• Sign up or login, and you'll have full access to opportunities of forum.

Art reviews by Zephyros

Go to CruxDreams.com
Ancient Greek and Roman Bathing

Παρθένος ἀργυρόπεζος ἐλούετο, χρύσεα μαζῶν
χρωτὶ γαλακτοπαγεῖ μῆλα διαινομένη·
πυγαὶ δ’ ἀλλήλαις περιηγέες εἱλίσσοντο,
ὕδατος ὑγροτέρῳ χρωτὶ σαλευόμεναι·
τὸν δ’ ὑπεροιδαίνοντα κατέσκεπε πεπταμένη χεὶρ
οὐχ ὅλον Εὐρώταν, ἀλλ’ ὅσον ἠδύνατο.
(Rufinus, Anth. Gr. 5.60)

A silver-footed maiden was bathing, letting the water fall on the golden apples of her breasts, with flesh like curdled milk. Her rounded buttocks, their flesh more fluid than water, gyrated back and forth. Her outspread hand covered the swelling Eurotas – not all of it, but as much as it could. (tr. William Roger Paton, revised by Michael A. Tueller)

00.jpg

A warm bath and a good massage! Is there anything better than that at the end of a hectic day? People often dream about wellness treatments when they need a remedy for their intense lives.
Although the ancient people were far less stressed out than we are, they seemed to indulge in different wellness procedures on al daily basis. On the top of that, they got the heavenly treatments at a much more affordable price than we do today!

The Greeks
The oldest archeological findings in Europe related to bathing habits date from the Bronze Age (2,400 – 800 BC). In the palaces of Knossos and Phaistos in Crete, the population of the Aegean Minoan civilization has left traces of special chambers devoted to bathing. Alabaster bathtubs excavated in Akrotiri (in Santorini Island), as well as wash basins and feet baths, showed how people from the Minoan civilization maintained their personal hygiene.

The Greeks on the mainland appreciated the healing properties of the water too. Homer and Hesiod often refered to the use of bath by their characters as a sign of hospitality. (The unfortunate Agamemnon was killed in his welcoming bath after his return from Troy. Odysseus took one last bath before his departure from the Island of Calypso).
The ancient Greeks early figured they could profit from the water. The first bathing types of equipment were constructed near natural hot springs. Later, around the 6th century BC, they started to build bathhouses in their cities. Bathing facilities were usually placed next to the palaestra and the gymnasium where people exercised different sports and games. They were positioned in an open space and represented elevated basins operating with cold water. Many vase paintings show that apart of various pools, the Greeks used other appliances, like a kind of showers and feet baths.
Bathing with warm and cold water were equally applied by Greeks. According to the Homeric Epos, Greek used cold water first and then hot; in contrast with the Romans who usually did the other way around - first hot and later cold water.
Ancient sources indicated that bathing was practiced from both sexes. After the water procedures, the Greeks (especially more elevated) anointed themselves with oil to soften their skins.
Plutarch mentioned public and private baths as existing in ancient Greece. A small amount was payable for the use of the public baths. One inscription of Andania fixes the fee to 2 chalkoi that equals to ¼ obol.

01.png

Greek athletes in the public baths. The inscription ΔΗΜΟΣΙΑ (PUBLIC) is very obvious in the middle of the bathing vessel. Image from a lost vase, Tischbein, 1791, vol. 1, pl. 58

02.png

Three bathing women and two servants holding oils and perfume. Image from a lost krater, Tischbein, 1791, vol. 4, pl. 30

03.jpg

Women taking a shower, Vase image form Bilder antiken lebens, Hrsg. von Theodor Panofka, 18, 9

04.jpg

Public bath sign, Sabratha Roman Museum, Libya
SALVOM LAVISSE in the mosaic says: "It is a healthful thing to have bathed."​

The Romans, well-known for their bathing habits being not just a mere bathing, have early understood that they could profit from massages in their public and private bathhouses. The ancient Greeks have already applied such procedures to the Greek athletes, but during the time of the Roman Empire, they were massively introduced to the Roman baths.
In the book I, letter 56, Seneca the Younger (1st century AD) gives us a vivid picture what was like to live close to bath facilities in ancient Rome. Among the sounds coming from the establishment, the annoying noises of a person giving a massage are described. All the cracks and slaps of various hand techniques were probably too much for the writer who was trying to study at that point, but their description leaves us a great testimonial of the massage procedures at the Roman baths. In fact, massage was provided not only at the bathhouses. The Greek physician Galen, who lived and practiced medicine in the first century AD in the Roman Empire, used massage therapy to treat different types of physical injuries and diseases.


Aromatherapy
Homeric Hymn 5 to Aphrodite

ἐς Κύπρον δ᾿ ἐλθοῦσα θυώδεα νηὸν ἔδυνεν,
ἐς Πάφον· ἔνθα δέ οἱ τέμενος βωμός τε θυώδης·
ἔνθ᾿ ἥ γ᾿ εἰσελθοῦσα θύρας ἐπέθηκε φαεινάς,
ἔνθα δέ μιν Χάριτες λοῦσαν καὶ χρῖσαν ἐλαίωι
ἀμβρότωι, οἷα θεοὺς ἐπενήνοθεν αἰὲν ἐόντας,
ἀμβροσίωι ἑ<δ>ανῶι, τό ῥά οἱ τεθυωμένον ἦεν.
ἑσσαμένη δ᾿ εὖ πάντα περὶ χροῒ εἵματα καλά,
χρυσῶι κοσμηθεῖσα φιλομμειδὴς Ἀφροδίτη
σεύατ᾿ ἐπὶ Τροίης, προλιποῦσ᾿ εὐώδεα Κύπρον,
ὕψι μετὰ νέφεσιν ῥίμφα πρήσσουσα κέλευθον.

