1 Earliest Rome

13. P E R S P E C T I V E S
drenches their drunken thighs! Off with her wreath, Saufeia challenges the call-girls to a
contest and takes the prize for an arse that can really move. But even she has to admire
the neat rhythm of Medullina - whose bum is always on the grind. The trophy stays with
the ladies 2
- their talent equal to their birth. And there's no play acting here; everything's
done for real - enough to put some warmth into poor old Priam, or even into Nestor's
balls. 3
This lot have got the itch, and won't put it off; they're women pure and simple. So
from every corner of their den a shout goes up - 'Now is the appointed time - bring in
the guys'. 4
Suppose one of the paramours is asleep - why then she tells another to get
wrapped up in his cloak and hurry round. If it's no go with the boyfriends, there's a run
on the slaves. And if there's no hope of slaves - well the water-carrier gets paid to come. If
he can't be found and there really are no men - they don't waste a moment before getting
a donkey in and stuffing their bums with that. Oh would that our ancient rituals, and
our public celebrations at least, were kept free of these ills! But every Moor and every
Indian knows who that 'lute girl' 5
was - the one who brought a prick bigger than both of
Caesar's 'Anti-Catos' into the place where even the mice are so embarrassed by their balls
that they scuttle away; 6
the place where every picture that shows the opposite sex has to
be covered up.
356
1. The Maenads are the (chaste) female followers of Bacchus; here the joke is that they are
made into the far from chaste followers of the phallic god, Priapus.
2. The high-born ladies (Saufeia and Medullina are names associated with the traditional
Roman upper class) beat the prostitutes at their own game.
3. These aged heroes would be thought long past sex.
4. The joke in this instruction lies in the clash between the formal religious opening - and
the crude ending.
5. A reference to Clodius, who infiltrated the ceremonies in 61 B.C. disguised as a female
musician (8.2b).
6. The size of Clodius' penis is here measured against the size of Caesar's tracts against
Cato!
13.5 Philosophy and religion as a way of life
The emperor Marcus Aurelius towards the end of his life composed, in Greek,
the Communings with Himself, a series of philosophical reflections. They are
not a diary in the modern sense, but a traditional form of philosophical selfscrutiny
in which Marcus tried to relate his Stoic philosophy to his actual life.
The following selection illustrates his views of the role of the gods, and also of
unacceptable superstition.
See further: Farquharson (1944), whose translation is adapted here; Brunt
(1974); Rutherford (1989) 178-224.
13.5a Magic as an 'idle enthusiasm
Here Marcus lists 'magic' among a range of characteristics he had learnt to
avoid.