“There’s a story that some incurably melancholic person fell in love with a girl and when the doctors could do nothing to help, love cured him. I think however that he was in love from the start and that he was feeling down and disheartened because of the bad luck he was having with the girl and so seemed to ordinary people to be melancholic. He had no idea at that point that it was love; but when he realized his love for the girl, he stopped feeling down and he got rid of his anger and sorrow and the joy sobered him up out of his sad state. For his mind was restored by doctor love.”

λόγος ὅτι τῶν τοιῶνδέ τις ἀνηκέστως ἔχων, κούρης ἤρα τε καὶ τῶν ἰητρῶν οὐδὲν ὠφελούντων ὁ ἔρως μιν ἰήσατο· δοκέω δὲ ἔγωγε ἐρᾶν μὲν αὐτὸν ἀρχῆθεν, κατηφέα δὲ καὶ δύσθυμον [ἢ] ὑπ' ἀτυχίης τῆς κούρης ἔμμεναι καὶ μελαγχολικὸν δοκέειν τοῖσι δημότῃσιν. οὗτος οὔτε μὴν ἦν ἔρωτα ἐγγιγνώσκων, ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸν ἔρωτα ξυνῆψε τῇ κούρῃ, παύεται τῆς κατηφείης, καὶ διασκίδνησι ὀργήν τε καὶ λύπην, χάρμῃ δὲ ἐξένηψε τῆς δυσθυμίης· καθίσταται γὰρ τὴν γνώμην ἔρωτι ἰητρῷ.

Aretaeus, Causes and Signs of Chronic Diseases 1.5.8, 41,4–11 Hude

“Back then, people were such libertines that they even dedicated a temple to Aphrodite Kallipygos.* Here’s why:

A man from the country had two beautiful daughters, and one day, when they were feeling competitive with each other, they went out to the highway to see which of them had a nicer butt. When a young man who had an elderly father happened to pass by, the two each put on a show for him, and he, having watched, picked the older one’s as nicer. But he also fell in love with her and once he returned to the city, he became bedridden and told his younger brother what had happened. The next thing you know, his brother went to the country, too, and when he saw the girls, he fell in love with the other one. Well, their father pleaded with them to choose more respectable spouses, but since he could not convince them, he brought the girls from the country to brothers, where they persuaded their father to accept them, and he married them to his sons. And so they were called ‘kallipygoi’ by the people of the city, as Kerkidas of Megalopolis says in the Iambics:

‘There was a pair of nice butts among the women of Syracuse.’

And since the sisters had gotten hold of some wealth, they dedicated a temple to Aphrodite, calling the goddess ‘Kallipygos,’ as Arkhelaos also mentions in his Iambics.”

*καλλίπυγος / kallipygos / callipyge (latin) : combination of kalli (nice) and pygē (butt). Somewhere, I heard Sufjan Stevens mention the word, and I wanted to track down the story.

οὕτω δ' ἐξήρτηντο τῶν ἡδυπαθειῶν οἱ τότε ὡς καὶ Καλλιπύγου Ἀφροδίτης ἱερὸν ἱδρύσασθαι ἀπὸ τοιαύτης αἰτίας. ἀνδρὶ ἀγροίκῳ ἐγένοντο δύο καλαὶ θυγατέρες· αὗται φιλονικήσασαί ποτε πρὸς ἑαυτὰς προελθοῦσαι ἐπὶ τὴν λεωφόρον διεκρίνοντο ποτέρα εἴη καλλιπυγοτέρα. καί ποτε παρίοντος νεανίσκου πατέρα πρεσβύτην ἔχοντος ἐπέδειξαν ἑαυτὰς καὶ τούτῳ· καὶ ὃς θεασάμενος ἔκρινε τὴν πρεσβυτέραν· ἧς καὶ εἰς ἔρωτα ἐμπεσὼν ἐλθὼν εἰς ἄστυ κλινήρης γίνεται καὶ διηγεῖται τὰ γεγενημένα τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἑαυτοῦ ὄντι νεωτέρῳ. ὃ δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐλθὼν εἰς τοὺς ἀγροὺς καὶ θεασάμενος τὰς παῖδας ἐρᾷ καὶ αὐτὸς τῆς ἑτέρας. ὁ δ' οὖν πατὴρ ἐπεὶ παρακαλῶν αὐτοὺς ἐνδοξοτέρους λαβεῖν γάμους οὐκ ἔπειθεν, ἄγεται ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ τὰς παῖδας αὐτοῖς, πείσας ἐκείνων τὸν πατέρα, καὶ ζεύγνυσι τοῖς υἱοῖς. αὗται οὖν ὑπὸ τῶν πολιτῶν καλλίπυγοι ἐκαλοῦντο, ὡς καὶ ὁ Μεγαλοπολίτης Κερκιδᾶς ἐν τοῖς Ἰάμβοις ἱστορεῖ λέγων·

