That the fathers of Israel were quick to perceive the tortuous ramifications of this vice is proved by a passage in Deuteronomy, chap.
22, verse .5: "the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abominations unto the Lord thy God." Here we have the first regulation against fetishism and the perverted tendencies of gynandry and androgeny.
Inasmuch as our concern with this subject has to do with the Roman world alone, a lengthy discussion of the early, manifestations of this vice would be out of place here; nevertheless, a brief sketch should be given to serve as a foundation to such discussion and to aid sociologists who will find themselves more and more concerned with the problem in view of the conditions in European society, induced by the late war.

Their problem will, however, be more intimately concerned with homosexuality as it is manifested among women! From remotest antiquity down to the present time, oriental nations have been addicted to this practice and it is probably from this source that the plague spread among the Greeks.

I do not assert that they were ignorant of this form of indulgence prior to their association with the Persians, for Nature teaches the sage as well as the savage.

Meier, the author of the article "Paederastia" in Ersch and Grueber's encyclopedia (1837) is of the opinion that the vice had its origin among the Boeotians, and John Addington Symonds in his essay on Greek Love concurs in this view.

As the two scholars worked upon the same material from different angles, and as the English writer was unacquainted with the German savant's monograph until after Burton had written his Terminal Essay, it follows that the conclusions arrived at by these two scholars must be worthy of credence.