Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| A Disgraceful Feature of the Roman Mythology. It Honours Such Infamous Characters as Larentina.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
X.—A Disgraceful Feature of the Roman Mythology. It Honours Such
Infamous Characters as Larentina.
I hasten to even more abominable cases. Your
writers have not been ashamed to publish that of Larentina. She
was a hired prostitute, whether as the nurse of Romulus, and therefore
called Lupa, because she was a prostitute, or as the mistress of
Hercules, now deceased, that is to say, now deified. They945
| 945 Compare Augustine, de
Civ. Dei, vi. 7. [Tom. vii. p. 184.] | relate that his temple-warder946
happened to be playing at dice in the temple
alone; and in order to represent a partner for himself in the game, in
the absence of an actual one, he began to play with one hand for
Hercules and the other for himself. (The condition was,) that if he won
the stakes from Hercules, he should with them procure a supper and a
prostitute; if Hercules, however, proved the winner, I mean his other
hand, then he should provide the same for Hercules. The hand of
Hercules won. That achievement might well have been added to his twelve
labours! The temple-warden buys a supper for the hero, and hires
Larentina to play the whore. The fire which dissolved the
body of even a
Hercules947
| 947 That is, when he mounted
the pyre. | enjoyed the supper,
and the altar consumed everything. Larentina sleeps alone in the
temple; and she a woman from the brothel, boasts that in her
dreams she had submitted herself to the pleasure of Hercules;948
| 948 Herculi functam.
“Fungi alicui” means to satisfy, or yield to. | and she might possibly have experienced this,
as it passed through her mind, in her sleep. In the morning, on going
out of the temple very early, she is solicited by a young
man—“a third Hercules,” so to speak.949
| 949 The well-known Greek
saying, ῎Αλλος
οὗτος
῾Ηρακλῆς. | He invites her home. She complies,
remembering that Hercules had told her that it would be for her
advantage. He then, to be sure, obtains permission that they
should be united in lawful wedlock (for none was allowed to have
intercourse with the concubine of a god without being punished for it);
the husband makes her his heir. By and by, just before her death, she
bequeathed to the Roman people the rather large estate which she had
obtained through Hercules. After this she sought deification for her
daughters too, whom indeed the divine Larentina ought to have appointed
her heirs also. The gods of the Romans received an accession in her
dignity. For she alone of all the wives of Hercules was dear to him,
because she alone was rich; and she was even far more fortunate than
Ceres, who contributed to the pleasure of the (king of the)
dead.950
| 950 Pluto; Proserpine, the
daughter of Ceres, is meant. Oehler once preferred to read,
“Hebe, quæ mortuo placuit,” i.e., “than Hebe,
who gratified Hercules after death.” | After so many examples and eminent
names among you, who might not have been declared divine? Who, in fact,
ever raised a question as to his divinity against Antinous?951
| 951 Tertullian often refers
indignantly to this atrocious case. | Was even Ganymede more grateful and dear than
he to (the supreme god) who loved him? According to you, heaven
is open to the dead. You prepare952
a way from Hades
to the stars. Prostitutes mount it in all directions, so that you
must not suppose that you are conferring a great distinction upon your
kings.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
