In which Petronius is baffling
I thought that drawing penises on sleeping people was a relatively new pastime. I was wrong.
As I learned yesterday, while reading Petronius' Satyricon with my students, drawing penises on the unwary is just as funny now as it was in the first century.
Cum Ascyltos gravatus tot malis in somnum laberetur, illa quae iniuria depulsa fuerat ancilla totam faciem eius fuligine longa perfricuit, et non sentientis labra umerosque sopitionibus pinxit.
"When Ascyltus, weighed down by so many troubles, was drifting off to sleep, that servant girl who had been unjustly rebuffed rubbed his entire face with long smears of ash, and drew on the senseless man's lips and shoulders [sopitionibus]."
The problem is that out of all of Latin literature, sopitio is only ever attested here, so its definition is uncertain. Fortunately, the Oxford Latin Dictionary suggests it's a variant of sopio, which definitely means "penis."
Which brings us back to where we started. Ascyltus has drunk too much, partied too hard, and made the classic mistake of being the first one to fall asleep at the party. So the girl he'd rejected earlier covers his face in soot and proceeds to draw penises on him.
Stay classy, Petronius.