Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall].

  • Dingwall, Eric John.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    touch upon a selection which is representative of the whole and comprises examples of all or nearly all of the extant varieties. The first example to be adduced is the magnificent statue of a figure, believed to be Anacreon, now in Copenhagen, but formerly in the Villa Borghese in Borne and discovered in the Sabine district in 1835.1 (See Frontispiece.) This specimen of the finest period of Greek sculpture has one peculiar feature which has puzzled every archaeologist who has described this statue. The membrum is apparently bent round, upwards, and towards the left, an appearance which has led Arndt to make the following extraordinary statements. After describing the statue he goes on to say that “ nous trouvons ici un exemple bien visible de l’infibulation du membre viril . . . cette coutume 6tait de tradition dans le monde des artistes dionysiaques, auquel appartient notre poete en sa quality de joueur de lyre.” He then announces that after the holes had been drilled in the prepuce and the thread passed through, the “ membre maltrait6 ” was turned up and tied by the ends of the thread I This he says was done before “ une epingle ou un anneau de m6tal ” was applied, evidently thinking of the fibula of Celsus. After expressing astonishment that Anacreon submitted to such a custom he presumes that the poet only resigned himself to it at an advanced age.® Now since this form of infibulation was principally used for the preservation of the voices of youths, and 1 See C. Jacobsen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek (Kj^benhavn, 1907), nr. 409, p. 147, pi. xxviii; P. Arndt, La Glyptothlque Ny-Carlsberg (Munich, 1912), pp. 39-45, pis. 26-28 ; P. Wolters, Beitraege zur griechischen Ikonographie, Arch. Zeit., 1884, Jahr. xlii, pp. ISO- 162, taf. II1; R. Kekule, Anakreon, Jahr. d. kais. deut. Arch. Instit., 1892, vii, 119-126 ; A. Furtwaengler, Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture (London, 1895), p. 63, fig. 17 ; G. Lippold, Griechische Portrdtstatuen (Miinchen, 1912), pp. 36-37; W. von Christ, Geschichte dcr griechischen Litteratur (5e Aufl., Miinchen, 1913), Teil 2, 2 Halfte, fig. 8 ; A. Hekler, Greek and Roman Portraits (London, 1912), pi. 6a, etc. 2 P. Arndt, op. cit., pp. 39-45.