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Suffodit inguinal: Genital attacks on Roman emperors and other primates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Laura Betzig
Laura Betzig*
Affiliation:
Adaptationist Program, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. lbetzig@gmail.com
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Abstract

When Julius Caesar was stabbed, 23 times, on the Ides of March, at least one of the daggers is supposed to have gone into his groin. He wasn't the last Roman to have his privates attacked. And he wasn't the last primate. In competition for sexual access, gonads are occasionally targeted: canine incisions in monkey and ape scrota are not uncommon; and rumors had a number of Roman emperors—from Caligula and Nero, to Galba, Vitellius, Domitian, Commodus, Caracalla, Elagabalus, to Balbinus, Pupienus and Valerian over the course of the third century crisis—done in with their genitals at risk, or with their genitals cut off.

Keywords

Sexual selectionhuman evolutionPan troglodyteseusocialitysterile castes
Type
Research Articles
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , Spring 2014 , pp. 54 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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