136 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book VII. 



Egypt, 8 as many as seven children are occasionally produced at 

 one birth. 9 



^ Individuals are occasionally born, who belong to both sexes ; 

 such persons we call by the name of hermaphrodites ; 10 they 

 were formerly called Androgyni, and were looked upon as 

 monsters, 11 but at the present day they are employed for sensual 

 purposes. 12 



Pompeius Magnus, among the decorations of his theatre, 13 

 erected certain statues of remarkable persons, which had been 

 executed with the greatest care by artists of the very highest 



Anim. B. vii., "One woman, at four births, gave birth to twenty children. 

 For she brought forth five at a time, and the greater part of them were 

 reared." 



8 It was a very general opinion, that the waters of the Nile possess the 

 property of promoting fecundity. Seneca mentions it as an acknowledged 

 fact, Nat. Qusest. B. iii. c. 2.5. B. 



9 There are well-authenticated accounts of four children having been 

 produced at one birth ; but, beyond this, we have no statements in which 

 we can place much confidence. In a note by Dalechamps, we have an 

 example of the credulity of the authors who have treated on this topic, as 

 well modern as ancient. B. In the recent volumes, however, of " Notes 

 and Queries," we find some apparently well-authenticated cases of women 

 being delivered of five children at a birth. Nathaniel "Wanley, in his 

 " Wonders of the Little World," also gives some apparently authentic in- 

 stances of as many as five children being born at a birth : but we must be 

 excused giving credit to the story, quoted by him, of Matilda or Margaret, 

 Countess of Henneberg, who was said to have been delivered, on the Fri- 

 day before Palm-Sunday, in 1276, " of 365 cbildren, half sons and half 

 daughters, with the exception of one, which was an hermaphrodite, all 

 complete and well-fashioned, of the bigness of chickens new hatched, 

 saith Camerarius." 



10 From Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes or Mercury, and Aphrodite 

 or Venus. According to the poetic story as told by Ovid, Met. B. iv., he 

 was united in one body, which bore the characteristics of both sexes, withj 

 the nymph Salmacis. 



11 Two cases of this description are mentioned by Livy, B. xxvii. c. 37, 

 and B. xxxi. c. 12. In this latter passage, Livy enumerates the following 

 prodigious births ; among the Sabines, two children of doubtful sex ; at 

 Frusino, a lamb with a sow's head ; at Sinuessa, a pig with a human 

 head ; and among the Lucani, a foal with five feet. He informs us that 

 the hermaphrodites were thrown into the sea. B. 



12 Cuvier says, " From time to time we do see persons of this nature ; 

 and it is not long ago that such a being was exhibited in Paris, though 

 certainly not of a nature to have been * in deliciis,' at the present day." 



13 Pliny gives further particulars of this theatre in B. xxxvi. c. 24. It 

 was the first stone theatre erected at Borne, and was built B.C. 55, and 

 contained 40,000 spectators. 



