138 plint's natural history. [Book VII. 



also, of a child at Sagimtum, which returned immediately into 

 its mother's womb, the same year in which that place was 

 destroyed by Hannibal. 



(4 ) The change of females into males is undoubtedly no 

 fable. We find it stated in the Annals, that, in the consulship 

 of P. Licinius Crassus and C. Cassius Longinus,^^ a girl, who 

 was living at Casinum"^ with her parents, was changed into a 

 boy ; and that, by the command of the Aruspices, he was con- 

 veyed away to a desert island. Licinius Mucianus informs us, 

 that he once saw at Argos a person whose name was then Ares- 

 con, though he had been formerly called Arescusa : that this per- 

 son had been married to a man, but that, shortly after, a beard 

 and marks of virility made their appearance, upon which he 

 took to himself a wife. He had also seen a boy at Smyrna,-^ to 

 whom the very same thing had happened. I myself saw in 

 Africa one L. Cossicius, a citizen of Thysdris,^^ who had been 

 changed into a man the very day on which he was married 

 to a husband.^" When women are delivered of twins, it rarely 



additions which the story had gained, in the writings of various authors. 

 Cicero, in various parts of his writings, refers to the account of the Hippo- 

 centaur as a fabulous tale ; Tusc. Quaest. B. i. c. 27 ; de Nat. Deor, B. i. c. 

 38, and B. ii. c. 2 ; De Divin. B. ii. c. 21.— B. 



22 Consuls A.TJ.C. 581. 



23 See B. iii. c. 9. Hardouin remarks that Aulus Gellius, in copying 

 from this passage, seems to have read the word " Casiui," as though it 

 were C. Asinii, meaning that the boy belonged to one C. Asinius. How- 

 ever, it is pretty clear that the reading adopted is the right one, PHny 

 hrvdng been careful to give the various localities at which these wonderful 

 facts occurred. 



2* Phlegon tells us that this happened in the first year of Nero, and that 

 the name of the youth, while supposed to be a girl, was Philotis. 



2'^ See B. V. c. 4, 5. 



"^ A case of this description is mentioned by Ambrose Pare. The indi- 

 vidual was brought up as a girl, but, in consequence of a sudden muscular 

 exertion, the organs of the male were developed, which had previously 

 been concealed internally. It may be remarked, that a great proportion 

 of the well-authenticated cases of a supposed change of sex have been from 

 the female to the male, evidently of the kind mentioned by Pare, where 

 the male organs have been concealed in childhood, and become subsequently 

 developed. Cases, however, have occasionally occurred of the contrary 

 kind, arising probably from the unusual size of the clitoris ; there are also 

 certain cases, where, from the malformation of the parts, the sex is actually 

 doubtful, or where even a certain degree of the two may exist, as has 

 been stated above, in Note 51 to Chapter 2. This paragraph of Pliny is 

 quoted by Aulus Gellius, B. ix. c. 4.— B. 