Going to Cyprus, to Paphos, she disappeared into her fragrant temple; it is there that she has her precinct and scented altar. There she went in, and closed the gleaming doors, and there the Graces bathed her and rubbed her with olive oil, divine oil, as blooms upon the eternal gods, ambrosial bridal oil that she had ready perfumed. Her body well clad in all her fine garments, adorned with gold, smile-loving Aphrodite left fragrant Cyprus and sped towards Troy, rapidly making her way high among the clouds.

__104.jpg_104.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Roy Brown Ward’s “Women in Roman Baths” explores the relationship and acceptance of women in this setting in ancient Rome. Studies relating to the cultural patterns of the ancient world show an interesting segment of historical subjects’ lives.

From studying documents and archeological evidence of Roman bath culture, Ward ponders a question that this article addresses about women’s presence in the bathhouses. He shows that at one time most women, even Christians, bathed in the public baths nude and sometimes in the company of men. However, women’s status in the bathhouses emerged over time.

Regarding the question of whether men and women bathed together in the Ancient Roman Empire, the answer is it depends. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. It depended on the local customs, the inclination of the individual, and how and for whom the particular establishment was being run.

But there is one custom that men and women in Rome and it's sister cities did share communally - at the baths and elsewhere. That was the use of the latrina. This mixed gender - ah - activity - seems a bit odd by our standards - except perhaps for the California hot tub crowd. But that it occured seems to have been indisputably the case, and there have never been "Ladies" or "Gents" signs found at the various excavations of Roman public facilities.

During the first century, women definitely bathed alongside men as the literary record indicates. Some evidence, during the time of Augustus even indicates that women were romantically associated with men when they attended the bathing houses. Women who went to the baths were from all socio-economic backgrounds from prostitutes to wealthy married women. Women could even enjoy a message and exercise when they went to the bathhouse. It is clear from literary sources that into the second century, segregation among the sexes in the bathhouses took a turn because women attended and bathed in the same facilities with men.

Some evidence seems to indicate that Hadrian saw unsegregated bathing between the sexes as something a “bad emperor” would allow; therefore, he wanted to segregate the baths again. However, segregated bathing facilities for the sexes did not happen during his reign. There is no evidence to show that segregated bathhouses were built; however, men and women started using the baths at different times.

101.jpg 102.jpg 103.jpg 105.jpg 106.jpg 107.jpg 108.jpg 109.jpg 112.jpg

Roman baths in Bath (Somerset, South West England)

999.jpg
References

Ward, Roy Bowen. “Women in Roman Baths.” The Harvard Theological Review (April 1992): 125-147.

Bathing in Public in the Roman World, Garrett Fagan, University of Michigan Press (1999). The most modern study of Roman bathing. Professor Fagan points out that the contradictions in the epigrammatical, archeological, and literary evidence is best explained by realizing that there were no uniform rules for any given time or place. Still, descriptions by the poet Martial (Gaius Valerius Martialis) leave no doubt that the baths were places where the ladies and gentlemen could meet on terms of (wink, wink) equality. Of course Martial was living in racy, steamy Rome, but it's unlikely the provincial brethren and sisters were all that different from their cosmopolitan counterparts.
 
Chiming in....

138.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Roy Brown Ward’s “Women in Roman Baths” explores the relationship and acceptance of women in this setting in ancient Rome. Studies relating to the cultural patterns of the ancient world show an interesting segment of historical subjects’ lives.

From studying documents and archeological evidence of Roman bath culture, Ward ponders a question that this article addresses about women’s presence in the bathhouses. He shows that at one time most women, even Christians, bathed in the public baths nude and sometimes in the company of men. However, women’s status in the bathhouses emerged over time.

Regarding the question of whether men and women bathed together in the Ancient Roman Empire, the answer is it depends. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. It depended on the local customs, the inclination of the individual, and how and for whom the particular establishment was being run.

But there is one custom that men and women in Rome and it's sister cities did share communally - at the baths and elsewhere. That was the use of the latrina. This mixed gender - ah - activity - seems a bit odd by our standards - except perhaps for the California hot tub crowd. But that it occured seems to have been indisputably the case, and there have never been "Ladies" or "Gents" signs found at the various excavations of Roman public facilities.

During the first century, women definitely bathed alongside men as the literary record indicates. Some evidence, during the time of Augustus even indicates that women were romantically associated with men when they attended the bathing houses. Women who went to the baths were from all socio-economic backgrounds from prostitutes to wealthy married women. Women could even enjoy a message and exercise when they went to the bathhouse. It is clear from literary sources that into the second century, segregation among the sexes in the bathhouses took a turn because women attended and bathed in the same facilities with men.

Some evidence seems to indicate that Hadrian saw unsegregated bathing between the sexes as something a “bad emperor” would allow; therefore, he wanted to segregate the baths again. However, segregated bathing facilities for the sexes did not happen during his reign. There is no evidence to show that segregated bathhouses were built; however, men and women started using the baths at different times.

