. While prostitution was extremely popular until Caligula came into power, the workers were still looked down upon for their impure line of work. Once the tax was enacted, this view was altered dramatically. Thomas McGinn, a professor of classics at Vanderbilt University, puts it perfectly, claiming that by creating a profit from sexual commerce, in a way, Caligula legitimized prostitution. By taxing it, Emperor Caligula seemed to give prostitution even more approval than Augustus had given it with his earlier law. Caligula appeared to put prostitution in the same category as legitimate businesses because he also implemented taxes on taverns, food, slaves, and artisans. Caligula was the first emperor to have written references to sex into a Roman tax law. Essentially, the tax was an income tax, the type of tax that was imposed on most other professions at the time. We are not sure the exact reason for the creation of this tax; some say that it was enacted to disgrace the work of prostitutes further, and some claim the reasoning behind it was to simply raise money for Caligula’s political program. The latter reasoning seems more likely, due to the fact that Caligula also created taxes for other legitimate businesses in Rome. In summary, he did not discriminate by just taxing pimps and prostitutes. If he was attempting to disgrace prostitutes further, taxing them was not the most effective way to do it, which further proves the shift in beliefs. No matter the reasoning behind it, Caligula got the idea for this tax from other places in the empire. Apparently Caligula, like many other Romans, had a fascination with other cultures and civilizations, and this was something that may have affected the statutes he passed. Despite the fact that he had specific interests in Egyptian laws, the idea for this tax could have come from a multitude of places. At the time, there was “a tax on prostitutes at Athens, Egypt, Cos, and Syracuse”. Cities with this tax in place supported prostitution when it came to making money, which must have influenced the views of their citizens toward prostitution. The tax on prostitution was one of the most effective taxes enacted by the state. Taxes on other businesses, for the most part, were abolished once the emperor following Caligula, Claudius (who ruled 41 C.E.- 54 C.E.), felt the state had generated enough money. He even refunded some of the tax dollars back to the businesses. The tax on prostitution was not abolished, though, because Claudius felt it was too profitable to eliminate. Claudius was correct in this belief. Severus Alexander, a later emperor, was able to use the proceeds of the prostitution tax for the construction of buildings in Rome during his reign (222 C.E. – 235 C.E.). Eventually, the state became so reliant on the money brought in from this tax that the Christian emperors continued to leave it on the books until 498 C.E.33 The fact that emperors following Caligula continued to enforce his legislative act for about 450 years just goes to show how important it was to the state, and how long the changes in attitude towards prostitutes lasted. Although the Christian emperors were following a new religion that seemed to look down upon sexual promiscuity, they kept enforcing the tax and collecting money from it. Despite the fact that the Christians may have left it in effect just for monetary reasons, by doing so they continued to subtly support prostitution. In a sense, “as long as the tax was collected, prostitution was officially legitimized to some extent.” Therefore, this leads us to believe that the legitimization of prostitution was long lasting and effective in the eyes of the public. This alleged attitude shift does not necessarily mean that the entirety of the Roman population was suddenly accepting of prostitution, but rather that the legitimization of sex work made it seem more tolerable in the eyes of the people. With Caligula’s creation of this statute and the rest of the emperors keeping it in effect, it demonstrated to the people that prostitution was a legitimate way of making of money. In fact, prostitution had begun to follow the simple “enter store, purchase goods, leave” model that many businesses of the time had. This thoughtless process directly shows the change in opinion towards prostitutes. Instead of customers worrying about the moral implications of what they were doing as before, they purchased a prostitute’s “goods” without thinking twice. From the first laws regulating a prostitute’s marriage to the taxes implemented by Caligula, the attitudes toward prostitution can be directly correlated to the legal statutes of the time. The earlier laws regulating what prostitutes and pimps could or could not do limited them both legally and socially. By restricting their actions, the Roman population assumed that prostitutes were subpar. They believed people who had laws enacted specifically upon them did not deserve to be considered full citizens because they legally were not considered as such. When Caligula came into power, he seized the opportunity to create a plethora of taxes to help raise money for the state, the most successful being the tax on prostitution. While initially the people of Rome believed prostitution was acceptable (albeit morally questionable) when they benefited from it, the laws enacted in 40 C.E. caused a shift in opinion. Ultimately, these laws effectively altered the social view of prostitution to a legitimate form of business in ancient Rome. ... " Lauren Weisner, The Social Effect the Law had on Prostitutes in Ancient Rome Garden of Priapus - 305 More Boss lady and friend working on a penis caged slave with large phalli - Can't see it clearly - but this seems to have been at a large and national level at the end of the Roman empire. My guess is after the time Cybele became a Roman state religion - The penis caged Galli and the phallic Tribades ... - With the support of state and military power, Roman prostitutes became a sort of ruling class - even over the Senate. But it has always been like that - Troy was an Amazon power: See for example a Roman Christian report by Lactantius of a spring festival sponsored by a wealthy prostitute: " ... One Roman festival associated with prostitutes was the Floralia, the springtime festival in honour of the goddess Flora. It was associated with mass excess on a lot of fronts. The Christian author Lactantius went so far as to invent an entire (and incorrect) origin story for it involving a prostitute: Now how great must that immortality be considered which is attained even by whores! Flora, having obtained great wealth by this practice, made the people her heir, and left a fixed sum of money, the annual proceeds of which went to her public games to be celebrated on her Senate, which they called Floralia. And because this appeared disgraceful to the senate, in order that a kind of dignity might be given to a shameful matter, they resolved that an argument should be taken from the name itself. They pretended that she was the goddess who presides over flowers, and that she must be appeased, that the crops, together with the trees or vines, might produce a good and abundant blossom. The poet [Ovid] followed up this idea in his Fasti, and related that there was a nymph, by no means obscure, who was called Chloris, and that, on her marriage with Zephyrus, she received from her husband as a wedding gift the control over all flowers. These things are spoken with propriety, but to believe them is unbecoming and shameful. And when the truth is in question, ought disguises of this kind to deceive us? Those games, therefore, are celebrated with all wantonness, as is suitable to the memory of a whore. For besides complete freedom of language, in which all filthiness is poured forth, women are also stripped of their garments at the demand of the people, and then perform the office of mimes, and are detained in the sight of the people with indecent gestures, just to satiate unchaste eyes. ... Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.20 ... " pressbooks Garden of Priapus - 306 Boss lady sodomizing a mummified slave - That was an ancient Egyptian ritual! Mummification and resurrection of Osiris during the Sed festival - That's when the mummified phallus of the Egyptian man was set free. - The actual mechanism of resurrection was probably the female phallus in the caged male anus - Roman Christians reported on a form of survival of this in Roman Tribades and the Galli or penis caged men: Justin Martyr on a Roman serpent religion where Roman wives served as prostitutes and Roman men and women changed their sexes ... (The serpent in the dream world is eros though ...) " ... But as for us, we have been taught that to expose new-born children is an act of wicked men; and this we have been taught in case we should do any one an injury, and in case we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And as the ancients are said to have reared herds of oxen, or goats, or sheep, or horses, so now we see you rear children only for this shameful use; and for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm. And any one who uses such persons, besides the godless and infamous and impure sex, may possibly be having sex with his own child, or relative, or brother. And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the Mother of the Gods and along with each of those whom you esteem gods there is painted a serpent, a great symbol and mystery. ... " Justin Martyr, Apology 1.27 Garden of Priapus - 307 Boss lady's husband being worked on by two Amazons Roman prostitution was everywhere and supported the state through a lucrative tax. But what is left unsaid or only stated indirectly is what kind of sex. The passages above hints at that - hermaphrodites - or phallic women and Galli or penis caged men. My guess is that was