204 i Flora Unveiled
Significantly, Salmacis’s embrace of Hermaphrodite is compared to the grafting of trees.
Salmacis is, in fact, a vegetation deity. Once grafted to Salmacis, Hermaphrodite loses
his virility and becomes “tamed” and “impotent.” This loss of sexuality probably reflects
Salmacis’s dominance over Hermaphrodite in their relationship.
In Greek sculpture, Hermaphrodite is always represented with a female body and male
genitals. As a cult figure, she is effectively a goddess who has acquired male procreative
powers. The earliest known mention of the cult of Hermaphrodite in Greek literature is
in a book called Characters by Theophrastus, a student of Arisotle’s, widely regarded as the
founder of the field of botany. This is particularly significant for our purposes since it estab-
lishes unequivocally that Theophrastus was familiar with the concept of hermaphrodism,
even though he never applied it to plants.
Theophrastus wrote on a wide range of subjects, little of which has survived. In his book
on Ethics, Theophrastus distinguished various human virtues and their related vices. In
Characters, he personifies these vices in brief, satirical sketches of various Athenian types.
Among the thirty characters Theophrastus lampoons are “The Flatterer,” “The Surly Man,”
“The Officious Man,” “The Offensive Man,” and “The Loquacious Man.” The reference to
Hermaphrodites is found in the sketch of “The Superstitious Man”:
Also, on the fourth and the seventh days of each month he will order his servants to
mull wine and will go out and buy myrtle- wreaths, frankincense, and smilax; and, on
coming in, will spend the day in crowning the Hermaphrodites.^43The reference to the fourth day, considered the luckiest day for a wedding, suggests a
possible association with the institution of marriage, in which men and women figuratively
become one. Some examples of sculptures representing Hermaphrodite are shown in Figure
7.8. Often, the female figure is raising a long skirt revealing male genitals underneath.
Why did explicit sculptures of hermaphroditic deities suddenly appear in Athens in the
fourth century bce? Just prior to this time, in the latter half of the fifth century bce, Athens
was wracked by political and social disruptions brought about by the Peloponnesian War
and two outbreaks of plague.^44 In addition, a major earthquake may have caused considerable
damage around 430 bc. Many commentators have pointed out that an interest in foreign
divinities coincided with this series of disasters. Cults related to healing arose throughout
Attica during the plague and its aftermath. Other foreign divinities, such Isis, Cybele, Attis,
and Adonis, all entered the Athenian pantheon late in the fifth century bce as well. By 415
bce, the population of Athens had been seriously depleted by the combination of war and
plague. Thus one can imagine that a potent new fertility deity like Hermpahrodite would
have been warmly embraced by Greek households during this bleak period.
But while androgyny and hermaphrodism were perfectly acceptable in gods and god-
desses, biological hermaphrodites— humans who possessed both male and female geni-
tals— were considered to be monstrosities. When a child was born either with real or
imagined signs of hermaphrodism, the entire community felt threatened by the gods. The
child was usually left exposed outdoors and died. In Roman times, even worse fates fell
to those unfortunate few who manifested hermaphroditic characters after reaching adult-
hood. They were reportedly burned alive to appease the gods. ^45