ἦν καλλιπύγων ζεῦγος ἐν Συρακούσαις.

αὗται οὖν ἐπιλαβόμεναι οὐσίας λαμπρᾶς ἱδρύσαντο Ἀφροδίτης ἱερὸν καλέσασαι Καλλίπυγον τὴν θεόν, ὡς ἱστορεῖ καὶ Ἀρχέλαος ἐν τοῖς Ἰάμβοις.

Athenaeus, The Sophists’ Table (Deipnosophistae), 12.80 (p.223 Kaibel)

This epithet for Aphrodite shows up in Clement of Alexandria as well, where he tries to disparage the pagan gods as prudishly as only Clement of Alexandria can:

“Isn’t Baldheaded Zeus the one worshipped in Argos, while in Cyprus, it’s another one, Zeus the Avenger? Don’t the Argives sacrifice to Aphrodite who Does Obscene Things,* the Athenians to Aphrodite the Prostitute, and the Syracusans to Aphrodite of the Nice Butt—the one the poet Nicander called ‘of the Nice Bum’? I’ll not even mention Dionysus the Piglet-Tickler.* The Sicyonians revere this one, assigning Dionysus to the womanly part, worshipping the prince of hubris as the ephor of shame.”

Οὐχὶ μέντοι Ζεὺς φαλακρὸς ἐν Ἄργει, τιμωρὸς δὲ ἄλλος ἐν Κύπρῳ τετίμησθον; Οὐχὶ δὲ Ἀφροδίτῃ περιβασοῖ μὲν Ἀργεῖοι, ἑταίρᾳ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ καλλιπύγῳ θύουσιν Συρακούσσιοι, ἣν Νίκανδρος ὁ ποιητὴς «καλλίγλουτόν» που κέκληκεν; Διόνυσον δὲ ἤδη σιωπῶ τὸν χοιροψάλαν· Σικυώνιοι τοῦτον προσκυνοῦσιν ἐπὶ τῶν γυναικείων τάξαντες τὸν Διόνυσον μορίων, ἔφορον αἴσχους τὸν ὕβρεως σεβάζοντες ἀρχηγόν.

Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2.39.2-3

*The scholiast is helpful on some of the obscure terms:

Scholia In Clementem Alexandrinum

περιβασοῖ: doer of obscene things. These are epithets of Aphrodite.

29, 7 περιβασοῖ] ἀσχημοποιῷ· ἐπίθετα δὲ ταῦτα τῆς Ἀφροδίτης.

χοιροψάλαν: according to Polemon in his letter to Attalus, Dionysus Piglet-Tickler is worshipped in Sicyon of Boeotia. It is a variation on the tickler (i.e., ‘plucker’) of piglets. ‘Piglet’ means a woman’s genitals.

29, 10 χοιροψάλαν] χοιροψάλας Διόνυσος ἐν Σικυῶνι τιμᾶται τῆς Βοιωτίας, ὡς Πολέμων ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ἄτταλον ἐπιστολῇ. ἔστι δὲ μεταλαμβανόμενον ὁ τὸν χοῖρον ψάλλων, τοῦτ' ἔστι τίλλων· χοῖρος δὲ γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον.