“You mustn’t harm anyone–but if you are to blame
This story warns that you will suffer the same.
The story goes that a fox invited a stork to dine
And offered her a thin soup on a marble table
Which the hungry story had no way to taste.
So the stork invited the fox to eat in turn
And served him a narrow jar stuff with food
And slipped her beak in to torture her guest
With hunger while she satisfied herself.
While the fox lapped at the jar’s neck in vain,
The bird–as we have heard–said to him, please
Everyone should suffer their own example in peace.”
Nulli nocendum; si quis vero laeserit,
multandum simili iure fabella admonet.
Ad cenam vulpes dicitur ciconiam
prior invitasse, et liquidam in patulo marmore
posuisse sorbitionem, quam nullo modo
gustare esuriens potuerit ciconia.
quae vulpem cum revocasset, intrito cibo
plenam lagonam posuit; huic rostrum inserens
satiatur ipsa et torquet convivam fame,
quae cum lagonae collum frustra lamberet,
peregrinam sic locutam volucrem accepimus:
“Sua quisque exempla debet aequo animo pati.”
Author: Colley, Thomas, fl. 1780-1783, printmaker. Title: The fox and stork / T. Colley fecet [sic]. Published: [London] : Pubd. by W. Humphrey Jany. 14, 1783, No. 227 Strand, [14 Jan. 1783].
Diogenes Laerius, Lives of the Philosophers 5.6 [Heraclides 89-90]
“He seems to have freed his country from tyranny by killing the monarch, as Demetrius of Magnesia claims in his People with the Same Names. Demetrius also tells this next story about him.
From the time he was a child he raised a pet snake. When he was near death he told one of the people he trusted to hide his body but to put the snake on his funeral litter so that he might seem to have transitioned to a place among the gods.
They did this, but while the people were taking Heracleides in his procession and were shouting out, the snake heard it and came out of the shroud, troubling people. Once everything was uncovered, Heracleides was known as he truly was, not as he seemed to be.”
“Some animals are called Ephemera and they take their name from the length of their life. For they are born in wine and when the container is opened they fly out, they see the light, and they die. Therefore, nature has granted that they come into life but it has also rescued them from the evils in life, since they neither experience any suffering of their own and they know nothing of others’ misfortunes.”
A super fat dog and a wolf once met
Who was asking him where he was fed
To become a dog so big and filled with grease.
“It is a rich man” he said, “who is feeding me”.
“But,” asked the wolf, “why is your neck so bare?”
“there’s an iron collar which wears my skin there,
A collar which my feeder forged and placed.”
The wolf laughed at him and said to his face:
“I say this kind of luxury can go to heck,
The kind of life where iron wears down my neck.”
“I want now to explain about this painter too. That Zeuxis was the best painter at the time and didn’t illustrate common and cliched things or did make heroes, gods, and wars as little as possible. Instead he was always trying to make something new and whenever he conceived of something different or odd, he demonstrated the brilliance of his skill in its execution. Among his many audacious images, that Zeuxis painted a female Hippocentaur and depicted her feeding twin Hippocentaur babies.
There’s a copy of that image precisely modeled on the original in Athens. The first copy, however, the general Sulla selected to send to Italy with other things, but I guess that the ship carrying it sank outside of Malea, destroying the painting and everything else.”
“Periander was ruling Korinth as a tyrant. For the Korinthians claim (and the Lesbians agree with them) that the most wonderful thing happened in his life: Arion of Methymna was carried to Tainaron on a dolphin. He was a kithara player second to none at that time and the first man we know of who composed, named and taught the dithyramb at Corinth.
They say that this Arion spent much time at Periander’s palace but desired to sail to Italy and Sicily. After he made a lot of money there, he wanted to return to Korinth again. He left from Tarentum and hired a ship of Korinthian men because he trusted no one more than Korinthians. But once on the sea, they conspired to throw Arion out to keep his money. After he learned this, he was begging, offering money to them, trying to bargain for his life. But he was not able to persuade him—the sailors commanded him either to do himself in, so that he might have a burial on ground, or to leap into the sea as soon as possible.
When Arion realized he was at the end, he asked, since it might seem right to them, that he appear in full dress standing on the benches singing. And he promised to kill himself after singing. This came as a delight to them if they could hear the best mortal singer at work. They retreated to the middle of the ship from the stern and he donned all his equipment and took up the kithara. While standing on the benches he sang the entire Orthian nome. When he was done with it, he threw himself into the sea in full costume.
