#ancient sexuality

Classics claim check: did the Romans proactively seek out children born with ambiguous genitalia—whom today we would call intersex—and kill them?

What are our sources? Livy, Pliny the Elder, and Julius Obsequens.

*To begin with, no ancient writer records the killing of a child born with ambiguous genitalia contemporary with the time they lived or are writing. All examples of the murder of intersex children are depicted as happening at some time in the past.

Infants or children who were labeled “semimas”, “androgynus”, or “hermaphroditus” are recorded among lists of ill-omens and portents that occurred during times of crisis. They are often listed alongside several other omens, for example a lamb born with a pig’s head, a pig born with a human’s head, a colt born with five feet, a child was born with an elephants head, it rained milk, it rained rocks, a cow spoke, the sky glowed red even though it was clear. (Liv. AUC XXXI.12; XXVII.11; XXVII.37; XXXIX.22.)

Pliny the Elder, NH VII.iii.34: “We call those who are born with sex characteristics of both ‘hermaphrodites’, called a long time ago ‘androgynus’ and considered portents, now however in pleasures/delights/as favorites” (Giguntur et utriusque sexu quos hermaphroditos vocamus, olim androgynos vocatos et in prodigiis habitos, nunc vero in deliciis.)

Julius Obsequens (4th/5th cent. CE) wrote a work (prodigiorum liber) listing the occurrence of portents/prodigies from the 3rd cent. BCE to the end of the 1st cent. BCE. It is believed that Obsequens’ primary source is Livy. Obsequens lists 9 cases of intersex children being killed, 8 of them by being thrown into a body of water, between 186 BCE and 92 BCE. However, like in Livy, all these instances are listed alongside other portents and date to a time of crisis for Rome, usually a military or political crisis.

Verdict: No, at least not in any systematic way. That intersex children are born or are found specifically during a time of crisis alongside other portents takes away from the credibility that intersex children were sought out by Roman religious officials and then killed. Livy’s recording of portents, which Julius Obsequens reiterates, has a specific agenda. Portents and prodigies amplify the crises experienced by the Romans to a divine level. Hannibal’s success against the Romans during the Second Punic War as recorded by Livy was seen as an overturning of nature itself and thus must have been accompanied by divine portents that reflected a universe turned on its head. Does this mean that Romans saw children born with ambiguous genitalia as unnatural or undesirable, yes probably. But more than anything it is a comment on the state of the Roman world during a particular moment.

On a different note, according to Diodorus Siculus (c. 90 BCE–c. 30 BCE) and Aulus Gellius (c. 125 CE–180 CE), some intersex people could be quite successful in the ancient Mediterranean world.

Around about the time Gnathainion was on the verge of retiring and no longer acting as a courtesan, on account of the pleasure she took in an actor - one Andronikos - there was a particularly handsome coppersmith in Athens. When Andronikos had gone abroad, after Gnathainion had borne him a son, the smith would not stop pestering her to name her price. He kept on pursuing her; and after spending a huge quantity of gold, she agreed.

Being nothing more than a rude mechanical, when he was later sitting in a shoe-maker’s with some fellows, he idly gossiped about Gnathainion, telling them that they’d never had sex in any other way than her riding on top of him over and over again, five times.

Later, Andronikos got wind of what had happened. Recently arrived back from Corinth, he flew into a rage, and cursed Gnathainion bitterly while he was drunk. He said, “I wasn’t ever worth, in your eyes, trying this position with – but common bastards can enjoy it?”

Then Gnathainion said to him, “I didn’t want to embrace him, the pig, covered in ashes from head to foot. But after I’d taken so much gold from him, I allowed him to approach, and decided on something cunning: I’d embrace only the tip of his body - and, as far as it stuck out, it was still his very smallest part.”

(Athenaios, Professors at Dinner 581c-f; my translation)

“ἐν ταῖς Ἀθήναις χαλκοτύπος σφόδρ᾽ εὐφυής, καταλελυκυίας τῆς

Γναθαινίου σχεδὸν οὐκέτι θ᾽ ἑταιρεῖν ὑπομενούσης διὰ τό πως τὸν Ἀνδρόνικον ἡδέως αὐτῆς ἔχειν τὸν ὑποκριτὴν τότε δ᾽ ὄντος ἐν ἀποδημίᾳ, ἐξ οὗ γεγονὸς ἦν ἄρρεν αὐτῷ παιδίον, οὐχ ὑπομένουσαν τὴν Γναθαίνιον λαβεῖν μίσθωμα, λιπαρῶν δὲ καὶ προσκείμενος πολὺ δαπανήσας ἔσχεν αὐτὴν χρυσίον.

