Sodomy

Paedico means to pedicate, to sodomise, to indulge in unnatural lewdness with a woman often in the sense of to abuse. In Epigrams 10, 16 and 31 jesting allusion is made to the injury done to the buttocks of the catamite by the introduction of the 'twelve-inch pole' of Priapus, and Ausonius speaks of the battered clazomenes (incusas clazomenas), or buttocks of a passive. By calling the clazomenes hammered (battered) Ausonius implies that they have become polished by having served as an anvil. Martial directs an epigram against Carinus, whose anus was split and lacerated by his excessive indulgence in these practices. Orpheus is supposed to have introduced the vice of sodomy upon the earth. In Ovid's Metamorphoses--

Ille etiam Thracum populis fuit auctor, amorem
In teneros transferre mares...

He also was the first adviser of the Thracian people
to transfer their love to tender youths ...

presumably in consequence of the death of Eurydice, his wife, and his unsuccessful attempt to bring her to earth again from the infernal regions. But he paid dearly for his contempt of women. The Thracian dames whilst celebrating their bacchanal rites tore him to pieces. François Noël, however, states that Laius, father of Oedipus, was the first to make this vice known on earth. In imitation of Jupiter with Ganymede, he used Chrysippus, the son of Pelops, as a catamite; an example which speedily found many followers. Amongst famous sodomists of antiquity may be mentioned: Jupiter with Ganymede; Phoebus with Hyacinthus; Hercules with Hylas; Orestes with Pylades; Achilles with Patrodes, and also with Bryseis; Theseus with Pirithous; Pisistratus with Charmus; Demosthenes with Cnosion; Gracchus with Cornelia; Pompeius with Julia; Brutus with Portia; the Bithynian king Nicomedes with Caesar,[1] &c., &c. An account of famous sodomists in history is given in the privately printed volumes of 'Pisanus Fraxi', the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877), the Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (1879) and the Catena Librorum Tacendorum (1885), the lists there presented including such names as Alexander of Macedon, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henri III of France, Peter the Great, &c. For a most admirable article on sodomy, see The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night and the works there cited. Those interested in the subject are referred to the Thesaurus Eroticus Linguae Latinae, under articles 'Aversa Venus' and 'Paedicare', and will find the following brochures worthy of reading: 'Un Point Curieux des Moeurs Privées de la Grèce' (an essay by M. Octave Delepierre on sodomy amongst the ancients), Gay, Paris, 1861, and Socrates sanctus Paiderastes, by Gesner (translated into French under the title of Socrate et l'amour Grec, by Alcide Bonneau), Liseux, Paris, 1877.

[1. Gallias Caesar subegit, Nicomedes Caesarem;
Ecce Caesar nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias.
Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Caesarem.

The Gauls to Caesar yield, Caesar to Nicomede,
Lo! Caesar triumphs for his glorious deed,
But Caesar's conqueror gains no victor's meed.

--L. Pomponius]