The Evolution of Childhood, pt. 2

[JesusA (imported)]

This well describes the man of antiquity. Intercourse with castrated children was often spoken of as being especially arousing, castrated boys were favorite “voluptates” in imperial Rome, and infants were castrated “in the cradle” to be used in brothels by men who like buggering young castrated boys. When Domitian passed a law prohibiting castration of infants for brothels, Martial praised him: “Boys loved thee before... but now infants, too, love thee, Caesar.” Paulus Aegineta described the standard method used in castrating small boys:

“Since we are sometimes compelled against our will be persons of high rank to perform the operation... by compression is thus performed; children, still of a tender age, are placed in a vessel of hot water, and then when the parts are softened in the bath, the testicles are to be squeezed with the fingers until they disappear.”

The alternative, he said, was to put them on a bench and cut their testicles out. Many doctors in antiquity mentioned the operation, and Juvenal said they were often called upon to perform it.

Signs of castration surrounded the child in antiquity. In every field and garden he saw a Priapus, with a large erect penis and a sickle, which was supposed to symbolize castration. His pedagogue and his teacher might be castrated, castrated prisoners were everywhere, and his parents' servants would often be castrated. St. Jerome wrote that some people had wondered whether letting young girls bathe with eunuchs was a wise practice. And although Constantine passed a law against castrators, the practice grew so rapidly under his successors that soon even noble parents mutilated their sons to further their political advancement. Boys were also castrated as a “cure” for various diseases and Ambroise Pare complained how many unscrupulous “Gelders,” greedy to get children's testicles for magical purposes, persuaded parents to let them castrate their children.

--The Evolution of Childhood. by Lloyd DeMause. from his book: The History of Childhood, New York: Psychohistory Press (1974), pp. 45-47.

[DeMause is more Freudian than most psychologists can stand, but he is one of few recent psychiatrists to have an interest in the psychiatric interpretation of history.)

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