the real outrage felt by the Christians - not the sex itself but the female dominant orgiastic aspect of it: Roman wives were not going to work in brothels as passive vessels! It's safer to assume all those statutes of phallic goddesses meant what they meant! * Dio Chrysostom condemning Roman brothels: " ... In dealing with brothel-keepers and their trade we must certainly betray no weakness as though something were to be said on both sides, but must sternly forbid them and insist that no one, be he poor or be he rich, shall pursue such a business, thus levying a fee, which all the world condemns as shameful, upon brutality and lust. Such men bring individuals together in union without love and sex without affection, and all for the sake of filthy money. They must not take unfortunate women or children, captured in war or else purchased with money, and expose them for shameful ends in dirty booths which are flaunted before the eyes in every part of the city, at the doors of the houses of magistrates and in market-places, near government buildings and temples, in the midst of all that is holiest. Neither barbarian women, I say, nor Greeks — of whom the latter were in former times almost free but now live in bondage utter and complete — shall they put in such shameful constraint, doing a much more evil and unclean business than breeders of horses and of asses carry on, not mating beasts with beasts where both are willing and feel no shame, but mating human beings that do feel shame and revulsion, with lecherous and dissolute men in an ineffectual and fruitless physical union that breeds destruction rather than life. Yes, and they respect no man nor god not Zeus, the god of family life, not Hera, the goddess of marriage, not the Fates, who bring fulfilment, not Artemis, protectress of the child-bed, not mother Rhea, not the Eileithyiae, who preside over human birth, not Aphrodite, whose name stands for the normal sex and union of male and female. No, we must proclaim that neither magistrate nor lawgiver shall allow such merchandising or legalize it, whether our cities are to house a people of the highest virtue or to fall into a second, third, fourth, or any other class, so long as it is in the power of any one of them to prevent such things. But if old customs and diseases that have become entrenched in the course of time fall to the care of our ruler, he shall by no means leave them without attention and correction, but, with an eye to what is practicable, he shall curb and correct them in some way or other. For evils are never wont to remain as they are; they are ever active and advancing to greater wantonness if they meet no compelling check. It is our duty, therefore, to pay some attention to this and under no condition to bear this mistreatment of outcast and enslaved creatures with calmness and indifference, not only because all humanity has been held in honour and in equal honour by God, who begat it, having the same marks and tokens to show that it deserves honour, to wit, reason and the knowledge of evil and good, but also because of the following consideration, which we must always remember: that for flagrant wrong fostered by licence it is difficult to set a limit that it will no longer, through fear of the consequences, dare to transgress. Indeed, beginning with practices and habits that seem trivial and allowable, it acquires a strength and force that are uncontrollable, and no longer stops at anything. Now at this point we must assuredly remember that this adultery committed with outcasts, so evident in our midst and becoming so brazen and unchecked, is to a very great extent paving the way to hidden and secret assaults upon the chastity of women and boys of good family, such crimes being only too boldly committed when modesty is openly trampled upon, and that it was not invented, as some think, to afford security and abstinence from these crimes. ... " Dio Chrysostom, Orations 7 Garden of Priapus - 308 Boss lady, the penis cage and a slave in the Bes/Hathor position ... Roman men also worked in Roman brothels. Cicero accused Marc Anthony of working in a brothel as a poverty stricken but noble Roman boy. When Anthony came to power he had Cicero's head cut off. I assume Marc Anthony was a sexual passive - or a penis caged anal youth to Amazon Roman matrons - he was later accused of being the woman to Cleopatra's man. Roman brothels were there to service women, not men ... " ... Among the elite, it was not uncommon to be accused of prostituting oneself at some point. Few people seem to have gone so far as Cicero attacking Mark Antony in his Philippics (43 BCE). After Cicero issued a number of these Antony had him proscribed and his head and hands were cut off and displayed in Rome: Shall we then examine your conduct from when you were a boy? Let’s do that and begin at the beginning. Do you recollect that, while you were still clad in the toga praetexta, you became a bankrupt? That was the fault of your father, you will say. I admit that. In truth, such a defence is full of a son’s love. But it is peculiarly suited to your own audacity, that you sat among the fourteen rows of the knights, though by the Roscian law there was a place appointed for bankrupts, even if any one had become such by the fault of fortune and not by his own. You assumed the toga virilis, which you soon made a woman’s one: at first a public prostitute, with a regular price for your shame – and not a low one, at that. But very soon Curio stepped in, who carried you off from your public trade, and, as if he had bestowed a matron’s robe upon you, settled you in a steady and durable wedlock. No boy bought for the gratification of passion was ever so wholly in the power of his master as you were in Curio’s. How often has his father turned you out of his house? How often has he placed guards to prevent you from entering? while you, with night for your accomplice, lust for your encourager, and wages for your compeller, were let down through the roof. That house could no longer endure your wickedness. Do you not know that I am speaking of matters with which I am extremely familiar? Remember that time when Curio, the father, lay weeping in his bed; his son throwing himself at my feet with tears recommended to me you; he entreated me to defend you against his own father, if he demanded six millions of sesterces of you; for that he had been bail for you to that amount. And he himself, burning with love, declared positively that because he was unable to bear the misery of being separated from you, he should go into exile. At that time I soothed – or I should say removed – the misery of that most flourishing family! I persuaded the father to pay the son’s debts; to release the young man, endowed as he was with great promise of courage and ability, by the sacrifice of part of his family estate; and to use his privileges and authority as a father to prohibit him not only from all intimacy with, but from every opportunity of meeting you. When you recollected that all this was done by me, would you have dared to provoke me by abuse if you had not been trusting to those swords which we behold? But let us say no more of your profligacy and debauchery. There are things which it is not possible for me to mention with honour; but you are all the more free for that, since you have not hesitated to be an actor in scenes which a modest enemy cannot bring himself to mention. ... " Cicero, Philippic 2.44 -47 Garden of Priapus - 309 Boss lady anally dominating a penis-caged slave. Roman sex and prostitution was not what we assume it was. For example Cicero accused Marc Anthony of being the sexual passive in a brothel - That's assumed to be gay sex - but it was more likely servicing carnal and phallic Roman matrons - The Roman male, gay or straight was in the penis-cage: "You assumed the toga virilis, which you soon made a woman’s one: at first a public prostitute, with a regular price for your shame – and not a low one, at that." From Juvenal we learn that Greek speech was erotically tinged and from the Christians like Dio Chrysostom we learn that Greek women were associated with brothels - those were Tribades or the female phallus * Horace on the dangers of not using a prostitute for the noble Roman man - financial ruin and even death ... "The exotic dancers union, snake-oil men, Panhandlers, starlets, stand-up comics – this Whole crowd is dressed in black and all choked up: Tigellius the pop artiste is dead. He lavished gifts on everyone. Yet look Across the street. Another man would balk At chipping in to help a needy friend Pay the rent or get a meal. He’s worried People think him prodigal. Ask another How come he’s gobbled up the fine estate His dad and granddad built, and still must have (With borrowed money now) fine caviar. “Let no one say I’m stingy,” he replies. For this, he’s praised by some, by others blamed. Now take Fufidius. [The man is rich In real estate and banking.] Still he fears He’ll get the name of ne’er-do-well or worse, And so he charges five times normal rates Of interest, and takes the first month’s payment off The total loaned. The more you need the cash, The more he hassles you to ante up. He preys upon the young, the sons of tough, Uncompromising fathers: boys who’ve donned The toga virilis. “Dear Lord,” you think, “With what this guy has made, he must enjoy All that wealth!” That’s where you’re wrong. The fellow Picks at his feast and tortures himself more Cruelly than that masochistic father Who ostracized his son in Terence’s play. By now you may be wondering where this talk Is leading. Ponder this: your average fool Attempts avoiding one offense by doing The opposite. Maltinus walks around, His tunic wafting like a gown. Another hikes His tunic halfway up his ass, so hip! Mint is Rufillus’ scent, Gargonius’ goat. No middle course. Some men won’t touch a woman If a bit of ankle shows; another Will only touch the stinking whorehouse type. “You’re a real man,” said Cato’s god-like wisdom To some somebody leaving such a den. “You model virtue! When abhorrent lust Has filled a young man’s veins, he’d better sow His wild oats here than in another’s wife.” Cupiennius disdains the praise of prudes. He likes his piece of ass all flounced in white. O Romans – you who wish disaster on Adulterers – lend me your ears. Consider How they toil and suffer lust, their pleasure Laced with pain, and rarely snatched from peril. One throws himself from someone’s roof. One’s flogged To death. Another flees but falls among A savage gang of thieves. One pays to save His life. The hired help rape another. Some A knife lops off a lustful cock and balls. “Deserved it,” folks will say, but Galba cavils. There’s safer sex at bargain rates – I’m talking About ex-slaves – the sort that Sallust craves No less insanely than adulterers Some other fellow’s wife. Now he could pay The market price for sex, in keeping with His means, and still be thought quite generous, Fair, and good. He needn’t let libido Disgrace and bankrupt him. But no, the man Is full of self-congratulations, preens And smugly counts himself a paragon Of rectitude: “I never touch a wife.” So too Marsaeus, famous once for being Origo’s paramour. That starlet stripped Him of the family house and farm. He says, “It’d never cross my mind to mess around With married women.” But you mess around With actresses and prostitutes, and so Have harmed your reputation even more Than pocketbook. Or do you think it quite Enough to shun the name “adulterer,” But not the very acts that make your life So stressed out? To wreck a reputation, To squander one’s inheritance is wrong In every case. Why bicker over whether It’s prostitutes or Roman wives at issue?" Horace Satires 1.2 Translated by John Svarlien (from Horace Satires, Hackett 2012) with notes by David Mankin. Garden of Priapus - 310 Boss lady sodomizing a penis-caged slave In Rome the "Toga Virilis" was worn by males and the Stola by females. However, prostitutes wore Togas like men. That's another piece of evidence that the penis was female in upper class Rome: It defies logic, but that seems to have been the truth of the ancient Trojans! - Torrid sexual energy - Dragon fire! - but restricted to the penis-caged community " .. The toga, a distinctive garment of ancient Rome, was ... draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tradition, it is said to have been the favored dress of Romulus, Rome's founder; it was also thought to have originally been worn by both sexes, and by the citizen-military. As Roman women gradually adopted the stola, the toga was recognized as formal wear for male Roman citizens. Women engaged in prostitution might have provided the main exception to this rule. ... Some Romans believed that in earlier times, both genders and all classes had worn the toga. Women could also be citizens but by the mid-to-late Republican era, respectable women were stolatae (stola-wearing), expected to embody and display an appropriate set of female virtues: Vout cites pudicitia and fides as examples. Women's adoption of the stola may have paralleled the increasing identification of the toga with citizen men, but this seems to have been a far from straightforward process. An equestrian statue, described by Pliny the Elder as "ancient", showed the early Republican heroine Cloelia on horseback, wearing a toga. The unmarried daughters of respectable, reasonably well-off citizens sometimes wore the toga praetexta until puberty or marriage, when they adopted the stola, which they wore over a full-length, usually long-sleeved tunic. Higher-class female prostitutes (meretrices) and women divorced for adultery were denied the stola. Meretrices might have been expected or perhaps compelled, at least in public, to wear the "female toga" (toga muliebris). This use of the toga appears unique; all others categorised as "infamous and disreputable" were explicitly forbidden to wear it. In this context, modern sources understand the toga – or perhaps merely the description of particular women as togata – as an instrument of inversion and realignment; a respectable (thus stola-clad) woman should be demure, sexually passive, modest and obedient, morally impeccable. The archetypical meretrix of Roman literature dresses gaudily and provocatively. Edwards (1997) describes her as "antithetical to the Roman male citizen". An adulterous matron betrayed her family and reputation; and if found guilty, and divorced, the law forbade her remarriage to a Roman citizen. In the public gaze, she was aligned with the meretrix. When worn by a woman in this later era, the toga would have been a "blatant display" of her "exclusion from the respectable Roman hierarchy". ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 311 More Boss lady sodomising a slave Apparently this was common in the Greco Roman world - but there is only one extanct medical text from the Roman empire that describes the condition: Caelius Aurelianus of Numidia in Roman north Africa considered the Tribade or female phallus and the molles or soft men as being a mental habit that could only be cured by mental effort - To me the cause seems to be obvious - the Roman Fibula or the caged penis! " ... Both Kinds of Venus – Caelius Aurelianus One branch of ancient science, however, did concern itself seriously with women, their desires and their bodies: medicine. Surprisingly, we have only one example of an ancient medical writer discussing tribades, though such writers would be used to define her in the Early Modern world; the story of the tribade in the medical sciences is perhaps the strangest in all of the tribadic tradition. The writer is the Numidian doctor Caelius Aurelianus (5th cent. CE?) in his On Chronic Diseases, a Latin translation/adaptation of a medical work of the Ephesian doctor Soranus (2nd cent. CE).193 In a familiar pattern, Caelius mentions tribades only to draw a comparison with and illustrate the male disease of “softness” [mollitia], that is, taking pleasure in the passive role in sex. This he classifies as a mental disorder of the most serious kind. Caelius comments: (The soft men [molles] are) just like the women called tribades, in that they are held to exercise both kinds of desire [utranque Venerem]. The tribades rush to have sex [misceri] with women in preference to men [mulieribus magis quam viris] and chase those same women with an envy that is almost virile, and when this disease [passione] leaves them, or they are temporarily relieved of it, then they seek to offer [obiicere] others what they are known for suffering [pati], a humiliating succour for their double sexuality [duplici sexu], just like so often women who have been corrupted by drunkenness, bursting into new forms of desire, nourished by disgusting habits, rejoice in outraging [iniuriis] their own sex. So, by comparison with such creatures [talium], the soft men are acknowledged to be afflicted by a disease [passione] of the mind. The text is corrupt and often hard to translate. The parallelism with male passives is familiar, as are the themes of performing the acts of men (the virile, envious chasing of beloveds), drunkenness (as in Philaenis’ revels and Lucian’s tribadic party) and sexual licence in general. However, there are points that are more unique. The phrasings “both kinds of desire [utranque Venerem]” and “double sexuality” [duplici sexu] stand out, echoing Ovid’s description of Tiresias as knowing “both kinds of desire” [utraque Venus]. This has been taken to mean “sex with both genders”, making the tribades and the molles “bisexual”, but in fact Caelius explicitly claims otherwise. Discussing the origins of the tribades and the molles, giving a scientific version of what Phaedrus had described with a myth, Caelius cites Parmenides’ theory of the double seed, male and female, which mix together in conception. Caelius maintains that if the active principles [virtutes; literally “manlinesses”] of the two seeds form into one, then this “generates a desire [voluntatem] appropriate to (the child’s) sex [sexui].” If these principles do not mix along with the seed, then “an appetite [adpetentia] for both kinds of Venus hounds [sequatur] the children.” This appetite could yet be thought to mean “desire for both genders” if Caelius did not go on to describe the different stages of the disease. In the bloom of the molles’ lives “their twin desire [libido] for luxury is divided, with their mind at one time excited by activity [faciendo] and at another by passivity [patiendo]”. This is contrasted with the condition of old men and young boys who are afflicted by the disease but lack the sexual potency to be active – and so are wholly passive. This Caelius describes as the most severe condition of mollitia – strict passivity, rather than strict homosexuality. An all-passive mollis or an all-active tribade is a rare and unusual thing. So, the two desires are activity and passivity, not sex with women and sex with men; the “desire appropriate to one’s sex” is active if male, passive if female. The tribades and molles as not necessarily exclusively active and passive respectively, but are united by their tendency to desire both passive and active sex. Mollitia and tribadism are defined by the adherence, partial or more rarely total, to the inappropriate sexual role. The gender of the sexual partner is irrelevant in this context and so not mentioned at all. Hence, it is not bisexuality that is described as a mental disease; indeed, double desire is preferable to a single desire, so long as it is the wrong one for one’s sex. Having established this, we can perhaps explain Caelius’ remark that tribades in remission “seek to offer others what they are known for suffering [pati]”. Pati here points not only to passivity but to the disease [passio] they suffer from; Caelius seems to mean that the tribades are sexually active with women when the disease runs rampant, but in remission turn their previous symptoms around, becoming passive and offering their bodies to others. This could of course mean that they have sex with men, but one must remember that even in remission they are still classified as tribades – though now passive ones. Could this be the tribomena, the active tribade’s rarely mentioned partner? In the analogous passage on molles, Caelius says that when they attempt to turn their back on passivity, they go overboard in trying to prove their masculinity; they “do [faciunt] more than befits manliness [virtuti], and involve themselves in greater transgressions [peccata]”.The use of the verb faciunt here implies the active sexual role; the molles invert their previous behaviour, becoming excessively active.Yet again the gender of the sexual object of the molles is not mentioned. There are sources which claim that cinaedi, stereotypes of male passives, slept with married women, committing adultery, but Caelius could also mean that a mollis in remission took on the active sexual role with males in a way that broke the societal norms. Caelius is adamant that this is a mental disease rather than a physical one. The other sects of ancient medicine, he says, claim that the condition is congenital and hereditary, but he himself does not agree. In any case, all believe that the disease is one of humans’ own making, not a natural phenomenon. The condition can be treated only by “coercing the mind” [animus coercendus], for “no one has brought this bodily itch [pruriens corpus] under control [correxit] by behaving like a woman [feminando] or mitigated it by touching a man’s penis”. The disease will not be treated by giving in to one’s desires nor by acting in opposition to them; a tribade cannot just have passive sex to be cured of her active desires, nor the mollis mutatis mutandis. A disease of the soul cannot be cured by bodily means. ... " "The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality" Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson Garden of Priapus - 312 Boss lady and tall Amazon sodomizing her husband. Tall Amazon has muzzled the husband. The muzzle goes back to the Egyptian "stay silent" gesture of the phallic female Harpocrates and is why so little is known about the female phallus In ancient Greece, Socrates was said to have a regular wife and a Hetairistria or Tribade concubine Xanthippe - Greek brothels were probably all Tribades and soft men! - Today that is assumed to be all Lesbian, but Tribades were another forgotten category all its own - and in my view caused buy the Fibula or penis cage ... " ... Tzetzes then mentions hetairistriai in his commentary on Aristophanes’ Clouds. He describes how Socrates was justly tried by the Athenians because of his abnormality and describes his oddities and his poverty: “yet even living in such straits, he still had two wives cohabiting the same small house: Xanthippe and Myrto, of whom the former was a hetairistria, the latter his legal wife. He would watch these argue with each other while offering a laugh every once in a while.” The characterization of Xanthippe as a hetairistria is found only here. As Bicknell has pointed out, Tzetzes’ information is derived ultimately from Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle (fl. 335 BCE). Fragments of his hostile writings on Socrates were preserved by Porphyry but those were subsequently lost; we possess only quotations from Porphyry in some late antique authors. Two of these report that Aristoxenus called Xanthippe κοινοτ?ραν, literally “too common”, with discernible sexual innuendo. Tzetzes either interpreted this himself as a reference to homosexuality or picked up that reference from another text now lost. These many stages between the original accusation and Tzetzes’ interpretation of it should warn us against taking this as a common belief. Tzetzes no doubt knew the word hetairistria from Plato, thereby furnishing a connection between Socrates and female homosexuality. ... " "The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality" Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson Garden of Priapus - 313 Buff and tatooed boss lady riding a penis caged slave. Socrates had one of these riding him - The greek male started life as a sexual passive and ended life as a sexual passive - that's usually assumed as a sexually passive to men - but for Socrates his old age was spent under a sexually virile woman - a Hetairistria called Xanthippe ! That's the source of the Greek fire and also the reason the fathers of western reason were openly lecturing on commerce with the gods - After 30 years in the penis cage the Djed pillar and the inner eye of Osiris will come forth! Modern intellectuals have erased or ignored this this though ... For Plato in his symposium sex was women over men and men over boys. That's a startling image but seems to have been the reality of the time. Central to this was the Hetairistria or Tribade. To me that can only be explained by the Fibula or penis cage. Greek and Roman men were considered girls for sexual purposes until the removal of the Fibula at 24 or 25. " ... Precursor: The hetairistriai of Plato’s Symposium And yet, it starts with a footnote to Plato. His Symposium (c. 385–370 BCE) is famous for its extensive discussion and praise of male homosexuality, but is it is also a founding document of female homosexuality – though it is mentioned only in passing, out of a structural necessity to complete an argument which is really about men, nevertheless it is the first Greek text to give homosexual women a name. This name appears in Aristophanes’ speech, in which he proposes that originally humans came in sets of two; each was made out of two attached individuals, who could be two women, two men or one man and one woman (an androgyne). After these beings revolted against the gods, Zeus split them up, and ever since the split halves seek for their lost partners and find him or her in other humans of that partner’s sex. This explains sexual preference. As to women who were cut off from a female partner, Aristophanes says: Those women who were split from a woman are not especially interested in men ... , but are more drawn towards women, and the hetairistriai spring from this stock Hetairistria is a hapax legomenon which puzzled later lexicographers and commentators. Their solution was to explain hetairistria as a synonym for a much better known term in their time: tribade. One claimed that hetairistria was simply the Attic word for the koine tribade. Hence, the tribade can illustrate the hetairistria and vice versa. So what can be glimpsed from Aristophanes’ brief, pioneering mention of homosexual women? First, hetairistriai are not said to be identical with the mythical split women who are “not wholly drawn to men but more to women”: rather, the hetairistriai are their descendants. These are characterized indirectly by appearing in parallel with the descendants of the other splits, whose societal reputations, unlike that of the hetairistriai, are well-known. These are as follows: The male splits from the androgynous original humans, who are described as “woman-lovers” themselves, have descendants who are “adulterers” . Similarly, it seems that the female androgyne splits are “men-lovers” themselves but have “adulteresses” for descendants. Male-male splits have no stated descendants; they are merely “fond of male lovers” as boys and “boy-lovers” as men. The descendants have negative connotations, unlike the splits; this could explain why Aristophanes removes them one step further down the family line from their double-bodied progenitors. Adulterers of both genders, and by analogy hetairistriai, were seen as excessive in their sexual preferences, being unable to contain them within societally acceptable boundaries. This means that there are two categories of homoerotic women: One whose preference for women is benign, and another, the hetairistriai, who are excessive in that preference and worthy of condemnation for it. This system of splits and descendants could be devised to illuminate the strange, mythical original beings with contemporary examples and to pass judgment on the relative merits of each sexual preference: The androgyne-splits are like the adulterers and adulteresses that were the object of such debate in ancient Athens; the male-male splits are like the boy-loving Athenian men who comprise Aristophanes’ audience (because of whose presence, perhaps, Aristophanes refrains from mentioning any shameful descendants from their group); and finally, the female-female splits are like the hetairistriai, who would then signal another well-known group in Athens at the time. Their introduction with a definite article and without explanatory remarks seem to strengthen that assumption, but if the hetairistriai were a public concern at the time, no other extant Athenian source reflects this. Besides these vague hints at the meaning of hetairistriai, there was one explanatory recourse open to both the Greeks of later times and to modern scholars: the etymology of her name. Hetairistria is a feminine agent noun formed from the stem of the verb hetairizô, which comes from the noun hetairos, “friend”, “companion”. In the feminine this word takes on an alternate meaning, hetaira signifying a high-class prostitute or courtesan, an object of male fantasy and fascination in the ancient world. Correspondingly, hetairizô means “to be a companion to” or to “associate with” on the one hand, and “to be a courtesan” or “to associate with courtesans” on the other. With the feminine agent noun suffix –tria added to the verbal stem, we get hetairistria. If