View attachment 562353View attachment 562354View attachment 562355View attachment 562356View attachment 562357View attachment 562358View attachment 562359View attachment 562360View attachment 562361

Roman baths in Bath (Somerset, South West England)

View attachment 562362
References

Ward, Roy Bowen. “Women in Roman Baths.” The Harvard Theological Review (April 1992): 125-147.

Bathing in Public in the Roman World, Garrett Fagan, University of Michigan Press (1999). The most modern study of Roman bathing. Professor Fagan points out that the contradictions in the epigrammatical, archeological, and literary evidence is best explained by realizing that there were no uniform rules for any given time or place. Still, descriptions by the poet Martial (Gaius Valerius Martialis) leave no doubt that the baths were places where the ladies and gentlemen could meet on terms of (wink, wink) equality. Of course Martial was living in racy, steamy Rome, but it's unlikely the provincial brethren and sisters were all that different from their cosmopolitan counterparts.

Probably one of the few places you could find a partner who didn't stink. Especially in the summer.
 
Goddesses seducing men

In ancient Greek culture, the human form was the measure of all things, including beauty and the divine, for the Greeks, the human body laid bare the divinity of beauty. Gods were depicted as being very, very human. By creating beautiful sculptural representations of the naked human body, the ancient Greeks created not only titillating images — thanks to the statue Cnidus, a colony of Sparta in Asia Minor, enjoyed a roaring tourist trade — but also expressed transcendent spiritual ideas.

This symbiosis between the physical and the divine can also be traced in the ideas of the philosopher Plato. He believed that Eros, a godly combination of passionate love and sensual desire, ultimately led us to contemplate beauty and approach the spiritual perfection underlying the physical universe.

He believed that when we admire physical beauty, we glimpse the light of eternity shining in those features from a heavenly source beyond this world. It is this more advanced stage of appreciation that gave rise to the term Platonic love to distinguish it from more base sexual desire.

For Plato, Eros as a gateway to higher Platonic knowledge could be either heterosexual or homosexual, and there is certainly plenty at the exhibition to show why “Greek love” later became a euphemism for male homosexuality. But Plato also viewed Eros as a vital, “erotic” cosmic force flowing through nature, in which respect it was more purely heterosexual, with male and female aspects.

Zeus and Persephone
Persephone, the goddess of spring, before she became queen of underworld (before her abduction to Hades). Most of the gods wanted to make her their bride. Hermes offered his rod as gift, Apollo produced his melodious harp as a marriage gift. Ares brought spear and cuirass for the wedding and shield as bride gift. Hephaestus bring necklace of many colours as a gift. Even Persephone beauty could not escaped the allseeing eyes of Zeus.

01.jpg

Demeter, mother of Persephone, reject all gifts sent to Persephone. Demeter worried about her daughter, so she went to the house of Astraios, the god of prophecy or more specifically astrology. Astraios told Demeter to guard her daughter against a robber-bridegroom and before marriage a false and secret bedfellow will come unforeseen, a half monster and cunning mind.

02.jpg

Demeter hid her gorgeous young daughter, in a cave deep under ground and two dragons were placed to gard the cave. Zeus was bewitched by Persephone beauty and somehow found out the cave where Demeter had hid her. Zeus transformed himself into a dragon, lulled the two dragons into sleep, who were guarding the cave, and managed to get inside the cave. Where he seduce, his own daughter, Persephone virgin body in form of dragon. With their union, Zagreus was born.

Aphrodite (Venus) – Greek Goddess of Love, Beauty, Pleasure, and Procreation

Aphrodite (Roman equivalent is Venus) is the Greek Olympian goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. It would be impossible for the Greeks, a people who so loved the natural beauty and pulchritude, not to invent a deity who protects and personifies those values. For this reason, Aphrodite was symbolizing the eternal beauty and sexual desire.

03.jpg

Aphrodite (Venus) – Greek Goddess of Love, Beauty, Pleasure, and Procreation


Empusa was the beautiful daughter of the goddess Hecate and the spirit Mormo. She feasted on blood by seducing young men as they slept (see sleep paralysis), before drinking their blood and eating their flesh.

04.jpg


Sirens were believed to combine women and birds in various ways. In early Greek art, Sirens were represented as birds with large women’s heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later, they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings, playing a variety of musical instruments, especially harps. The 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda says that from their chests up Sirens had the form of sparrows, below they were women, or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women’s faces. Birds were chosen because of their beautiful voices. Later Sirens were sometimes depicted as beautiful women, whose bodies, not only their voices, are seductive.

05b.jpg05a.jpg

Selene
Selene is the goddess of the moon. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios, and Eos, goddess of the dawn. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion.

Pan's greatest conquest was that of the moon goddess Selene. He accomplished this by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form, and drew her down from the sky into the forest where he seduced her.

Selene and Endymion
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.54 ff
And the Titanian goddess, the moon, rising from a far land, beheld her [Medea] as she fled distraught, and fiercely exulted over her, and thus spake to her own heart: 'Not I alone then stray to the Latmian cave, nor do I alone burn with love for fair Endymion; oft times with thoughts of love have I been driven away by thy crafty spells, in order that in the darkness of night thou mightest work thy sorcery at ease, even the deeds dear to thee. And now thou thyself too hast part in a like mad passion; and some god of affliction has given thee Jason to be thy grievous woe. Well, go on, and steel thy heart, wise though thou be, to take up thy burden of pain, fraught with many sighs.

