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.
For Ovid, women inhabit the landscape as readers and creators of meaning as well as objects of representation; it is by their perversae mentes that the Augustan message of moral rebirth is resisted, reconsidered, and (ultimately) rejected. Far from being passive objects, or even passive recipients, of ideological statements, women for Ovid are a disruptive presence in the landscape, as they refuse to see what they are supposed to see, to imagine what they are supposed to imagine, and to do what they are supposed to do.
Kristina Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life
“Ovid’s uncertainty over what kind of gods are in charge of his world in the Metamorphoses shows both that gods are unworthy of respect, and that it is dangerous not to respect them: the poem problematizes both belief and non-belief.”
@readingancientclassics on Instagram is dedicated to discussions of ancient texts, reviews of myth retellings, and group read-alongs of classical literature. I’d love for you to join me there
“Observe what tints the lovely earth puts forth: The better ivies come of themselves, The lovelier arbutus grows in lonely grottoes, Pure water flows in unimproved courses, Beaches gemmed with native pebbles seduce, Birds sing the sweeter for lack of art.”
“Not costly pyramids led up to the stars, Nor Jove’s house in Elis that imitates heaven, Nor the precious fortune of Mausolus’ tomb, Can avoid the ultimate condition - death. Either fire or rain will take away their glories - Overborne by their own weight, they will fall In ruin beneath the blows of the years: But the name achieved by wit shall not decline With time: by wit distinction stands immortal.”
@readingancientclassics on Instagram is dedicated to discussions of ancient texts, reviews of myth retellings, and group read-alongs of classical literature. I’d love for you to join me there
Plugging my Instagram here! I’m on Instagram under @readingancientclassics, where I post discussions of both ancient literature and modern myth retellings, as well as organizing group read-alongs/online bookclubs! I would absolutely love for you to join me there - feel free to follow & share your thoughts on any of the books/topics raised in the posts!