the sense of hetairizô here is simply “to be a courtesan”, that would make hetairistria a superfluous synonym of hetaira. Hetairistria is therefore likely to have been understood as “a woman who associates with courtesans”. Indeed, the lexicographer Pollux glosses her masculine counterpart, hetairistês, as “a man who associates excessively with courtesans”. One associates with courtesans for sex; hence, hetairistria implies a woman who desires sex with women. In Plato, then, we find indications of two separate traditions of female homosexuality: an unnamed, benign one, and another, the hetairistria, connected with excess, prostitution and adultery. These themes would be carried on into the tradition of the tribade, born five centuries after the Symposium. ... " "The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality" Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson Garden of Priapus - 314 Boss lady whipping before Asian with a large phallus mounts a penis caged man Dionysus or Bacchus was a catamite - that is a sexual passive. The mysteries of Dionysus were female - not male and centered on the female phallus - That's what resurrected Dionysus or Osiris in his original form. Garden of Priapus - 315 Asian soldier with a large mentule mounts a restrained slave Old men marrying young women in the Greco-Roman world was said to cause Tribades. I think the modern day reading of this is wrong though - it's assumed that the young wives were turned into lesbians by the sexual neglect of their husbands - That's the modern reading of the Socrates/ Xanthippe coupling. I think the clearer meaning is old men reverted to the sexually passive state they were in before the removal of the Fibula at age 24 or 25. In other words, the virile Tribade and passive older man was a desired state of affairs for older men who could no longer sustain an erection and reverted to the more pleasurable state of the caged sexual passive ... " ... Two centuries after Arethas and the Suda, another Byzantine scholar, John Tzetzes (c. 1110 – 1180 CE), mentioned tribades in his commentary on Hesiod’s Works and Days. On Hesiod’s disturbing recommended age disparity between bride and bridegroom, he remarks “in my opinion, these girls should marry different men from those he recommends. By joining them with these much older men, he all but recommends that they commit disgrace [?φυβρικ?ναι] in bed with them. For only a small time will pass before the men will be weak from old age, but the girls, having reached the bloom of their youth - it is from these conditions that the manly tribade is born - will plot against [μηχαν?σονται] their husbands.” Women turn into dangerous tribades due to lack of male sexual attention, according to Tzetzes, like the widows of the Suda turning to dildos. Perhaps he is also echoing Lucian and Ps.-Lucian: If left to their own devices by widowhood, women will free themselves from male sexual control and instead form relationships among themselves. Ancient medical writers did express concerns that lack of sex turned women manly, though they did not claim that she became a tribade: that is Tzetzes’ own innovation. ... " "The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality" Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson Garden of Priapus - 316 Boss lady guiding Asian soldier working a large mentule on an OG - or old guy. The Tribade was an astrological sign to the Roman world - or in other words - a deity in the heavens and worthy of formal worship ... " ... The Long Life of the Astrological Tribade Besides her appearance in fiction, morality tales and a law case, the tribade was often invoked in ancient scientific writing. She appears by far the most often in astrology. This does not mean that the tribade is mostly an astrological phenomenon; astrological texts are technical and traditional and often reproduce each other’s findings verbatim. Hence, the tribade appeared there as a rule. One of the mainstays of astrology is the explanation of phenomena that is considered to be at odds with the natural order; transgressive sexuality, such as tribadism, fell neatly into that category. The Acts of Men: Dorotheus of Sidon The earliest astrologer who mentions tribadism is Dorotheus of Sidon (fl. 25-75 CE) 153 in his Carmen Astrologicum, a very influential work in astrology. Fragments remain of the text’s original Greek, but we have an extensive Arabic translation. The Greek once speaks of an extremely complex astrological formation which makes women tribades; likewise, the Arabic discusses homosexual women using the term sa??qa, which comes from verb “to rub”, just like the tribade. The Greek no doubt had tribade where the Arabic has sa??qa. Dorotheus, then, is our earliest user of the word in Greek, some decades at least after its appearance in Latin. These tribades are said to “do in women the acts of men” – a phrase that nearly every later astrologer repeats – and are presented variously as an analogue to male passives, to men who are uninterested in sex with women or to men who lose their property due to their love for their wives, all depending on the stars’ positions. These are all men who have lost their masculine prerogatives in some way; sexual dominance over others and control of the household. The stars also make one’s sexual preferences more open or more secret. Grouped together with tribades are adulterous women, women who are sex-crazed or “harlots”, all groups considered exemplars of excess of sexual appetite. It is clear that tribadism was not considered antithetical to sexual passion for men (that is, “homosexual” in contrast to “heterosexual”); a very small astrological variation stands between the two. Laborious Love: Manetho Manetho (between 1st and 4th cent. CE)161 was an Egyptian astrologer and writer of a treatise in verse called Apotelesmatica. He mentions “tribades who perform deeds after the manner of men [?νδρ?στροφα]” and a woman “who accomplished the deeds of men [?νδρ?ν ?ργα] by sleeping with [συνευν?ζο?σα] a woman”. Most remarkably, he waxes poetic about stars which “force [?ναγκ?ζουσι] women to enjoy [τ?ρπεσθαι] manly deeds [?ρσενικο?ς ?ργοισιν] – a great spectacle [μεγ? θα?μα]! In their madness for women [γυναιμαν?ες γ?ρ ?ο?σαι], they labour to couple [γαμ?ουσιν] in their laborious love [?ργαλ?ως ... ?ς ?ργαλ?ην φιλ?τητα].” Manetho’s verse writing seems to force him into more expressive phrasings than the otherwise formulaic prose astrologers used: the stars force women into sex with other women, a theme we know from Ps.-Lucian; as there and in Clement, it is a spectacle, encapsulating men’s anxious position of being both fascinated by and fearful of tribadism. The tribades’ love-making, however, is difficult to accomplish; in Manetho’s imagination, the lack of a penetrative object makes their passions all but impossible to fulfil. ... " "The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality" Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson Garden of Priapus - 317 More boss lady with whip, Asian with a large mentule and a penis caged slave Hermes Trismegistus - From Jung I associate Hermes Trismegistus with alchemical wisdom. But an unknown part of that wisdom has to do with Tribades and the female phallus. Again, from the Roman Priapea we learn that Bacchus or Dionysus - and earlier Osiris - was a sexual passive - in the case of Osiris he lost his penis to Set. The Tribade or Amazon and her mentule or female phallus was the other side of that equation " ... Latin Translations: the crissatrix and the fricatrix of Hermes Trismegistus The astrological work which goes under the name of the god Hermes Trismegistus was compiled in the 7th cent. CE and contains material as old as the 2nd cent. BCE. It is therefore difficult to localize the work or date individual passages, though two of the three passages that mention tribadism must be older than the 4th cent. CE. It has been preserved in a Latin translation that, unusually, uses Latin terms for the tribade – a word which most Latin authors preferred to transliterate rather than translate: According to Hermes Trismegistus, when Venus is in a certain position, a female child “becomes a crissatrix or a fricatrix and is loved [diligitur] by women who are fricatrices.” Fricatrix, like Tertullian’s frictrix, is a direct etymological translation of tribade, from the verb frico, “to rub” – like the Arabic sa??qa. However, the second word, crissatrix, is a hapax legomenon. Brooten takes it as a synonym for fricatrix and translates it as “thruster”. However, crissatrix stems from criso, “to move the haunches as in coitus”, a verb used only of the passive woman’s movements during sex. The word, then, cannot carry any connotations of thrusting or penetration. It appears twice in Hermes Trismegistus; another passage talks about male passives [cinaedi] and “women who are like sisters, yet they are sterile and crissatrices”. As we have seen, in astrology the same stars can cause a woman to either become a tribade or a woman crazed for sex with men; crissatrix and fricatrix could be meant to be such a pairing. Hermes’ second mention of crissatrices, however, seems to be a kind of riddle: it hints at something different. The women live like sisters, but are not; they are sterile, yet sexually active. The solution could be that in this case they “move their haunches” with each other instead of with men; hence their sterility. Remarkably, the fricatrix/crissatrix will be loved by other fricatrices – this stands in direct contrast to Ptolemy’s clear distinction between the tribade and the tribomena. Like in Scaurus, the same word is used for both the active and the passive sexual role. However, seeing as the crissatrix must signify the passive woman only, possibly Hermes here creates a neologism for the tribomena, made clearer by joining it