They sailed back to Korinth but people claim a dolphin picked him up and took him to Tainaros. Once he got to land, he went to Koronth with all his stuff and when he got there told the whole story. Since Periander distrusted him, he held Arion under guard, separated from everyone. He waited for the sailors. When they were present, they were asked if they could say anything about Arion. When they were claiming that they left him safe somewhere in Italy and he was doing well in Tarentum, he appeared to them looking just like he did when he leaped out of the boat. The sailors were shocked and were not able to deny it since they had been completely refuted. The Korinthians and Lesbians say these things. And there is a bronze dedication of Arion in Tarentum, not very large: a man riding a dolphin.”
“Amyntas in his work which he named Stages writes that in the Caspian land there are many herds of cattle and horses almost beyond counting. He adds this as well, that in some seasons an unconquerable plague of rats blights the land. He continues with evidence, saying that even though the rivers flow at that of year with a huge surge, the rats swim fearlessly and they even hold on to each other’s tales, biting down on one another, to form a bridge and they they cross the strait in this way.
After swimming into the farmland, he says, they grind down the roots of crops and swarm over trees and once they use their fruits for their meals they sever the branches too just because they are not able to eat them. For this reason, the Caspians—in order to ward off this invasion of rats and the ruin they bring—do not kill the predatory birds which come in turn, flying down from the clouds, and fulfill their nature by freeing the Caspians of this plague.
Caspian foxes are so numerous that they frequent both the sheepfolds in the country and they also appear in cities. By Zeus, a fox will show up in a house not to steal something or ruin it, but like some kind of pet. The Caspian foxes wag their tails just like pet dogs in our land.
The rats of the terrible plague afflicting the Caspians are almost the same in size when you look a them as the ikhneumenos of Egypt, but they are wild, and terrible, and they have teeth strong enough to cut and even eat metal. The rats in Teridon, Babylonia are like this too—and traders bring their skins to sell among the Persians. Indeed, these skins are soft and can be sewn together as a tunic to warm people. And they call them kandutanes, because it is dear to them.
Here is something amazing about these rats: if a pregnant female is caught and her fetus is removed, when the female fetus is dissected and examined, it also has a baby.”
“No! The ones we’ve cut off, I’ll chop up and throw away”
Immo quos scicidimus conscindam atque abiciam.
Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.5.62
“There is evidence from other animals too: out of control horses stop biting and bucking when they are neutered but they are no less useful in combat. When bulls are castrated they stop being so haughty and difficult but they aren’t deprived of their strength and ability to work. Similarly, when dogs are neutered they stop running away from their owners, but they are no worse at shepherding and hunting.”
“Aristotle claims in his work On the Pythagoreans that [Pythagoras] told people to refrain from beans either because they look like testicles or the gates of Hell.”
“If a swelling develops in the testicles when they haven’t been struck, blood should be let from the ankle; the patient should fast; and the swelling should be treated with bean meal cooked in honeyed-wine or rubbed with cumin with boiled honey; or ground cumin with rose oil, or wheat flour with honey wine and cypress roots; or the root of a lily, pounded.
In testiculis vero si qua inflammatio sine ictu orta est, sanguis a talo mittendus est; a cibo abstinendum; inponenda ex faba farina eo ex mulso cocta cum cumino contrito et ex melle cocto; aut contritum cuminum cum cerato ex rosa facto; aut lini semen frictum, contritum et in mulso coctum; aut tritici farina ex mulso cocta cum cupresso; aut lilii radix contrita.
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 7.50.20
“All animals who have testicles can be castrated.”
“By chance he told some country bumpkin
To chop off the goat’s testicles quickly with a sharp scythe
And get rid of that annoying stink of unclean meat.”
dixerat agresti forte rudique viro
ut cito testiculos †et acuta† falce secaret,
taeter ut immundae carnis abiret odor.
Hippocrates, Epidemics 2.12
“Swollen testicles”
…ὀρχίων οἴδησις…
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 26.81
“Ebulum, when ground up with its tender leaves and drunk with wine, takes care of stones; when applied as a salve, it helps testicles. Erigeron, as well, when mixed with frankincense and sweet wine, relieves swollen testicles.”
ebulum teneris cum foliis tritum ex vino potum calculos pellit, inpositum testes sanat. erigeron quoque cum farina turis et vino dulci testium inflammationes sanat.
Sumerians did it!
