Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall].

  • Eric Dingwall
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    character as to conceal a portion of the penis, as in this case before it fell off it was simply thought that Menophil was wearing it for the sake of his voice. From evidence gleaned from the existence of certain bronzes to be discussed later, it is tolerably certain, and the fact is vouchsafed for by many old authors,1 that the fibula of Celsus was in the form of a small ring, but in this Epigram it is not so, for being circumcised Menophil would have had no prepuce for the purpose of infibula- tion. Why he was actually wearing a piece of apparatus which could be mistaken for one used for infibulation we shall see in a later place; it is merely sufficient here to state that all commentators, or nearly all, are agreed that it was not a ring he was wearing, but something more like a case or sheath, and in Epig. XI, 75, Martial practically concedes this point. He is writing of a slave and his mistress and says : Theca tectus ahenea lavatur Tecum, Caelia, servus; ut quid, oro, Non sit cum citharoedus, aut choraules ? Non vis, ut puto, mentulam videre. Quare cum populo lavaris ergo ? Omnes an tibi nos sumus spadones ? Ergo, ne videaris invidere, Servo, Caelia, fibulam remitte. Here is an incident related concerning the treatment of a slave by his mistress, Caelia. She is asked how it is that her servant, who is neither a cithara player nor a singer, always wears a bronze sheath (theca) when bathing. Can it be that she does not wish the other bathers to see his member ? Lest people should be jealous Caelia is advised to have her slave’s fibula removed. In this passage it is clear that by the fibula in the last line is meant the theca in the first, and as no ring could be said to act for the purposes of concealment, it is abundantly evident that the theca is similar to that worn by Menophil, and can be translated by some such Cf. the remarks of the scholiasts to be discussed later.
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