07.jpg 09.png 08.jpeg

The Parthenon Marbles through the eyes of Rodin

06.gif

The Kiss sculpture by Auguste Rodin, 1882, Rodin Museum, Paris.
Auguste Rodin’s love for the Parthenon Marbles will be the theme of a big exhibition opening next April at the British Museum. Approximately 100 works of the famous French sculptor will be exhibited next to a dozen of the Parthenon Marbles belonging to the museum’s collection.
The exhibition will be on at the British Museum from April 26 to July 29, 2018.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In ancient Greek culture, the human form was the measure of all things, including beauty and the divine, for the Greeks, the human body laid bare the divinity of beauty. Gods were depicted as being very, very human. By creating beautiful sculptural representations of the naked human body, the ancient Greeks created not only titillating images — thanks to the statue Cnidus, a colony of Sparta in Asia Minor, enjoyed a roaring tourist trade — but also expressed transcendent spiritual ideas.

This symbiosis between the physical and the divine can also be traced in the ideas of the philosopher Plato. He believed that Eros, a godly combination of passionate love and sensual desire, ultimately led us to contemplate beauty and approach the spiritual perfection underlying the physical universe.

He believed that when we admire physical beauty, we glimpse the light of eternity shining in those features from a heavenly source beyond this world. It is this more advanced stage of appreciation that gave rise to the term Platonic love to distinguish it from more base sexual desire.

For Plato, Eros as a gateway to higher Platonic knowledge could be either heterosexual or homosexual, and there is certainly plenty at the exhibition to show why “Greek love” later became a euphemism for male homosexuality. But Plato also viewed Eros as a vital, “erotic” cosmic force flowing through nature, in which respect it was more purely heterosexual, with male and female aspects.

Zeus and Persephone
Persephone, the goddess of spring, before she became queen of underworld (before her abduction to Hades). Most of the gods wanted to make her their bride. Hermes offered his rod as gift, Apollo produced his melodious harp as a marriage gift. Ares brought spear and cuirass for the wedding and shield as bride gift. Hephaestus bring necklace of many colours as a gift. Even Persephone beauty could not escaped the allseeing eyes of Zeus.

View attachment 563934

Demeter, mother of Persephone, reject all gifts sent to Persephone. Demeter worried about her daughter, so she went to the house of Astraios, the god of prophecy or more specifically astrology. Astraios told Demeter to guard her daughter against a robber-bridegroom and before marriage a false and secret bedfellow will come unforeseen, a half monster and cunning mind.

View attachment 563935

Demeter hid her gorgeous young daughter, in a cave deep under ground and two dragons were placed to gard the cave. Zeus was bewitched by Persephone beauty and somehow found out the cave where Demeter had hid her. Zeus transformed himself into a dragon, lulled the two dragons into sleep, who were guarding the cave, and managed to get inside the cave. Where he seduce, his own daughter, Persephone virgin body in form of dragon. With their union, Zagreus was born.

Aphrodite (Venus) – Greek Goddess of Love, Beauty, Pleasure, and Procreation

Aphrodite (Roman equivalent is Venus) is the Greek Olympian goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. It would be impossible for the Greeks, a people who so loved the natural beauty and pulchritude, not to invent a deity who protects and personifies those values. For this reason, Aphrodite was symbolizing the eternal beauty and sexual desire.

View attachment 563936

Aphrodite (Venus) – Greek Goddess of Love, Beauty, Pleasure, and Procreation


Empusa was the beautiful daughter of the goddess Hecate and the spirit Mormo. She feasted on blood by seducing young men as they slept (see sleep paralysis), before drinking their blood and eating their flesh.

View attachment 563937


Sirens were believed to combine women and birds in various ways. In early Greek art, Sirens were represented as birds with large women’s heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later, they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings, playing a variety of musical instruments, especially harps. The 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda says that from their chests up Sirens had the form of sparrows, below they were women, or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women’s faces. Birds were chosen because of their beautiful voices. Later Sirens were sometimes depicted as beautiful women, whose bodies, not only their voices, are seductive.

View attachment 563939View attachment 563938

Selene
Selene is the goddess of the moon. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios, and Eos, goddess of the dawn. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion.

Pan's greatest conquest was that of the moon goddess Selene. He accomplished this by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form, and drew her down from the sky into the forest where he seduced her.

Selene and Endymion
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.54 ff
And the Titanian goddess, the moon, rising from a far land, beheld her [Medea] as she fled distraught, and fiercely exulted over her, and thus spake to her own heart: 'Not I alone then stray to the Latmian cave, nor do I alone burn with love for fair Endymion; oft times with thoughts of love have I been driven away by thy crafty spells, in order that in the darkness of night thou mightest work thy sorcery at ease, even the deeds dear to thee. And now thou thyself too hast part in a like mad passion; and some god of affliction has given thee Jason to be thy grievous woe. Well, go on, and steel thy heart, wise though thou be, to take up thy burden of pain, fraught with many sighs.

View attachment 563941 View attachment 563943 View attachment 563942

The Parthenon Marbles through the eyes of Rodin

View attachment 563940

The Kiss sculpture by Auguste Rodin, 1882, Rodin Museum, Paris.
Auguste Rodin’s love for the Parthenon Marbles will be the theme of a big exhibition opening next April at the British Museum. Approximately 100 works of the famous French sculptor will be exhibited next to a dozen of the Parthenon Marbles belonging to the museum’s collection.
The exhibition will be on at the British Museum from April 26 to July 29, 2018.
this is very interesting an opens up many things.!!!
 
