Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

THE ANDROGYNOUS IDEA OF LIFE

in Rome (Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxxiv, 80), of which there is a copy in the beautiful statue of the Berlin Museum (No. 192). Much more common are the representations of Hermaphroditos, which were executed only for the sake of their sensual charm. We may mention hermaphroditic forms of Eros, Dionysus, and satyrs and often of Priapus. In Rome and Athens reliefs are to be seen with hermaphroditic dancers. Hermaphroditos frequently appears in statues and herms, lifting up the garment to draw attention to the erect member. A beautiful wall-painting of Pompeii? shows how Hermaphroditos is adorned with festal attire, while Priapus holds a mirror in front of him.

More sensual and, according to modern ideas, extremely obscene, is the effect of the representations exhibiting Hermaphroditos in sexual connection with Pan or with Satyrs. Now an Eros wantonly pulls away his garment, now Satyrs lustfully handle his charms, or are entangled with him in an embrace near completion or completed.

Another hermaphroditic divinity was Leucippus (Antoninus Liberalis, 17), in whose honour the festival Apodysia (the “ Festival of Undressing ”’) was celebrated at Phzstus in Crete. Leucippus had originally been a girl, who at her mother’s entreaty was changed by Leto into a young man. This is the story told by Antoninus Liberalis, who adds that sacrifice was offered in Phestus to Leto Phytia (the creator), since she had created for the girl male genitals; and that, before the wedding night, brides were put to bed by the side of a wooden

* On the Pompeian wall-painting, cf. W. Helbig, Wandgemélde der vom Vesuv verschiitteten Stidte Campaniens, with several pictures of Hermaphroditos. On the form of Hermaphroditos, cf. Herrman in Roscher’s Mythologisches Lexikon, vol. i, p. 23 19; Reinach, Cultes, mythes et religions, vol. ii, P- 319; Clarac, Musée de Sculpture, plate 666 (Paris, 1836). There are no monographs on the subject later than the work, now in great part out of date, by C. F. Heinrich (1 805), which may be supplemented by the works of Pauly Wissowa-Kroll and Roscher, and the important work of L.S.A.M. von Romer, “‘ Uber die androgynische Idee des Lebens,” in Hirschfeld’s Fahrbuch fur sexuelle Zwischenstufen (5th year, vol. ti, Leipzig, 1903).

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