Summary
While an aggressive virility stands as the predominant imagery of male
sexuality in ancient culture, reference to impotence appears relatively
infrequently and is most commonly associated with literary genres of a humorous
or invective nature. Causes for the affliction were believed to be of both
natural (physiological) and supernatural (divine or magical) origin, the
contrast between which is best seen in the discussion of the impotent Scythians
in the Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places (22) and the corresponding
treatment by Herodotus (1.105). Literary evidence of how impotence was viewed
comes from
Ovid Amores 3.7 and Petronius (e.g. Sat. 130) where both
natural and supernatural elements function in an integrated treatment typical
of folk
medical systems. Such systems are based on the perception that life consisted
of an array of corporal, mental, and spiritual elements and that good health
resulted from a balanced combination of these. Ancient approaches correspond
closely to certain modern folk medicinal systems in which impotence is seen as
a creeping paralysis that involves the entire body and which results from a
failure to cope with everyday stresses or from externally generated malign
influences.
The substances considered stimulative and curative for male sexual
dysfunction are encountered in a wide variety of literary, scientific, medical,
and subliterary texts. Belief in the efficacy of these remedies stems from an
awareness of the natural world and formed an integral part of the ancient
perceptions about male sexuality. This familiarity served as a foundation for a
number of well known impotence remedies, and one particular belief system
closely links certain bulbous plants, serpents, and magical stones or amulets
with the phallus.
References to the stimulative properties of plants included under the
general terms bolboi and bulbi appear in such diverse works as
agricultural
and botanical tracts, the culinary discussions of Athenaeus, Attic Comedy,
Roman Elegy, and the Satyrica of Petronius. Garlic and onions (Amaryllis
Family), because of visual associations with the male organ, were especially
prized; so also were a number of species from the Arum Family. In each case the
swollen and elongated appearance of the flower structure contributed to a
commonly held belief in the efficacy of these plants for curing male sexual
failure.
Observations of the visual and behavioral characteristics of animals,
especially the slender appearance and the sinuous sidelong movements of lizards
and serpents, linked them with male sexuality in the ancient mind. In the case
of serpents it is their perceived ability to rejuvenate themselves by sloughing
the skin that came to connect them closely with the sexual functions of the
male organ. Serpents' venom, moreover, in partaking of the cooling qualities of
deadening poisons, was perceived as the kind of magical substance that could
bring about the paralysis of impotence. As a result, plants like those
mentioned above with visual associations with both the male organ and serpents,
were often considered as particularly stimulative because of the heating
qualities they possessed as this was also thought to promote male sexual
arousal.
In the associative relationship of plants and serpents sympathetic
magic also played a significant role, and the essence of this influence was
considered readily transferrable to objects. In particular the efficacy of
magically charged stones and amulets such as ophites, highly praised
in the
Orphic Lithica for its stimulative properties, is based on both visual
features
and other perceived interconnections with serpents and serpent-like plants. The
ability to manipulate the powers of these objects also became a specific source
of empowerment for those who availed themselves of these sexually and socially
reintegrative properties.
In the literary sphere an understanding of a belief system of this kind
can inform the interpretation of several well known texts. Vegetable imagery
appears in Catullus c.67 in describing an impotent male, and Horace's
Epode 3 has
a sexual subtext derived from the close association of garlic with male
sexuality. The wide range of social concerns and accepted cures for impotence
appear in Ovid Amores 3.7 while the numerous attempts by Encolpius in the
Satyrica to remedy his impotence stand as evidence for commonly held
perceptions about the efficacy of traditional remedies.