View attachment 555389 View attachment 555390View attachment 555392View attachment 555393View attachment 555394View attachment 555395View attachment 555397View attachment 555398 View attachment 555400

Insulting a woman by calling her a female dog pre-dates the existence of the word bitch itself. The English language historian Geoffrey Hughes suggests the connection came about because of the Greek goddess of the hunt, Artemis (Diana in the Roman pantheon) who was often portrayed with a pack of hunting dogs and sometimes transformed into an animal herself. In Ancient Greece and Rome the comparison was a sexist slur equating women to dogs in heat, sexually depraved beasts who grovel and beg for men.

The modern word bitch comes from the Old English bicce, which probably developed from the Norse bikkje, all meaning ‘female dog’. Its use as an insult was propagated into Old English by the Christian rulers of the Dark Age to suppress the idea of femininity as sacred.


Artemis (Ancient Greek: Ἄρτεμις) was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals". The Arcadians believed she was the daughter of Demeter.

The childhood of Artemis is not fully related in any surviving myth. The Iliad reduced the figure of the dread goddess to that of a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus. A poem of Callimachus to the goddess "who amuses herself on mountains with archery" imagines some charming vignettes: according to Callimachus, Artemis, at three years old, while sitting on the knee of her father, Zeus, asked him to grant her six wishes: to remain always a virgin; to have many names to set her apart from her brother Apollo; to be the Phaesporia or Light Bringer; to have a bow and arrow and a knee-length tunic so that she could hunt; to have sixty "daughters of Okeanos", all nine years of age, to be her choir; and for twenty Amnisides Nymphs as handmaidens to watch her dogs and bow while she rested. She wished for no city dedicated to her, but to rule the mountains, and for the ability to help women in the pains of childbirth.

Artemis' chief "occupation" was to roam the wilderness with her nymphs in attendance hunting for lions, panthers, hinds, and stags. She also saw to their well-being, safety, and reproduction. Because she was a virgin, she demanded that all of her followers devote themselves to purity. According to one story, when the young nymph Callisto was seduced by Zeus and became pregnant, Artemis was so enraged that she changed her into a bear and then killed her. Another story tells of the fate of Actaeon, a mortal hunter who accidentally came across Artemis and her nymphs bathing naked. When Artemis saw him looking, she turned him into a stag and then turned his own dogs against him.

View attachment 555401

Although she was worshipped as a protector of all young living things, Artemis could be cruel and destructive, and was often blamed for sudden deaths, especially of infants. When Apollo overheard Queen Niobe of Thebes, a mortal, boasting that she had given birth to more children than Leto, he informed his sister. The enraged twins then methodically hunted down and killed all of Niobe's children.

In the following you will find some of my favorite artworks ...

I reeeaaallly want to quote this without connecting my real name to this site lol...where did you find that info on the origin of the word bitch?
 
I reeeaaallly want to quote this without connecting my real name to this site lol...where did you find that info on the origin of the word bitch?
It must've come from http://clarebayley.com/2011/06/bitch-a-history/ ; but this work is quite sloppy. For example,

In Ancient Greece and Rome the comparison was a sexist slur equating women to dogs in heat, sexually depraved beasts who grovel and beg for men1. 1 Hughes, Geoffrey. An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World. M.E Sharpe Inc., 2006. The definition of “Bitch” appears on pages 23 and 24. . . . Its use as an insult was propagated into Old English by the Christian rulers of the Dark Age to suppress the idea of femininity as sacred.​

There's nothing like that in Hughes's work, which says instead:

Bitch has the longest history among animal terms as an insult, extending from the fourteenth century to the present, during which time it has steadily lost force through generalization. Although the etymology lies in late Old English bicche, a female dog, the word was not used demeaningly in the earliest period of the language, as the cognate Old Norse term bikkja was. (The same pattern applies to other animal terms of abuse in Anglo-Saxon.) The early applications were to a promiscuous or sensual woman, a metaphorical extension of the behavior of a bitch in heat.​

Not to mention that discussing the idea of femininity as sacred in Christian context opens up a whole new can of worms, er, virgins -- as in Mary and the martyrs.

For what it's worth, Ancient Greeks had κῠ́ων, and I am not competent to comment on how frequent its use was, but Romans certainly preferred lupa to canicula as an insult; 'Catula' ('little bitch') was a respectable cognomen which found its way into the Prosopographia Imperii Romani.

At least it appears female, whereas 'Capella' was used by a couple of consuls.

Why the peculiar name, meaning 'little she-goat', was ever given to males must remain a mystery . . .​
Birley, A. R. (1991), 'Caecilius Capella: Persecutor of Christians, Defender of Byzantium', GRBS 32: 81–98, p. 92 (n. 43).​

A doggone big study of all words dog is here:

https://blog.oup.com/2016/05/dog-etymology-word-origin-part-1-tyke/
https://blog.oup.com/2016/05/bitch-etymology/
https://blog.oup.com/2016/05/etymology-dogs-cubs/
https://blog.oup.com/2016/06/etymology-dogs-conclusion/
 
Goddesses and Sexual Assault

Everyone knows the stories of gods getting it on with mortal women, such as when Zeus stole Europa in the shape of a bull and ravished her. Then, there was the time he mated with Leda as a swan, and when he turned poor Io into a cow after having his way with her.

