Elephantis ( grc, Ἐλεφαντίς) (fl. late 1st century BC) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

poet and physician apparently renowned in the classical world as the author of a notorious

sex manual Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...

. Due to the popularity of courtesans taking animal names in classical times, it is likely Elephantis is two or more persons of the same name. None of her works have survived, though they are referenced in other ancient texts.

Works

According to

Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...

The Twelve Caesars ''De vita Caesarum'' (Latin; "About the Life of the Caesars"), commonly known as ''The Twelve Caesars'', is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. The g ...

, the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

Emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

took a complete set of her works with him when he retreated to his resort on

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...

. One of the poems in the ''

Priapeia The ''Priapeia'' (or ''Carmina Priapea'') is a collection of eighty (in some editions ninety-five) anonymous short Latin poems in various meters on subjects pertaining to the phallic god Priapus. They are believed to date from the 1st century AD ...

'' refers to her books: :''Obscenas rigido deo tabellas
dicans ex Elephantidos libellis
dat donum Lalage rogatque, temptes,
si pictas opus edat ad figuras.'' ("Lalage dedicates a votive offering to the God of the erect penis, bringing shameless pictures from the books of Elephantis, and begs him to try and imitate with her the variety of intercourse of the figures in the illustrations.")Trans. L.C. Smithers and R.F. Burton, ''Priapea sive diversorum poetarum in Priapum lusus, or, Sportive Epigrams on Priapus'' (1890). And an epigram by the Roman poet

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...

, which Smithers and Burton included in their collection of poems concerning

Priapus In Greek mythology, Priapus (; grc, Πρίαπος, ) is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term ...

, reads: :''Quales nec Didymi sciunt puellae,
Nec molles Elephantidos libelli,
Sunt illic Veneris novae figurae'' ("Such verses as neither the daughters of Didymus know, nor the debauched books of Elephantis, in which are set out new forms of lovemaking.") "''Novae figurae''" has been read as "''novem figurae''" (i.e., "nine forms" of lovemaking, rather than "new forms" of lovemaking), and so some commentators have inferred that she listed nine different

sexual positions A sex position is a position of the body that people use for sexual intercourse or other sexual activities. Sexual acts are generally described by the positions the participants adopt in order to perform those acts. Though sexual intercourse ge ...

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

references her performance as a midwife, and

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...

notes her ability to cure baldness. She also wrote a manual about cosmetics and another about abortives.Galen 12.416 and Pliny 28.81 cited in

Notes

References

* {{Authority control Ancient Greek poets Greek erotica writers 1st-century BC women writers 1st-century BC writers Ancient Greek women poets Women erotica writers 1st-century BC poets 1st-century BC Greek physicians 1st-century BC Greek women Ancient Greek women physicians Greek women physicians Greek midwives