with the traditional but ineffective term used for both the active and the passive partner. The passage would then imply: “she will become a crissatrix – or, (if you will), a (passive) fricatrix - who is loved by (active) fricatrices.” All this must remain conjectural, however. Finally, a third passage of Hermes’ work claims that a woman born under certain stars “will be incestuous and exceedingly common or a public prostitute [meretrix publica] and she will perform shameless things in life, having intercourse with other women or concubines [concubinis] in the same way as a man.” Though the connection to incest, public sexuality and prostitution is familiar, this is the first mention of concubines, pushing even further the tribades’ associations with masculinity. ... " "The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality" Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson Garden of Priapus - 318 More Asian amazon sodomizing a penis caged slave as boss lady looks on ... The Amazon Tribade tradition survived into 12th century AD Greek Byzantium - My guess is the tradition continued even after that - in the legend of "She" which is associated with a lost white queen somewhere in black Africa: " ...Wretched Life: John Camaterus Interestingly, astrology and the astrological tribade did not die out with the passing of classical antiquity and the rise of Christianity. In an obscure Byzantine mid-12th cent. CE Introduction to Astrology in verse by one John Camaterus, he explains that when Virgo is in a certain position, men will be “useless and sleep with men”, but a woman “will be a tribade and have a wretched life, approaching women and performing the deeds of men.” In astrology, then, the tribade was an essential tradition, stretching chronologically from the 1st to the 12th cent. CE and geographically all over the Roman world: Dorotheus was from modern-day Lebanon, Ptolemy from Egypt, Camaterus from Constantinople. In all these places and through all this time, astrologers expected their readers to know and be fascinated by the tribade. ... " "The Tribadic Tradition: The Reception of an Ancient Discourse on Female Homosexuality" Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson That's the Mami Wata myth that is common in large parts of central and west Africa - a fish woman with a penis ... African men probably don't need the penis cage to preserve their sexual energy though - living in nature means their libido has been closer to the animals! - That dies though as soon as western ways make their way into the dark continent - In Kenya for example, as late as Hemingway's days African men felt free to walk around buck naked! Garden of Priapus - 319 More boss lady and a Asian female phallus in action Shot blocked. Used workaround The Roman female phallus may have been the focus of the April 1 festival of Fortuna Virilis, "Masculine Luck", when a statue of Venus as Fortuna Virilis was ritually bathed on the men's baths. It was officially a celebration of chastity and led by Vestal Virgins - but for the main part was celebrated by Roman prostitutes. My reading of that is male chastity - or the penis cage - and female virility as in the mentule or female phallus - The erect phallus and the eternal flame was the sacred domain of the Vestals - and prostitutes wore the male Toga as a sign of that virility - or the female phallus ... " .. Prostitution and religion Prostitutes had a role in several ancient Roman religious observances, mainly in the month of April. On 1 April, women honored Fortuna Virilis, "Masculine Luck", on the day of the Veneralia, a festival of Venus. According to Ovid, prostitutes joined married women (matronae) in the ritual cleansing and reclothing of the cult statue of Fortuna Virilis. Usually, the line between respectable women and the infames was carefully drawn: when a priestess traveled through the streets, attendants moved prostitutes along with other "impurities" out of her path. ... " Wikipedia And ... " ... In ancient Roman religion, Fortuna Virilis was an aspect or manifestation of the goddess Fortuna who despite her name (virilis, "virile, manly") was cultivated by women only. She shared a festival day with Venus Verticordia on April 1 (Kalendae Aprilis), which first appears with the name Veneralia in the mid-4th century AD. According to the poet Ovid, Fortuna Virilis had the power to conceal the physical imperfections of women from the eyes of men. During the Veneralia, she receives an offering of incense, while the more elaborate ceremonies are devoted to Venus. A note from Verrius Flaccus in the fragmentary calendar known as the Fasti Praenestini has been interpreted to mean that respectable women of the upper classes (honestiores) observed the Veneralia separately from those of lesser rank or dubious reputation (humiliores and prostitutes). Plutarch is the only source to mention the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, which he says was founded by Servius Tullius. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 320 Asian about to mount a penis caged slave with boss lady looking on Shot blocked. Used workaround Ovid does not tell us what Fortuna Virilis did to allow Venus to bathe safely naked with aroused satyrs in warm baths - he asks us to find out for ourselves. My guess is the bronze Fibula as mandatory for all Roman men from puberty to the age of 25. And knowledge of how to work a dildo for all Roman women of the same age " ... Duly do ye worship the goddess, ye Latin mothers and brides, and ye, too, who wear not the fillets and long robe. Take off the golden necklaces from the marble neck of the goddess; take off her gauds; the goddess must be washed from top to toe. Then dry her neck and restore to it her golden necklaces; now give her other flowers, now give her the fresh-blown rose. Ye, too, she herself bids bathe under the green myrtle, and there is a certain reason for her command; learn what it is. Naked, she was drying on the shore her oozy locks, when the satyrs, a wanton crew, espied the goddess. She perceived it, and screened her body by myrtle interposed: that done, she was safe, and she bids you do the same. Learn now why ye give incense to Fortuna Virilis in the place which reeks of warm water. All women strip when they enter that place, and every blemish on the naked body is plain to see; Fortuna Virilis undertakes to conceal the blemish and to hide it from the men, and this she does for the consideration of a little incense. Nor grudge to take poppy pounded with snowy milk and liquid honey squeezed from the comb; when Venus was first escorted to her eager spouse, she drank that draught: from that time she was a bride. Propitiate her with supplications; beauty and virtue and good fame are in her keeping. In the time of our forefathers Rome had fallen from a state of chastity, and the ancients consulted the old woman of Cumae. She ordered a temple to be built to Venus, and when that was duly done, Venus took the name of Changer of the Heart (Verticordia) from the event. Fairest of goddesses, ever behold the sons of Aenas with look benign, and guard thine offspring’s numerous wives. ... " Ovidus Fasti IV “Rite deam colitis, Latiae matresque nurusque et vos, quis vittae longaque vestis abest. aurea marmoreo redimicula demite collo, demite divitias: tota lavanda dea est. aurea siccato redimicula reddite collo: nunc alii flores, nunc nova danda rosa est. vos quoque sub viridi myrto iubet ipsa lavari: causaque cur iubeat, discite, certa subest. litore siccabat rorantes nuda capillos: viderunt satyri, turba proterva, deam. sensit et opposita texit sua corpora myrto: tuta fuit facto, vosque referre iubet. discite nunc, quare Fortunae tura Virili detis eo, gelida qui locus umet aqua. accipit ille locus posito velamine cunctas et vitium nudi corporis omne videt; ut tegat hoc celetque viros, Fortuna Virilis praestat et hoc parvo ture rogata facit. nec pigeat tritum niveo cum lacte papaver sumere et expressis mella liquata favis: cum primum cupido Venus est deducta marito, hoc bibit; ex illo tempore nupta fuit. supplicibus verbis illam placate: sub illa et forma et mores et bona fama manet. Roma pudicitia proavorum tempore lapsa est: Cumaeam, veteres, consuluistis anum. templa iubet fieri Veneri: quibus ordine factis inde Venus verso nomina corde tenet. semper ad Aeneadas placido, pulcherrima, voltu respice, totque tuas, diva, tuere nurus. Dum loquor, elatae metuendus acumine caudae” Ovidus Fasti IV Garden of Priapus - 321 Asian female bull mounting a "mummified" OG or old guy The fact that Roman prostitutes were celebrating the Fortuna Virilis means on some level it was not about chastity But on another level it was about chastity - male penis chastity - Like this scene called "mummification" sex - The idea was originally Egyptian - that's the way Osiris eventually got his phallus back - under a virile Hathor female bull! Female bull/male chastity sex was torrid sex - It was the opening of the male ass chakra that caused all that heat ... Garden of Priapus - 322 More Asian bull mounting a "mummified" OG or old guy Roman writers kept referring to the "filth" of Roman brothels - I think what they meant was ass sex and its unavoidable association with manure ... That makes more sense when you compare with the praise of "normal" healthy sex by Christians condemning Roman brothels... Garden of Priapus - 323 More Asian bull mounting a "mummified" OG or old guy Female serpent tattoo - The Roman female phallus was aligned with Set not Osiris - Anat and Baal! That's the general thesis of this page ... "As a warrior-goddess, Anat was one of several Syrian / northwest Semitic deities who was prominently worshipped by the warrior-pharaohs of the 16th Dynasty. She was often paired with the goddess Ashtart. In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Re and are