^4 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book lit 



fatiated with them, to devife others altogether out of nature. The 

 paffion 1 mean, is the love of males, and the enjoyment of them in 

 the way of venery, in place of females; than which no pafFion can be 

 imagined more unnatural, or a greater perverfion of a paifion which 

 is necelTary for the moft ufeful of all purpofes, the continuation of 

 the kind. It was the inventive genius of Greeks that contrived this 

 refinement, as by fome it is thought, upon the natural pleafure of 

 coition. It began, it is faid, to be pradifed in Greece about the 

 time of Laius the father of Oedipus, and was foon propagated all 

 over Greece. Among the Thebans it was fo common, 'and even 

 among their beft men, that their Sacred Band^ as it was called, which 

 was reckoned invincible, confifted all of men who had an inter- 

 courfe of that kind together, and were either adtive or paflive in 

 that pleafure. From the Greeks it went to the Romans, who made 

 a refinement upon it unknown to the Greeks ; For, they pra<Stifed 

 it not only upon boys and handfome young men, but upon old ve- 

 terans in the bufinefs, who, they thought, by the fkill they had ac- 

 quired by much practice, could give them more pleafure than young 

 pra(£tition€re; and, the great and ilch among them kept whole fe- 

 raglios of them, which they called greges exolttonim ; and, fome of 

 the Emperours, fuch as Heliogabalus, were not only active in that 

 enjoyment, hut were paffive in every way that can be imagined; for 

 Heliogabalus, as we are told by the author of his life, per omnia ca- 

 va corporis venerem excepit*. And, among thefe cava^ we mull 

 underftand his mouth; in which way, the fame author tells us, that 

 the Emperour Commodus enjoyed venery. For the purpofe of this 

 pafTive venery, he was at great pains to find out men that were bene 

 vafati^ et majoris pecidii^ as the author of his life exprelTes itf, who, 

 it appears, gave him greater delight than thofe who were not fo w^ell 



by 



* ^!ius Lampridius, in the lie of Pleriogaoalus, cap. 5. 

 f Ibid. cap. 5. and 9. 



