Sacred prostitution

with this text beginning a series of stories about the eroticism in the earliest times of humanity.
SACRED PROSTITUTION.

There were prostitutes who charged an humble mite for his services. Some took to the streets in search of customers, which used the curious method of printing on the sole of her sandal the word "follow me" printing press was easily recorded in the mud. However, in the most archaic prostitution was practiced only in the temples with a religious purpose then was lost. This kind of sacred prostitution originated in India and Babylon. It is known that every Babylonian had to sit once in a life in the temple of Aphrodite and join with the first stranger who kicked them off money in your lap and say, "I'm calling on behalf of the goddess Milita" Assyrian name of the goddess Aphrodite. Whatever the sum offered, she could not refuse the stranger, and could not go home until you have slept with one, so that pretty soon returned to his home, but the ugly could spend up to three and four years in the temple.
This type of institution was introduced in one form or another in Asia Minor, Persia and Egypt. Anahita The Armenians devotees offered his virgin daughters to the goddess to exert as prostitutes until the wedding day: "And no man seems dishonorable marry them later," wrote Strabo in his Geography. Greeks and Romans inherited these customs, and Aphrodite Porne, "The Prostitute" had many shrines in Cyprus, Abydos and Corinth. It is also worshiped on Mount Eryx, in Sicily, under the name of Venus Ericina. Solon also instituted brothels so that "the world's oldest profession" generate some taxes. Healthy democratic measure that allowed, with the profits, build the temple in Athens Aphrodite, patron of prostitutes.
The wealth generated by the sex trade were such that according to Strabo, the Temple of Aphrodite in Corinth maintained over a thousand women dedicated to the goddess. The girls drew crowds of strangers who spent their money happily. Hence the proverb: "Not everyone who goes to Corinth brings profit." Sacred prostitution remained in this port city to the year 146. C. it was destroyed by the Romans.
However, despite the demand of women had sex outside marriage, and leaving aside the wonderful, but rare, Venus that have come to the sculptors of the classical world, it is clear that the ideal of beauty of the Hellenic artists was not exactly in the ways of a woman's body, but rather in the body of young tanned by outdoor life and exercise. The beauty almost incomprehensible, so fleeting, these ephebes, whose unfinished forms still give them an ambiguous air, was praised by the Greco-Roman sculptors.
Notable sculptural model of youthful beauty was Antinous, a beautiful young mistress of the Emperor Hadrian, who had the misfortune of drowning in the Nile Grief for his loss, Adrian elevated him to hero status, minted coins with his effigy and made numerous Antinoopolis city name. The grace and poise of the ephebes moved both Greek pottery decorators masculinized figure of the woman to bring it to the canon of beauty of its customers.
Episthenes, moved, interceded with Xenophon for the life of a young man convicted and sentenced to death, only because it was beautiful.

More disturbing but also very beautiful in this regard are the statues and paintings representing the Hellenistic period Hermaphrodite, a mythological creature with the face of women and male genitalia, of enigmatic beauty. In Roman art there are also numerous scenes in which the god Pan takes the form of a nymph asleep on his back, but male genitalia reveals their sleep, thus acquiring a constitution also hermaphroditic.
In other cases there satyrs enjoying sex with the hermaphrodite. "Classical art, writes Juan Eslava, creating monsters is excellent with grace and conviction, and this is one of them." It might seem that this is fascinating to be done to please men who like the female form and prefer male genitalia, but the wonder of such a body could be very well representing the god you that in archaic times was called Fanes and was gay. The Hermaphrodite could also be referring to the platonic myth that says that in the beginning of time every human body on it aunaba both sexes. A myth also reflected in other statues that have nothing to do with the hermaphrodite, as commemorating the loves of Leda, transformed into a goose, and Zeus, transformed into a swan, mystical union of two birds that symbolizes the complete symbiosis of the two lovers .
The beauty that contain all these statues, whatever its purpose and symbolism, talks about all of the admiration that any body beautiful, man or woman, awakened by the Greeks. Given the proximity of a perfectly formed, they would break out in uncontrollable passion, a divine madness of which were responsible to you, son of Aphrodite, who carried their arrows with the poison of physical attraction toward another person. Sometimes the attraction was such that he interceded for someone to judge only by its beauty. Episthenes interceded with Xenophon for the life of a young man sentenced to death only because it was beautiful. Also the hetero Phryne was acquitted when his attorney grabbed his tunic with his hand so that the judge contemplated his body. In beauty there was no evil. "What is beautiful is loved" wrote the poet Sappho of Lesbos. While admiration for the perfect bodies that athletes exhibited during the Olympic Games made to organize beauty pageants male and female, as a replica of the contests of the gods.