that’s piety, bitches

So I was reading through that treasure trove of ancient information known as the Suidas when I came across this interesting passage:

Meaning plucked, made smooth. But properly, pruned fig-trees; for thria are the leaves of the fig-tree. Aristophanes writes, “which of the Odomanti has unpetalled his prick?” The Odomanti are a Thracian people. The Thracians used to pluck and smooth their genitals and had them circumcised. They say Judaeans are the same. Also attested is the participle ἀποτεθρυωμένοι ["they having gone to pieces"], meaning they having gone savage. This is said in a metaphor from rushes, tethrua, which are wild and sterile plants. (s.v. Ἀποτεθρίακεν)

Kind of makes me wonder if this was one of the things that Herodotos had in mind when he said:

They agree in this with the practices called Orphic and Bacchic, which are in fact Egyptian and Pythagorean: for it is impious, too, for one partaking of these rites to be buried in woolen wrappings. There is a sacred legend about this. (The Histories 2.81)

Egyptian purity requirements for priests included full depilation (even down to the pubes) as Herodotos had earlier remarked:

The priests shave their whole body every other day, that no lice or other impure thing may adhere to them when they are engaged in the service of the gods. (2.37)

Now, that may have been part of the tradition in Thrace and Egypt but I seriously doubt the Bacchic Orphic communities in Sicily and Southern Italy did this because let’s face it – mine are an extremely hirsute people. But if my Lord Dionysos wishes my nads to be cleanly shorn I’ll do it – even if it requires going over them three or four times a day because that’s piety, bitches.

Man, I really, really hope he doesn’t …