given as allies to the god Set, who had been identified with the Semitic god Hadad." Wikipedia It's form of integration of the darkness I suppose - Better to be aware of it than to ignore it - The erotic power of the Anat sexuality is much stronger than the regular thing Garden of Priapus - 324 More Asian bull mounting a "mummified" OG or old guy Fortuna Virilis - A virile venus bathing in the Roman men's baths ... Since Roman men were penis caged - any sexual intercourse in those baths was female dominant - Fortuna Virilis ... Same thing in the Roman brothels and the Garden of Priapus and the Roman and Greek bedroom - Set gives the phallus to women, not men! In the Bona Dea festivities - the masking Myrtle was removed - and men invited in as women to the all women orgies. Myrtle was a magical plant for Roman women * To ancient Egyptians Set was mostly known for strong sexuality - He was even said to be homosexual because he tried to rape Horus ... My guess though - is Horus is female, not male - Harpocrates is a phallic female " ... Set ... is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion. Set had a positive role where he accompanies Ra on his barque to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant. He was lord of the red (desert) land, where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the black (soil)((inferred)) land. In the Osiris myth, the most important Egyptian myth, Set is portrayed as the usurper who killed and mutilated his own brother, Osiris. Osiris's wife, Isis, reassembled his corpse and resurrected her dead husband with the help of the goddess Nephthys. The resurrection lasted long enough to conceive his son and heir, Horus. Horus sought revenge upon Set and many of the ancient Egyptian myths describe their conflicts. In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Set was commonly associated with the planet Mercury. Since he is related to the west of Nile which is the desert, he is sometimes associated with a lesser deity, Ha, god of the desert, which is a deity depicted as a man with a desert determinative on his head. Set is the son of Geb, the Earth, and Nut, the Sky; his siblings are Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys. He married Nephthys and fathered Anubis and in some accounts, he had relationships with the foreign goddesses Anat and Astarte. From these relationships is said to be born a crocodile deity called Maga. In art, Set is usually depicted as an enigmatic creature referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal, a beast not identified with any known animal, although it could be seen as a resembling an aardvark, an African wild dog, a donkey, a hyena, a jackal, a pig, an antelope, a giraffe, an okapi, a saluki, or a fennec fox. The animal has a downward curving snout; long ears with squared-off ends; a thin, forked tail with sprouted fur tufts in an inverted arrow shape; and a slender canine body. sometimes, Set is depicted as a human with the distinctive head. Some early Egyptologists proposed that it was a stylised representation of the giraffe, owing to the large flat-topped "horns" which correspond to a giraffe's ossicones. The Egyptians themselves, however used distinct depictions for the giraffe and the Set animal. During the Late Period, Set is depicted as a donkey or as a man wearing a donkey's-head mask. The earliest representations of what might be the Set animal comes from a tomb dating to the Amratian culture ("Naqada I") of prehistoric Egypt (3790–3500 BCE), though this identification is uncertain. If these are ruled out, then the earliest Set animal appears on a ceremonial macehead of Scorpion II, a ruler of the Naqada III phase. The head and the forked tail of the Set animal are clearly present on the mace. In the Book of the Faiyum, he is depicted with a flamingo head. ... An important element of Set's mythology was his conflict with his brother or nephew, Horus, for the throne of Egypt. The contest between them is often violent but is also described as a legal judgment before the Ennead, an assembled group of Egyptian deities, to decide who should inherit the kingship. The judge in this trial may be Geb, who, as the father of Osiris and Set, held the throne before they did, or it may be the creator gods Ra or Atum, the originators of kingship. Other deities also take important roles: Thoth frequently acts as a conciliator in the dispute or as an assistant to the divine judge, and in "Contendings", Isis uses her cunning and magical power to aid her son. The rivalry of Horus and Set is portrayed in two contrasting ways. Both perspectives appear as early as the Pyramid Texts, the earliest source of the myth. In some spells from these texts, Horus is the son of Osiris and nephew of Set, and the murder of Osiris is the major impetus for the conflict. The other tradition depicts Horus and Set as brothers. This incongruity persists in many of the subsequent sources, where the two gods may be called brothers or uncle and nephew at different points in the same text. The divine struggle involves many episodes. "Contendings" describes the two gods appealing to various other deities to arbitrate the dispute and competing in different types of contests, such as racing in boats or fighting each other in the form of hippopotami, to determine a victor. In this account, Horus repeatedly defeats Set and is supported by most of the other deities. Yet the dispute drags on for eighty years, largely because the judge, the creator god, favors Set. In late ritual texts, the conflict is characterized as a great battle involving the two deities' assembled followers. The strife in the divine realm extends beyond the two combatants. At one point Isis attempts to harpoon Set as he is locked in combat with her son, but she strikes Horus instead, who then cuts off her head in a fit of rage. Thoth replaces Isis's head with that of a cow; the story gives a mythical origin for the cow-horn headdress that Isis commonly wears. In a key episode in the conflict, Set sexually abuses Horus. Set's violation is partly meant to degrade his rival, but it also involves homosexual desire, in keeping with one of Set's major characteristics, his forceful, potent, and indiscriminate sexuality. In the earliest account of this episode, in a fragmentary Middle Kingdom papyrus, the sexual encounter begins when Set asks to have sex with Horus, who agrees on the condition that Set will give Horus some of his strength. The encounter puts Horus in danger, because in Egyptian tradition semen is a potent and dangerous substance, akin to poison. According to some texts, Set's semen enters Horus's body and makes him ill, but in "Contendings", Horus thwarts Set by catching Set's semen in his hands. Isis retaliates by putting Horus's semen on lettuce-leaves that Set eats. Set's defeat becomes apparent when this semen appears on his forehead as a golden disk. He has been impregnated with his rival's seed and as a result "gives birth" to the disk. In "Contendings", Thoth takes the disk and places it on his own head; in earlier accounts, it is Thoth who is produced by this anomalous birth. Another important episode concerns mutilations that the combatants inflict upon each other: Horus injures or steals Set's testicles and Set damages or tears out one, or occasionally both, of Horus's eyes. Sometimes the eye is torn into pieces. Set's mutilation signifies a loss of virility and strength. The removal of Horus's eye is even more important, for this stolen eye of Horus represents a wide variety of concepts in Egyptian religion. One of Horus's major roles is as a sky deity, and for this reason his right eye was said to be the sun and his left eye the moon. The theft or destruction of the eye of Horus is therefore equated with the darkening of the moon in the course of its cycle of phases, or during eclipses. Horus may take back his lost Eye, or other deities, including Isis, Thoth, and Hathor, may retrieve or heal it for him. Egyptologist Herman te Velde argues that the tradition about the lost testicles is a late variation on Set's loss of semen to Horus, and that the moon-like disk that emerges from Set's head after his impregnation is the Eye of Horus. If so, the episodes of mutilation and sexual abuse would form a single story, in which Set assaults Horus and loses semen to him, Horus retaliates and impregnates Set, and Set comes into possession of Horus's eye, when it appears on Set's head. Because Thoth is a moon deity in addition to his other functions, it would make sense, according to te Velde, for Thoth to emerge in the form of the Eye and step in to mediate between the feuding deities. In any case, the restoration of the eye of Horus to wholeness represents the return of the moon to full brightness, the return of the kingship to Horus, and many other aspects of maat. Sometimes the restoration of Horus's eye is accompanied by the restoration of Set's testicles, so that both gods are made whole near the conclusion of their feud. ... According to Herman te Velde, the demonization of Set took place after Egypt's conquest by several foreign nations in the Third Intermediate and Late Periods. Set, who had traditionally been the god of foreigners, thus also became associated with foreign oppressors, including the Assyrian and Persian empires. It was during this time that Set was particularly vilified, and his defeat by Horus widely celebrated. Set's negative aspects were emphasized during this period. Set was the killer of Osiris, having hacked Osiris' body into pieces and dispersed it so that he could not be resurrected. The Greeks would later associate Set with Typhon, a monstrous and evil force of raging nature. Both were sons of deities representing the Earth (Gaia and Geb) who attacked the principal deities (Osiris for Set, Zeus for Typhon). Nevertheless, throughout this period, in some outlying regions of Egypt, Set was still regarded as the heroic chief deity. