AncientPages.com – <\/strong>Sometime around 100 AD, the Roman lawyer and aristocrat Pliny sent a letter to his third wife, Calpurnia \u2013 who was staying in a different part of Italy \u2013 to express how much he loved and missed her:<\/p>\n Venus and Adonis. Simon Vouet (French, 1590 – 1649) (1590 – 1649) \u2013 artist (French). Source<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n I love you so much, and we are not used to separations. So I stay awake most of the night thinking of you [\u2026] The only time I am free from this misery is when I am in court and wearing myself out with my friends\u2019 lawsuits. You can judge then what a life I am leading, when I find my rest in work and distraction in troubles and anxiety.<\/em><\/p>\n Most people living today have felt some form of passionate romantic love, or will at some point in their lives \u2013 often with heartbreak in equal measure.<\/p>\n When we have problems with love, we like to console ourselves by thinking this happens to many other people. This is certainly true.<\/p>\n It has, of course, been happening for thousands of years.<\/p>\n One of the most famous ancient accounts of passionate love is found in the writings of the physician Galen (126\u2013219 AD) who worked in Rome. In his book On Prognosis, Galen\u00a0describes\u00a0how he paid a call to the house of a man whose wife seemed unwell \u2013 suffering from insomnia, yet not with fever.<\/p>\n Galen questioned her, trying to find out why she couldn\u2019t sleep, but she was unresponsive:<\/p>\n She replied hesitantly or not at all, as if to show the folly of such questions, and finally turned over, buried herself completely deep in the blankets, covered her head with a small wrap, and lay there as if wanting to sleep.<\/p>\n Erastes (lover) and eromenos (beloved) kiss in a scene an Attic cup created circa 480 BC. Wikimedia<\/em><\/p>\n On subsequent visits, he discovered the woman was in love (and infatuated) with a dancer called Pylades, whom she had seen dancing at the theatre in the city. Her poor condition came from knowing her love could never be more than a secret desire.<\/p>\n Ancient people recognised how love could occur seemingly randomly, for reasons both simple and complicated.<\/p>\n In a play called The Man Who Loved Musical Pipes by\u00a0Theophilus\u00a0(4th century BC), one of the characters\u00a0explains\u00a0his basic reasons for having fallen in love with someone:<\/p>\n As for me personally, I\u2019m in love with a young woman who plays the lyre [\u2026] she\u2019s pretty, she\u2019s tall, she\u2019s good at her job.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Ancient lovers\u2019 passionate embraces and affections have sometimes been recorded in intimate detail.<\/p>\n In one anonymous\u00a0poem\u00a0(of uncertain date), the author describes how, after his lover won a boxing contest, he went and kissed him on the lips even though his face was covered in blood:<\/p>\n When Menecharmus, Anticles\u2019 son, won the boxing match, I crowned him with ten soft garlands, and thrice I kissed him all dabbled with blood as he was, but the blood was sweeter to me than myrrh.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n There are many Greco-Roman stories about unrequited love and the miseries it can bring.<\/p>\n A 1st century Roman mosaic depicting a love scene.<\/span>\u00a0Wikimedia<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n According to the philosopher\u00a0Aristoxenus\u00a0(4th century BC), one woman named Harpalyce\u00a0died of grief\u00a0after she fell in love with \u2013 and was rejected by \u2013 a man called Iphiclus.<\/p>\n There are also stories of people struggling to be with (and stay with) their lovers.<\/p>\n Galen\u00a0explains how\u00a0one of his patients, a slave, pretended to have a knee injury so he wouldn\u2019t have to travel away from his lover for work.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Galen\u00a0writes about\u00a0people engaging in secret love affairs:<\/p>\n They often have sex when they are drunk or have not digested their food, and they often engage in secret affairs so no one notices.<\/p>\n A bronze Roman knife-handle decorated with lovers, circa 1st or 2nd century.<\/span>\u00a0British Museum,\u00a0CC BY-NC-SA<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n He says, with dry humour, these \u201csecret affairs\u201d are the reason \u201cthe similarity between children and parents in humans is less pronounced\u201d.<\/p>\n Spouses also bickered back then, much like today. In a letter from around 200 AD, a man travelling in Alexandria, Egypt,\u00a0wrote\u00a0home to his wife to complain how she didn\u2019t seem to care much about him:<\/p>\n sleep does not come to me at night because of your inconsistency and your indifference concerning my affairs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Some ancient doctors thought love was a major factor in determining a person\u2019s mental and physical health.<\/p>\n Galen, for instance,\u00a0believed\u00a0love could be blamed for some of his patients\u2019 ailments.<\/p>\n I know men and women who have been struck by passionate love and become despondent and sleepless, then contracted an ephemeral fever because of something other than their love [\u2026] The disease of people who are constantly thinking about love is hard to cure.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Galen\u00a0recommended\u00a0people with lovesickness should change their lifestyles and engage in bathing, drinking, horse riding and travelling. He also advised them to invest their emotions into other matters such as gladiator fights or hunting with dogs.<\/p>\n Other doctors thought love was so powerful it could potentially cure people\u2019s psychological problems. The 5th-century physician Caelius Aurelianus\u00a0said\u00a0love could be both the cure and the cause of insanity.<\/p>\n In one of his plays, the influential playwright\u00a0Antiphanes\u00a0(active in the early 4th century BC)\u00a0wrote:<\/p>\n There are two things a man can\u2019t conceal: that he\u2019s drinking wine and that he\u2019s fallen in love. Because both conditions betray themselves from the expression on his face and the words he speaks. In the end, those who deny it are the ones they most obviously convict.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So the next time love is on your mind, take comfort in knowing you\u2019re not alone. For millennia, people have dealt with this difficult emotion \u2013 in all its glory and calamity \u2013 and come out the other side unharmed. Mostly, anyway.<\/p>\n Provided by\u00a0The Conversation\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This article is republished from\u00a0The Conversation\u00a0under a Creative Commons license. Read\u00a0the\u00a0original article.<\/a><\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n![\"Did](\"https:\/\/www.ancientpages.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/venusadoniconvjuly30.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhy do we fall in love?<\/h2>\n
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The difficulties with love<\/h2>\n
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Is love a sickness?<\/h2>\n
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Either way, there\u2019s no denying it<\/h2>\n
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