Kazuya Maekawa 1979 covers castration in Pre-Sargonic Lagaš (~2550-2350 BCE): they were often castrated in the spring just around the second year of birth. The term for this is amar.kud (amar = young; kud = to cut).
— 𒀭Andrew A.N. Deloucas (@AANDeloucas) July 28, 2021
Hippocrates, Internal Affections 282
“…and his testicles were ulcerated…”
καὶ οἱ ὄρχιες ἑλκοῦνται
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 28.215
“They say that a goat’s dung is good for you with honey or vinegar, or just butter by itself. Testicular swelling can be treated with veal suet mixed with soda, or by the calf’s dung reduced in vinegar.”
fimum etiam prodesse cum melle dicunt aut cum aceto et per se butyrum. testium tumor sebo vituli addito nitro cohibetur vel fimo eiusdem ex aceto decocto.
Bronze ritual Roman era castration clamps found in the river Thames and now at the Museum of London. SARAH E. BOND
“Below the penis there are two testicles. There is skin around them called a scrotum. The testicles are not the same as flesh nor are they far from it. Later, will will speak more precisely about what their nature is and generally about all these kinds of parts.”
“They become calmer once their testicles are removed because they no longer have seed.”
Demptis enim testiculis fiunt quietiores, ideo quod semine carent
Plutarch, Natural Phenomena 917D
“Or is Aristotle’s claim true too, that Homer calls khlounês the boar who only has one testicle? For he claims that the testicles of most of the boars get crushed when they scratch themselves on trees.”
“I hope Jupiter destroys you, soldier! Live without your testicles!”
Iuppiter te, miles, perdat, intestatus uiuito
Aristotle, Problems 879a-b
4.23 “Why does rigidity and increase happen to the penis? Is it for two reasons? First, is it because that weight develops on the bottom of the testicles, raising it—for the testicles are like a fulcrum? And is it because the veins become full of breath [pneuma]? Or does the mass become bigger because of an increase in moisture or some change in position or from the development of moisture itself? Extremely large things are raised less when the weight of the fulcrum is far away.”
“Attis traveled over the deep seas and reached Phrygian forest
To touch the grove with a swift foot and then
Enter the goddess’ unknown places.
Then, driven mad in a fierce rage, lost in himself
he cut off his groin’s weights with a flint’s edge.”
Super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria
Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit
adiitque opaca silvis redimita loca deae,
stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, vagus animi,
devolsit ili acuto sibi pondera silice
Castration of Saturn, MS Douce 195 Guillaume de Lorris & Jean de Meung, Roman de la Rose. France, 15th century (end). Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 195, fol. 76v
Everyone has heard about Leda and the swan. But have you heard about Amphilokhos and his gift-giving goose?
Aelian, De Natura Animalium 5.29
“In Aigion, in Akhaia, a goose was in love with a handsome boy, an Ôlenian named Amphilokhos. Theophrastus tells this story. The boy was under guard with the Olenian exiles in Aigion—there, the goose used to bring him gifts. In Khios, too, there was an especially beautiful woman named Glaukê, a harp player, and many men lusted after her—which is nothing big. But a ram and a goose loved her too, as I have heard.”
Apollonios the Paradoxographer is credited with a text of 51 anecdotes usually dated to the 3rd or 2nd century BCE. Some of these translations are pretty rough. Here I am pretty uncertain about number 22
Apollonius, Historiae Mirabiles 21-27
21 “Of those observed animals there is the fact that cloven-hoofed creatures alone of the animals have backward-facing ankles. In his Natural Problems, Aristotle explains that the reason for this is in the hind-legs and not the front legs. For nature has made nothing in vain.”
23“It is especially wondrous how the sun shines upon us—that it is not holy fire, and the adamant does not warm when it is inflamed; and also marvelous is the fact that the magnet stone attracts when it is day and at night it attracts less or not completely” [?]
25 “Aristotle says in his work On Drunkenness that Andrôn the Argive ate many salty things through his entire life and died without thirst and without drinking. While he was going to Ammon for a second time on a road without water and dining on dry grain, he brought no liquid. He did this for his entire life.”
26 “In his work On Life and Death, Aristotle says that a tortoise lives when deprived of a heart. But he nevertheless does not specify what kind of tortoise, whether it is a land animal or one who lives in the sea.”
27 “Aristotle, in his works on Animal Matters—for he has two publications, one On Animals and another, On Animal Matters—says that lice do not die on heads because of disease in long lives, but when they are about to die while they are suffering, they are find their way to the base of the head and leave it.”
