Phallic figures were a common feature in ancient religious cults. But even as late as the eighteenth century the phallus appeared in public demonstrations. At the annual three-day fair held in Isernia, in the Kingdom of Naples, reproductions of a phallus were on sale. The customers were usually barren women, who, through this phallic symbolism, anticipated a favorable outcome for their sterility.
In classical mythology, erotic inducements were used even by the divinities themselves. In the Greek epic poem the Iliad, Hera, wife of the supreme deity Zeus, employs such excitants, to arouse her husband. From Aphrodite, the goddess of love, Hera secures Aphrodite’s magic girdle of love and longing ‘which subdues the hearts of all the gods and of mortal dwellers upon earth.’
Aphrodite ‘loosed from her bosom a broidered girdle, wherein are fashioned all manner of allurements; therein is love, therein is longing and dalliance—beguilement that steals the wits of the wise.’
And, however wise he might be, Zeus’ wits were thus stolen.
Although the search for amatory potency is one of the most dominant factors in human history, there are cases where the opposite effect was desired. A Roman matron, to cite one instance, named Numantina, wife of Plautius Sylvanus, was charged with having effected incapacity in her husband by magic means.
Magic played a part in medieval history too. Gregory of Tours, the sixth century A.D. churchman and historian, tells of a certain woman who was spell-bound by a number of concubines. She had become the wife of Eulatius, and had thus inspired the concubines of this Eulatius into jealous retaliation.
Again, according to the chronicles, the medieval king Theodoric was incapacitated by a magic spell.
Among the most lascivious women in all history was Catherine II of Russia. Married to the grandson of Peter the Great, and still childless, she was informed by her advisers that an heir was urgent in order to preserve the Empire.
Catherine consequently made a realistic decision. She ordered a sturgeon, and caviar, to be prepared for a banquet. Then she invited one of the officers of the Guard, named Sattikoff. The outcome of the invitation, and of the piscatory repast, was an heir to the Russian Empire.