But not only human women suffered violent sexual attention from the opposite sex. Even the most powerful females of them all - the goddesses of ancient Greece - fell victim to sexual assault and harassment in myth.

The ancient Greeks knew how to tell a good story. Greek mythology is brimming with epic battles, melodramatic fighting between gods and goddesses, awesome creature mash-ups , and some pretty weird stuff involving sex. We like to think of our own age as the originator of sexual adventure and kink, but Greek mythology offers ample proof that crazy sex stuff is far from a modern invention. To be honest, most of them boil down to some variation of “Zeus turns himself into some nonhuman creature and seduces or rapes somebody.” The general lesson of many Greek myths — sexual or not — is simply that the gods are huge, immature jerks. The Greek gods had a lot of weird sex going on with all kinds of things in all kinds of ways, but weird Greek god sex stories don’t stop there. Often the gods use their power to get laid, even if that means turning themselves into something else, like a horse, a snake, or even water. Some even prefer it that way: many gods turned themselves into something weird before having sex just for the hell of it.
The goddesses were not immune to weird sex practices, either. Some weird Greek goddess sex stories involved having sex with other gods in the form of animals and more.

Iphimedeia

Iphimedeia had sex with her grandfather in the form of sea water. Despite being married to her own uncle, Aloeus, Iphimedeia had always been obsessed with the sea god Poseidon (in some tellings, her grandfather). Iphimedeia was so desperately in love that she would often go down to the seashore and pour the sea water into her vagina. At last, Poseidon approached her in the form of sea water and Iphimedeia became pregnant with the god’s sons, Otos and Ephialtes, two giants who grew so rapidly, they exceeded the size of most humans by the age of nine.

Iphimedeia.jpeg

Medusa

Medusa had Ssex with a bird, then became cursed with hair of snakes. There are many versions of the myth that explains how Medusa came to have the monstrous snake hair that will turn anyone who looks at her into stone. One version states that it has something to do with her sexual encounter with Poseidon. Medusa was in the temple of Athena when Poseidon saw and raped her, but not before he turned himself into a bird (other versions say the god turned himself into a horse) for reasons no one really knows. After that, the goddess Athena, who felt insulted by this act taking place in her temple (Athena was a chaste goddess), cursed Medusa with the hideous snake hair. Medusa became pregnant from that encounter, and when she was later beheaded by Perseus, the winged horse Pegasus sprang from her neck.

Medusa.jpeg

Uranus

Uranus impregnated the sea, creating Aphrodite. Uranus was the sexual partner of his mother, Gaia (Mother Earth). Together they bore the twelve Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires. However, Uranus grew intimidated by his children’s power, so he prevented his children from being born and buried them back under the ground (which was technically also their mother’s womb). Gaia asked her children for help, and Cronus (one of the Titans) was brave enough to castrate his father and throw his penis into the sea. A foam formed around the castrated penis and Aphrodite was born from that foam, just like that. (Blood from the injury also fell onto the ground the Giants and the Furies.)

Uranus.jpeg

Ganymede

Zeus didn’t limit his metamorphosing-seduction techniques to the ladies. Zeus was attracted to a young man named Ganymede, so, naturally, Zeus turned himself into an eagle and abducted Ganymede to Olympus. There, Ganymede became cupbearer to the gods and Zeus’s lover, much to the angst of Hera, Zeus’s wife.
Zeus’s love affair with Ganymede was a controversial story in Greek mythology; some said Plato used this myth to justify his feelings toward male pupils at a time when homosexuality was frowned upon.

Ganymede.jpeg

Leda

Zeus came upon Leda, the wife of King Tyndareus, and was instantly attracted to her. At the same moment, an eagle flew nearby. Zeus turned himself into a swan and emerged to protect Leda from the eagle. But of course, Zeus was not known for selflessly helping others. He only protected Leda to have his way with her, so the god seduced Leda in the form of a swan and she became pregnant.
Leda laid two eggs after being impregnated by swan-Zeus. From these eggs hatched the female twins Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, and the male twins Castor and Pollux - but because the queen had sex with her husband that same night, no one could tell which of her four children were whose.

Leda.jpeg

Danae

Danae’s father was told by an oracle that her offspring would someday kill him. As Danae hadn’t had any children yet, her father did the obvious thing and locked her in a bronze prison. Not to be deterred by mere bars, Zeus turned himself into golden rain, made his way into her chamber, and impregnated her. She would give birth to Perseus, the guy who would eventually kill Medusa. He would also fulfill his grandfather’s prophecy, killing him accidentally at a sporting event.

Danae1.jpeg Danae2.jpg

Theophane

Theophane was so beautiful that many men wanted her. Poseidon decided to stay ahead of the competition by taking Theophane off to an island to keep other suitors away. But the other men were determined to find their beloved, so they sailed to the island to get her from the sea god. When Poseidon realized their plan, he turned both Theophane and himself into sheep (and the rest of the island’s citizens into cattle) to deceive the suitors. That’s when Poseidon had sex with the beautiful Theophane, both in the form of sheep. From this encounter, Theophane became pregnant and later bore Aries Chrysomallus, the golden-fleeced ram whose fleece inspired Jason and the Argonauts.

Theophane.jpeg

Persephone

Persephone, the goddess of spring, was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Before her uncle Hades abducted her to be his bride, her own father seduced and had sex with her. But it gets even sicker. Persephone was born when Zeus seduced Demeter in the form of a snake, so naturally he thought the same trick might work with her. And it did. Persephone had sex with the snake. Later, when Persephone was already married to Hades, Zeus tried to seduce her again in the form of her husband, who was also his brother.