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 325 More Asian bull mounting a "mummified" OG or old guy Set might have been an Egyptian Fortuna Virilis - A virile venus bathing in the men's baths - Egypt like Rome and Troy had ceded the phallus to women, with men in the penis cage for long periods of time. There are many examples of the Egyptian female phallus - Sekhmet-Min being probably the best candidate In the battle between Set and Horus - Set lost his or her testicles or virility - Set's most prized attribute ... Garden of Priapus - 326 Boss lady working up a sweat on a penis caged slave. Galla was a common Roman name for a man - and not low class either - Governors and Emperors called themselves Galla with pride - I think it either meant penis caged or no penis at all - This did not mean Gallae did not use prostitutes though - which can only mean they were the passive partners ... My intuition is all or almost all Roman men in brothels were Gallae In this poem by Martial a Galla describes the lowering price that he has to pay a prostitute - eventually she agrees to give it to him for free - but he declines " ... WITH Galla it once was-' Two hundred, mon cher 'And I will confess it, she did not seem dear. A year passed away, and one hundred seemed more, When she sank to that figure, than two had before. Another half-year and 'twas-' Twenty I'll make it ': I offered her ten, but she said-' I can't take it'. Two or three months went by and I got a short note' Five pounds I am asking '-the good lady wrote. I did not respond, so she came to a pound, And even a sovereign too much I found. When we met the next time, she was willing to have The paltry half-crown I had given my slave. Do you think she was able much lower to go? Yes. ' Take me for nothing'. My answer was-' No'. ... " Martial LXXV Garden of Priapus - 327 Military boss lady over a caged slave As noted above, Roman women who had extra marital sex wore the male Toga as opposed to the female Stola. The modern reading is this was a sign of shame - but to me it was a sign of female virility - or the female phallus or mentule ... The other side of the Roman Fibula or penis cage Martial 2.39 “ … You are giving the notorious adulteress scarlet and violet clothes as gifts. Do you want to give her what she has earned? Send her a toga. … “ Coccina famosae donas et ianthina moechae. vis dare quae meruit munera? mitte togam. Garden of Priapus - 328 More military boss lady over a caged slave As Juvenal notes above, with Roman wealth Greek "luxury" or sex became the province of Roman women - not men. The reason being the sexual switch caused by the penis cage or Fibula With a large enough dowry the Roman woman was free to have as much extra marital sex as she wanted to - Toga-clad like a men ... Roman male prostitutes were "spintra" meaning anal - as were all Galla or penis caged men ... " ... In lines 136-141, Juvenal recounts the domestic situation of a certain Clusennia, whose rich dowry to her money-loving husband has given her a right to sexual license. The poet sarcastically embroiders the description with image-provoking references to Venus and her sagittae and the faces of the marriage ceremony. He minces no words in conclusion,.though: libertas· emitur; ••• vidua est, locuples -quae nupsit avaro. In this section, Juvenal nicely mingles poetic imagery and prose-like statement of fact to achieve effective treatment. ... " [ Juvenal, Satire VI} Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women, Lawrence Phillips Davis (1973) "Then, how can it be that even by her husband's showing Cesennia is the best of wives?" She brought him a thousand sestertia! that is the price at which he calls her chaste. It is not with Venus' quiver that he grows thin, or with her torch he burns; it is from that his fires are fed; from her dowry that the arrows emanate. She has purchased her liberty: therefore, even in her husband's presence, she may exchange signals, and answer her love-letters. A rich wife, with a covetous husband, has all a widow's privileges. " Juvenal, Satire VI Garden of Priapus - 329 More military boss lady over a caged slave: his balls in her hand Roman porn was for women - That's the only example I can think of where that's true - with the exception of the "jinn". Ancient Greece, Troy and Egypt were probably the same thing ... - Had another encounter with a female bull "jinn". She was more of an ancient goddess - not a fish woman. She noted a craving for the Greco-Roman "soft men" that I am researching but noted that they do not exist anymore ! " . “ … In the category of enthusiastically unfaithful wives, Martial suggest in Book III 68 the married woman's fondness for reading erotic texts when he addresses the Roman matrona and invites her to continue reading his book of poems, which nwill become more licentious and erotic in content. He says in lines 11-12: si bene te novi, longum iam lassa libellum ponebas, totum nunc studiosa legis. The implication is that, in Martial's opinion, many a Roman wife has sex and illicit sex on her mind. While Martial certainly did not consider III 68 an introduction to case files on wayward wives, his denigrating remark above expresses his feeling that the matrona had a craving for the erotic and the sensual. If III 68 can serve as a general psychological introduction to the adulterous attitudes of certain Roman wives, Martial can supply the examples of particular cases of illicit conduct. I 68 and V 61 show two wives enjoying extra-marital affairs; Naevia in 68, who savors more than one identity {Naevia ~~est), and Marianus's wife (61), who has a young crispulus (curly-hair) in constant attendance, are apparently dealing with either slow-witted or naive husbands. Rufus's naivete causes Naevia to laugh with demissa•••voltu, and Marianus's wife can so befuddle him that he can explain her young male slave's function as "doing my wife's business (Uxoris res agit•••iste meae). The husband does not realize the dual meaning of his words. In these two cases,the wives involved indeed may need diversions to forget the dullards to whom they are married; Martial's derisive tone toward the husbands suggest this. ..." Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women, Lawrence Phillips Davis (1973) Garden of Priapus - 330 Boss lady as a nun penetrating a penis caged parishoner The church of Rome has many elements of the penis-caged Roman empire - The missing element is the phallic Amazons! I have a Pompeii image of this on page 150 - a seated queen with an erection and a dog-leash tanned man leading her to action ... Does not seem erotic on the surface, but the tan on the caged Pompeii man tells me that there was a furnace of eros being generated ... The furnace was the male ass chakra - and the energy was going out from the men into the women - the Amazons "cooled" the caged men down - as is made clear in many Sumerian texts - for example the scene where the Harimtu breaks or tames the wild man Enkidu through 2 weeks of rough sex ... Garden of Priapus - 331 More Boss lady as a nun penetrating a penis caged parishoner From Martial we learn that women were bathing naked in the male parts of the Roman baths. Ovids's "Fortuna Virilis" - the virile Venus But many times, as in this poem by Martial the phallic female bathers were past their prime: " ... THE BATHER You veil your only charm, a pretty face, And show a form that frights the bathing-place. So, bidden by the water-nymphs, I pray, Bathe fully dressed or cast your veil away. ... " BOOK THREE Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,. Martial., Pott, John Arthur, 1865-1920,, Wright, F. A. (Frederick Adam), 1869-1946. Garden of Priapus - 332 More boss lady over a black ass - with two Asians. The idea of a church of phallic Amazon sex and passive men is not ludicrous - in Rome you had the church of the phallic Aphrodite - and Cybele and Isis too ... I had a dream image of an enthusiastic church service where a head Amazon sodomized a young man in front of a large congregation after posting the previous page! Could be a current fantasy - but maybe historical too - The Bona Dea festival and any Venus festival - there are many Roman examples ... Bacchus and Paris were the exemplary models - Which tells me Helen of Troy was a phallic Amazon! From Martial we learn that the best producers of the passive young males was Egypt:- but as always the phallic Amazon is missing in modern day readings of such poems - the assumption of clear homosexual sex. ... However, given the universality of the Fibula or penis cage in Rome and Greece and Egypt, it was more likely a phallic woman or Tribade doing the penetration of the passive male ... Greco-Romans were penis caged from the onset of puberty until about 25 ...


	Stela depicting Egyptian worshipers of Canaanite Deities; Goddess Qdeshet in the middle, Reshef on the right. Phallic Egyptian god Min on the left. Deir El-Medina, Egypt, c. 1300-1200 BC. 18th dynasty Exodus which was an 18th dynasty event - was more a conflict between forms of the Canaanite faith than it was a conflict with Egypt. The monotheism of Freud's "Moses and Monotheism" was worship of El or Yahweh only. I call this photo: "Anat" Qdeshet - the nude goddess on the lion is probably Anat - a goddess of war but also of the phallus - as shown by the phallic Min. Both goddesses are forms of Inanna worship - Which means ancient Jewish kings like Solomon were almost certainly participants of the spring "Hieros Gamos" where the King had ritual public sex with the high priestess of the goddess. From the excerpt on the previous page - that was probably performing oral sex on a celibate priestess of high rank once a year - Page 155 has frozen up
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