OK, I'm taking a late Antiquities class at SF State and one of the books for the class is "The Secret History" by Procopius. In case you're wondering what that is it's basically a pretty vicious propaganda tract from the late Roman Empire, against the Emperor Justinian. Well, anyway, Procopius devoted a pretty long section to basically describing what a slut Justinian's wife the Empress Theodora was (or he says she was anyway - his loathing for her practically drips of the page, to the point where I can't help but wonder if there was something personal between them), and this claim caught my eye.

"Often she would go with... ten young men or more... and would lie with her fellow-diners in turn the whole night long: when she had reduced them to exhaustion, she would go to their menials, as many as thirty on occassion, and copulate with every one of them..."

Snipped for length.
Now I think this obviously this is almost exaggerated or outright made up. I mean, that wouldn't even be humanly possible, right?
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't. I mean, for myself I couldn't even IMAGINE sleeping with thirty women in one night. I'd be lucky to get through the first six or ten, maybe not even that (I know from - erm - personal experience shall we say - that if you pleasure yourself four times in a day it starts to feel more like work than pleasure the fourth time around). And that's assuming by "all night" we mean the full 7-12 hours with around 45 minutes - 1 hour to rest inbetween. Not to mention the line about "exhausting" them which would mean she probably did it with some of them more than once. :->
Then again, I suppose it MIGHT be feasible for a woman. After all when you get right down to it they don't need play as much of an active part as men do if you know what I mean...
It's a pretty minor point and given Procopius's obvious loathing for the Empress Theodora almost certainly something he dreamed up to make her look bad*. Still, I was kind of curious. Is it even possible for a woman to have intercourse with a large number of men in one night and not collapse after the tenth or twelfth or whatever one?
I heard about this forum so I figured I might as well ask you guys...

*Well, I suppose it kind of links up with his contention that the Emperor was a demon. Or maybe Theodora was, apparently, as I'm pretty sure this is getting into superhuman physical durability here.

"Often she would go with... ten young men or more... and would lie with her fellow-diners in turn the whole night long: when she had reduced them to exhaustion, she would go to their menials, as many as thirty on occassion, and copulate with every one of them..."

Yep it is possible.

Men are reduced to exhaustion pretty easily - they ejaculate and it's over. And copulate may have well meant oral sex or a 3 minute wham bang thank you ma'm type of encounter.

Women are capable of having sex much longer than men - and capable of essentially unlimited orgasms.

I doubt she did much more than sleep during the day after.

Part of what determines whether we are intelligent human beings or not is to have the ability to discern whats real and what is exaggerated.Stories that are passed on thru the years, and written and re-wriiten tend to be exaggerated for the sake of sensationalism and do not reflect the exact truth. However,lets say some of this is true.
Questions I ask are:
What type of birth control did she use? I would guess they did not know what birth control was so I would say none.


When she got pregnant, did she just get cast aside and get replaced by a fresh girl? I'm sure.

Who brought up the children? Certainly none of those guys.

This doesn't sound a heck of a different than gang rape.... where a potion (alcohol) was probably given to "encourage" or "persuade" her to keep on going.

It is also assumed that she orgasmed every time (thus making her tired) which may not be even close to what happened. Probably those guys did not know what a female orgasm was.(similar to many guys today who just don't care)


From a man's point of view, a man would be considered very lucky to go around 5 times. I would guess most give up after 3.
They had a test with some porn people on tv about a year ago. This guy was trying for a record...after just a few orgasms (all with different girls)resting in-between, he gave up...he just couldn't go on.
Now, this was a "professional".

"Yep it is possible.
Men are reduced to exhaustion pretty easily - they ejaculate and it's over. And copulate may have well meant oral sex or a 3 minute wham bang thank you ma'm type of encounter.
Women are capable of having sex much longer than men - and capable of essentially unlimited orgasms."

Interesting. Though personally it still sounds made up to me. Simply because most of what Procopius says about her -um- proclivities is basically the kind of stuff you would expect to see made up to make somebody look as bad as possible to contemporary Romans...
It was very common for people in the ancient world to simply make up stuff about public or historical figures, for the simple reason that it was very difficult to actually prove anything wrong with the kind of investigative techniques (or lack of thereof) available. If modern campaigns followed their model we'd probably be seeing attack ads in the Presidential race branding the candidates as rapists, murderers, pedophiles, and Satan incarnate. And they say modern political dialog is vicious.

"What type of birth control did she use? I would guess they did not know what birth control was so I would say none."

Well Procopius says she had many abortions... I'm not exactly an expert on the medical technology of the time but I presume it was possible though like most ancient medical procedures it was probably cringe-worthily crude. It would have been possible though, theoretically.

"Who brought up the children? Certainly none of those guys."

Procopius relates an anecdote that she once got pregnant and did not notice in time to have an abortion safely (I can't give you the exact quote as I don't have the book with me right now). Supposedly the father, seeing how annoyed she was at not being able to just "get rid of it" as it were, was certain she would resort to infanticide and took the child away with him to Arabia.
Years later when the child was grown up he went to her court and asked for an audience with her. When she was told he was her son she became fearful of Justinian's anger at finding out and had the unfortunate youth "disappeared" (he was never seen again).
It's possible but I take it with a grain of salt.

"From a man's point of view, a man would be considered very lucky to go around 5 times. I would guess most give up after 3.
They had a test with some porn people on tv about a year ago. This guy was trying for a record...after just a few orgasms (all with different girls)resting in-between, he gave up...he just couldn't go on.
Now, this was a "professional"."

Now that I believe.

What a bitch, she could not have had a pussy left after all that dick. that's just self-mutilation. I am tired and saatisfied with just one every once a week.