Persephone.jpeg

Demeter

Zeus and Demeter had quite a history. First, the king of gods killed a mortal man for sleeping with the goddess of the harvest. After that, Zeus tried to seduce Demeter himself, but she turned him down. When Zeus tried again, he made sure he was absolutely irresistible to the goddess by turning himself into a serpent. It’s crazy, but it worked, because Zeus managed to have sex with the goddess, while she herself was also in the form of a serpent.
After they “intertwined,” Demeter became pregnant with Persephone, who was later seduced by Zeus, also in the form of a serpent. Talk about like mother, like daughter.

Demeter.jpeg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Everyone knows the stories of gods getting it on with mortal women, such as when Zeus stole Europa in the shape of a bull and ravished her. Then, there was the time he mated with Leda as a swan, and when he turned poor Io into a cow after having his way with her.

Interesting, Zephyros!

Compared to that Zeus guy, all the Trumps, Putins and others we got today are softy wimps!:oops:

Lucky we are!:devil:
 
ANCIENT GREEK TEMPLES OF SEX

After encountering Aphrodite's servants, visitors to ancient Corinth always went home happy.

Prostitution was a common aspect of ancient Greece. In the more important cities, and particularly the many ports, it employed a significant number of people and represented a notable part of economic activity. It was far from being clandestine; cities did not condemn brothels, but rather only instituted regulations on them.

Nothing gets a classical scholar’s heart pumping like the sacred prostitutes of Corinth, the Greek port that is depicted as the free-living Amsterdam of the ancient world. After landing at the Corinthian docks, sailors would apparently wheeze up the thousand-odd steps to the top of a stunning crag of rock called the Acrocorinth, which offered 360-degree vistas of the sparkling Mediterranean. There they would pass beneath the marble columns of the Temple of Aphrodite, goddess of Beauty and Love, within whose incense-filled, candlelit confines 1,000 comely girls supposedly worked around the clock gathering funds for their deity. Since the Renaissance, this idea had gripped antiquarians, who liked to imagine that congress with one of Aphrodite’s servants offered a mystical union with the goddess herself — uninhibited pagans coupling in ecstasy before her statue in the perpetual twilight of the temple.

In Athens, the legendary lawmaker Solon is credited with having created state brothels with regulated prices. Prostitution involved both sexes differently; women of all ages and young men were prostitutes, for a predominantly male clientele.

Simultaneously, extramarital relations with a free woman were severely dealt with. In the case of adultery, the cuckold had the legal right to kill the offender if caught in the act; the same went for rape. Female adulterers, and by extension prostitutes, were forbidden to marry or take part in public ceremonies. The average age of marriage being 30 for men, the young Athenian had no choice if he wanted to have sexual relations other than to turn to slaves or prostitutes.

Temple prostitution in Corinth
Around the year 2 BC. Strabo (VIII,6,20) in his geographic/historical description of the town of Corinth wrote some remarks concerning female temple servants in the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth, which perhaps should be dated somewhere in the period 700–400 BC.

The text in more than one way hints at the sexual business of those ladies. Remarks elsewhere of Strabo (XII,3,36: »women earning money with their bodies«) as well as Athenaeus (XIII,574: »in the lovely beds picking the fruits of the mildest bloom«) concerning this temple describe this character even more graphically.

In 464 BC, a man named Xenophon, a citizen of Corinth who was an acclaimed runner and winner of pentathlon at the Olympic Games, dedicated one hundred young girls to the temple of the goddess as a sign of thanksgiving. We know this because of a hymn which Pindar was commissioned to write (fragment 122 Snell), celebrating »the very welcoming girls, servants of Peïtho and luxurious Corinth«.

Sparta
In archaic and classical Sparta, Plutarch claims that there were no prostitutes due to the lack of precious metals and money, and the strict moral regime introduced by Lycurgus. A 6th century vase from Laconia, which shows a mixed-gender group at what appears to be a symposium, might be interpreted as depicting a hetaira, contradicting Plutarch. However, Sarah Pomeroy argues that the banquet depicted is religious, rather than secular, in nature, and that the woman depicted is not therefore a prostitute.
As precious metals increasingly became available to Spartan citizens, it became easier to access prostitutes. In 397, a prostitute at the perioicic village of Aulon was accused of corrupting Spartan men who went there. By the Hellenistic period, there were reputedly sculptures in Sparta dedicated by a hetaera called Cottina. A brothel named after Cottina also seems to have existed in Sparta, near to the temple of Dionysius by Taygetus, at least by the Hellenistic period.

Certain authors have prostitutes talking about themselves: Lucian in his Dialogue of courtesans or Alciphron in his collection of letters; but these are works of fiction. The prostitutes of concern here are either independent or hetaera: the sources here do not concern themselves with the situation of slave-prostitutes, except to consider them as a source of profit. It is quite clear what ancient Greek men thought of prostitutes: primarily, they are reproached for the commercial nature of the activity. The greed of prostitutes is a running theme in Greek comedy. The fact that prostitutes were the only Athenian women who handled money likely increased male acrimony. An explanation for their behavior is that a prostitute's career tended to be short, and their income decreased with the passage of time: a young and pretty prostitute, across all levels of the trade, could earn more money than her older, less attractive colleagues. To provide for old age, they thus had to acquire as much money as possible in a limited period of time.
The social conditions of prostitutes are difficult to evaluate; as women, they were already marginalized in Greek society. We know of no direct evidence of either their lives or the brothels in which they worked. It is likely that the Greek brothels were similar to those of Rome, described by numerous authors and preserved at Pompeii; dark, narrow, and malodorous places. One of the many slang terms for prostitutes was χαμαιτυπής »one who hits the ground«, suggesting their sex took place in the dirt or possibly on all fours from behind.

