Contaminato cum grege turpium _Morbo_ virorum.
(With her (Cleopatra’s) herd of foul men stained with disease—vice). It is taken by _Stark_ as by most of the commentators to mean _castrated_ persons, though strictly speaking it implies nothing more than a contemptuous circumlocution for Egyptians. The boys that were kept in the brothels at Rome for purposes of paederastia were for the most part from Egypt, whence they were imported in flocks. Accordingly the poet calls the whole _entourage_ of Cleopatra pathics. There can be no mistake, if only we translate thus: _cum contaminato grege virorum, morbo turpium_, (with a polluted herd of men, defiled with disease—vice). In this Horace was all the more justified, because as a matter of fact Cleopatra did keep cinaedi, as we learn from _Suidas_: s. v. κίναιδα καὶ κιναιδία· ἠ ἀναισχυντία· ἀπὸ τοῦ κινεῖν τὰ αἰδοῖα. _Ὁ τῆς Κλεοπάτρας κίναιδος_ Χελιδὼν ἐκαλεῖτο. (under the words κίναιδα and κίναιδία: shameless practice; from the moving (τὸ κινεῖν of the genitals. _Cleopatra’s cinaedus_ was called Chelidon. True _Terence_, Eunuch. I. 2. 87., makes Phaedria say:
Porro _eunuchum_ dixisti velle te, _Quia solae utuntur his reginae_, repperi,
(I have discovered wherefore you said you wanted a _eunuch_, because only queens use them) and Donatus observes on the passage that _reginae_ (queens) stands for _feminae divites_ (rich ladies). Accordingly just as Eunuchus is used for cinaedus or pathicus, in the same way cinaedus might very well stand in _Suidas_ for eunuch, and as a matter of fact the _entourage_ of Cleopatra may have consisted of actual eunuchs. Still it is Horace’s main point that they were _pathics_. As to the reason why _reginae_ (queens, rich ladies) kept _castrati_ (eunuchs) at all, comp. p. 125 above.—The Latin _grex_ (herd) is sufficiently explained by the παίδων ἀγέλας (herds of boys) in the passages already quoted (p. 131.) from _Tatian_ and _Justin Martyr_, along side which we may put the μειρακίων ὡραίων ἀγέλαι (herds of lads in the bloom of youth) of _Clement of Alexandria_, Paedag. bk. III. ch. 4. The word is used in the same sense by _Seneca_, Epist 95., Transeo _puerorum infelicium greges_, quos post transacta convivia aliae cubiculi contumeliae expectant. Transeo _agmina exoletorum_ per nationes coloresque descripta. (I pass over the _herds of unhappy boys_, whom after the feast is done, other affronts of the bed-chamber await. I pass over the _serried ranks of debauchees_ (cinaedi) marshalled by nation and complexion.) _Cicero_, Ad Atticum I. 13., Concursabant barbatuli iuvenes, totus ille _grex_ Catilinae, (Thither flocked the youths of the baby beards, all the _herd_ of Catiline’s friends.) _Petronius_, Sat. ch. 40., Grex agit in scena mimum. (The common herd plays the mime on the stage.) _Grex_ was used generally for any crowd of _common_ men.—The use of the word _contaminatus_ (polluted) brings to mind _catamitus_, which bears the sense of pathic, e. g. in _Cicero_, Philipp. II. 31., _Appuleius_, Metam. I. p. 107 and especially is used as a nickname for Ganymede. _Plautus_, Menaechm. I. 2. 34.—_Festus_: Catamitum pro Ganymede dixerunt, qui fuit Jovis concubinus, (Men said _catamitus_ for Ganymedes, who was Jupiter’s bed-fellow),—which probably led to the ridiculous idea being entertained, e.g. by _Scheller_, that the word was derived from _Ganymedes_ by corruption in the pronunciation! The fact that the word is metrically a “Paeon tertius”, that is to say the _i_ in the third syllable is long, might have led us at once to the conclusion that originally the word was _catamytus_, and derived from the Greek καταμύσσω (to tear), and so has the same meaning as the Latin _percisus_ (cut), or else that it stands for καταμίκτος (mixed), and is connected with καταμίγνυμι (to mix), and so in fact _concubinus_ (sharing the bed), as Festus says! At any rate the passages quoted above from Cicero and Seneca, which might easily be multiplied, prove that Stark’s supposition expressed on p. 22., to the effect that _morbus_ (disease) is used in this sense _only_ in the poets, is unfounded.