ἀνάγωγος ὢν δὲ καὶ βάναυσος παντελῶς ἐν σκυτοτομείῳ μετά τινων καθήμενος κατεσχόλαζε τῆς Γναθαινίου λέγων, ἑτέρῳ τρόπῳ μὲν συγγεγενῆσθαι μηδενί, ἑξῆς καθιππάσθαι δ᾽ ὑπ᾽ αὐτῆς πεντάκις.

μετὰ ταῦτ᾽ ἀκούσας Ἀνδρόνικος τὸ γεγονὸς. ἐκ τῆς Κορίνθου προσφάτως ἀφιγμένος ὀργιζόμενος πικρῶς τε λοιδορούμενος παρὰ τὸν πότον ταῦτ᾽ ἔλεγε τῇ Γναθαινίῳ, αὐτὸν μὲν ἀξιοῦντα μὴ τετευχέναι τούτου παρ᾽ αὐτῆς μηδέποτε τοῦ σχήματος, ἐν τῷδε δ᾽ ἑτέρους ἐντρυφᾶν μαστιγίας.

ἔπειτεν εἰπεῖν φασι τὴν Γναθαίνιον ‘ περιλαμβάνειν γὰρ οὐκ ἐδοκίμαζον, τάλαν, ἄνθρωπον ἄχρι τοῦ στόματος ἠσβολωμένον διὰ τοῦθ᾽ ὑπέμεινα πολὺ λαβοῦσα χρυσίον, ἐφιλοσόφησά θ᾽, ἵν᾽ ἄκρον ὡς μάλιστα καὶ ἐλάχιστον αὐτοῦ περιλάβω τοῦ σώματος.’

One of Asklepiades’ defining features as a love epigrammist is the variety he depicts. He’s not alwayspositiveabout it, as in the first case - and in fact he often writes miserably or about misery - but he surveys the breadth of romance and sexuality as he thought of it. Here, therefore, we learn of two lesbian Samians, an exotic (probably Nubian, but she was in any case noted for being both coal-black and ‘native’ instead of Greek) royal mistress to Asklepiades’ ruler Ptolemy Philadelphos, and a woman who likes adolescent youths and, seducing them, dresses in the petasosandkhlamys.

Two women from Samos, Bitto and Nannion, don’t want to
come to Aphrodite on the goddess’ terms.
They’re abandoning her for something else, something wrong. Lady Kypris,
curse their bed, these women who turn their backs on you.

Didyme’s bloom has enchanted me, oh god! I’m
melting, like wax by a fire, in the light of her beauty.
If she’s black, so what? Coals are too; but when
we tend them, they still glow, like a rose’s unfurled petals.

Dorkion, that lover of youths, just like a boy, knows
how to loose the swift arrow of Common Love,
striking them with desire from her eyes like a lightning bolt, and from her shoulders
[…]
with her boy’s hat, her boy’s cloak shows her naked thigh.

(Asklepiades in the Greek Anthology (5.207, 5.210, 12.161); my translation)

αἱ Σάμιαι Βιττὼ καὶ Νάννιον εἰς Ἀφροδίτης
φοιτᾶν τοῖς αὐτῆς οὐκ ἐθέλουσι νόμοις,
εἰς δ᾽ ἕτερ᾽ αὐτομολοῦσιν, ἃ μὴ καλά. δεσπότι Κύπρι,
μίσει τὰς κοίτης τῆς παρὰ σοὶ φυγάδας

τῷ θαλλῷ Διδύμη με συνήρπασεν ὤ μοι. ἐγὼ δὲ
τήκομαι, ὡς κηρὸς πὰρ πυρί, κάλλος ὁρῶν.
εἰ δὲ μέλαινα, τί τοῦτο ; καὶ ἄνθρακες: ἀλλ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἐκείνους
θάλψωμεν, λάμπους᾽ ὡς ῥόδεαι κάλυκες.

Δόρκιον ἡ φιλέφηβος ἐπίσταται, ὡς ἁπαλὸς παῖς,
ἕσθαι πανδήμου Κύπριδος ὠκὺ βέλος,
ἵμερον ἀστράπτουσα κατ᾽ ὄμματος, ἠδ᾽ ὑπὲρ ὤμων
[…]
σὺν πετάσῳ γυμνὸν μηρὸν ἔφαινε χλαμύς.