Besides this the Greeks, and for a time to an almost greater degree the Romans,[5] were above all things reticent in speech. The Roman still preserved intact through all the frivolity of his later days certain shrines, that were never broken open until the period of the utter corruption of morals; and then no doubt afforded all the richer booty. But in Satire it was not the fact that became matter of derision, but the habits of the voluptuary merely _as affecting morality_, as for instance is clearly seen from a perusal of the passages of Juvenal[6] read in their mutual connection. Moreover the following account will sufficiently prove that even among the Romans affections of thee genitals were never ascribed to _natural_, only to _unnatural_ coition, Paederastia and the like; and that it was the vice that was derided, and not properly speaking its consequences.
After the Satirists come the _Epigrammatic poets_, near akin to them. Whether in this province the Greeks will afford much material, later investigations must decide; how abundantly the Roman _Martial_ has rewarded our repeated perusals, the reader will soon be enabled to convince himself.
From the _Erotic poets_ who composed their lays under the inspiration of Aphrodité surrounded by the Graces or of the roguish Eros, no one will expect to gain anything towards our object. The fact that the _lascivious_ Erotic writers of Antiquity have for the most part been lost can only be deplored by the Historian of the Venereal disease; for undoubtedly such works were in existence in considerable profusion, only as in our own day they were carefully kept concealed from the eyes of the uninitiated. That the Greeks were not poor in such-like productions Cynulcus teaches us, who says to a Sophist[7]: “Thou lyest in the tavern, not in company with friends, but with harlots, hast a throng of panders round thee, and carriest always with thee the works of _Aristophanes_, _Apollodorus_, _Ammonius_, _Antiphanes_ and the Athenian _Gorgias_, _who all of them have written of the Athenian Hetaerae_. One may fitly call thee a _Pornograph_, like the painters _Aristides_, _Pausanias_ and _Nicophanes_.” Writings of the same character were still extant in _Martial’s_[8] time, for the lascivious epigrams on the walls of the grottos, temples and statues of Priapus[9], on garden-walls, and so forth, afforded an inexhaustible mine for collecting amateurs, to whom we owe the Priapeia that have come down to the present day. Had they all been preserved to posterity, we should doubtless have had no need to bewail the lack of clear information as to the Venereal disease among the Ancients.