Temple Prostitution is first attested in the pages of Herodotus, he talks about sacred prostitution as part of a discursus on Babylon in the first book of his Histories, where he says:
There is one custom among these people which is wholly shameful: every woman who is a native of the country must once her life go and sit in the temple of Aphrodite and there give himself to a strange man.* Many of the rich women, who are too proud to mix the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages with a whole host of servants following behind, and there wait; most, however, sit in the precinct of the temple with a band of plaited string round their heads -- and a great crowd they are, what with some sitting there, others arriving, others going away -- and through them all gangways are marked off running in every direction for the men to pass along and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her seat she is not allowed to go home until a man has thrown a silver coin into her lap and taken her outside to lie with her. As he throws the coin, the man has to say, »In the name of the goddess Mylitta« -- that being the Assyrian name for Aphrodite. The value of the coin is of no consequence; once thrown it becomes sacred, and the law forbids that it should ever be refused. The woman has no privilege of choice -- she must go with the first man who throws her the money. When she has lain with him, her duty to the goddess is discharged and she may go home, after which it will be impossible to seduce her by any offer, however large. Tall, handsome women soon manage to get home again, but the ugly ones stay a long time before they can fulfill the condition which the law demands, some of them, indeed, as much as three or four years.


In fact, this lusty vision of Corinth was created entirely from a three-line report by the Greek geographer Strabo, who writes around 5 CE:

The temple of Aphrodite was once so rich that it had acquired more than a thousand prostitutes, donated by both men and women to the service of the goddess. And because of them, the city used to be jam-packed and became wealthy. The ship-captains would spend fortunes there, and so the proverb says: »The voyage to Corinth isn’t for just any man«.

Modern historians have found that the image of a pagan free-for-all needs some serious qualification. (»Feel the longing, the desire, in this collective delusion«, write Mary Beard and John Henderson of historians’ sweaty-palmed accounts). For a start, Aphrodite’s servants, who may or may not have been attractive, were not exactly willing volunteers. In fact, Corinth’s many cosmopolitan pornai, or prostitutes, were slaves purchased by wealthy Greeks and dedicated to the temple as a form of religious offering. (Once, a victorious athlete at the Olympic Games donated 100 women in a lump sum). Also, recent excavations at the Corinth fortress have found the temple too small for 100 women to be working, let alone 1,000, so few — if any — carnal rites were conducted at the goddess’ feet. More likely, the sex slaves received their clients in charmless brothels around the temple, huddled on lumpy straw mattresses in small, dark, airless stalls rather like the ones preserved in Pompeii, with illustrations painted above the booths demonstrating each girl’s specialty. It is true that Aphrodite was the patron goddess of Corinth, and that women there had a special relationship with her — but this didn’t do them much practical good. Greek males were riotously chauvinistic. Even their wives were regarded as chattel, suitable only for raising families; married Greek men went to prostitutes and young boys for pleasurable sex.
Not all Greek men, however, were enamored of prostitution, sacred or otherwise. The philosopher Diogenes thought the habit of paying for love absurd, once telling a crowd that he himself »met the goddess Aphrodite everywhere, and at no expense«. When asked what he meant, Diogenes lifted up his tunic and pretended to masturbate.

To be honest, whatever about the arguments that sacred prostitution never existed in the Mediterranean world, I'm very sceptical that Corinth at any rate was ever a centre for such a practice. A trip to the site should start one wondering, to begin with, not least because the ruins of the temple of Aphrodite on the Acrocorinth don't look like they could have been associated with a hundred temple prostitutes, let alone a thousand. Herodotus, talking about how disgraceful Babylonian temple prostitution is, and saying that a similar practice prevails in Cyprus, doesn't make any mention of Corinth; indeed, if cult prostitution was common in any major Greek city, Herodotus would hardly have thought Babylonian temple prostitution so remarkable. It seems that the absolute most that could be said about Corinthian prostitution, even in the city's heyday, was that as a city with two ports, Corinth was a city with no shortage of prostitutes, and that all of Corinth's prostitutes were protected by the goddess Aphrodite, to whom they paid honour, but that in no way were their sexual relations associated with -- let alone performed in -- the temple.

---------------------------
Additional information:

Painting [01] by Jean-Leon Gerome shows what is supposed to be the sexual slaves market in Ancient Rome, where women who would be forced into prostitution were sold. They were the major part of the population in that time, even though a small fraction of elite women chose the craft after the emperor Augustus created laws that forced women to get married and have children.

[15] A statuette of Aphrodite holding an apple: Temple sex, according to the "Encyclopedia of Theology and the Church," was a »moral and hygienic plague spot on the body of the people«.

[16] Ancient statue of a drunken old prostitute holding a jug of wine, 2nd century BCE,



01.jpg 02.jpg 03.jpg 04.jpg 05.jpg 06.jpg 07.jpg 08.png 09.Jpeg 10.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top Bottom