Chapter 3 Salmacis, Hermaphrodite, and the Inversion of Gender: Allegorical Interpretations and Pictorial Representations of an Ovidian Myth, ca. 1300–1770 Karl Enenkel Introduction: The Ovidian Myth and Its Gender Narrative Although from antiquity on, the concept of the nymph has included a great variety of minor deities connected with different local cults and various habi- tats, all nymphs seem to have in common that they were imagined as young, beautiful, gracious girls, and that they were thought to behave in a female and feminine way; if attached to Diana, they were believed to act as virgins. The myth of Salmacis, however, refers to a different kind of nymph: a nymph that excels in the inversion of “normal” gendered behaviour, and that was thought to have caused the disturbing bodily phenomenon of Hermaphroditism.1 The myth as it was depicted and interpreted in the early modern period is entirely based on a literary invention by Ovid, in his Metamorphoses (IV, 288–388).2 Ovid’s highly imaginative story, however, does not give an account 1 On the physical and medical phenomenon of Hermaphroditism in Greco-Roman antiquity and in the Renaissance (which in itself will not be the topic of this contribution) cf., inter alia, Brisson L., Sexual Ambivalence: Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, transl. J. Lloyd (Berkeley, California U.P.: 2002; originally French, Paris: 1999); Long K.P., Hermaphrodites in Renaissance Europe (Aldershot: 2006); Duval Jacques, Des Hermaphrodits […] (Rouen, David Geuffroy: 1612). 2 Except for Ovid’s narrative in his Metamorphoses, there are no Greek or Latin sources from antiquity that provide other substantial versions of the myth. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus only briefly mentioned the love of Salmacis for Hermaphroditus in his Bibliothece IV, 6. But this had no effect on the pictorial representations. Heinze Th., “Hermaphroditos”, in Der neue Pauly 5 (1999), col. 418, states: ‘Einzig erhaltene mythische Erzählung […] is Ov. Met. 4, 274–388’. Furthermore, Heinze seems to suggest that Ovid’s account may go back to a nar- rative ‘orientalischer Herkunft’. This, however, remains very speculative. Anyway, we do not have a single piece of evidence of this. Here I use inventio primarily as a neutral t.t. of rhetoric and poetica: this means that it was Ovid who ‘designed’ and shaped the story as a piece of literature; in the case of the Salmacis narrative, it implies that in all probability, he invented the great majority of the details. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004364356_004 54 Enenkel of the actual religious rites of the Greek cult of bisexual Aphroditus; this cult had its roots in Asia Minor or Cyprus, and it was transferred to other places, such as Athens, from the 4th century BC on. In this cult Ἀφρόδιτος was ven- erated in the form of bisexual statues: its upper part resembled a beautiful woman dressed in fine clothes; its lower part, however, was naked and showed male genitals with an erection.3 There may have been a cult of Aphroditus or Hermaphroditus in Halicarnassus in Asia Minor (today Bodrum, in Turkey); the Roman architect Vitruvius (second half of the 1st century BC) mentioned a temple of Aphrodite and Hermes in the surrounding area of Halicarnassus,4 but it is not clear whether that was the place where Hermaphroditus was ven- erated, and “Vitruvius’s temple” could not be identified.5 Salmacis, which was a famous bath and fountain in the surrounding area of Halicarnassus, may have had a cult too.6 Recently, in the harbour of Bodrum a Greek inscription was found that points to the existence of the local cult in Hellenistic times.7 However, in Ovid’s inventio religious veneration is of lesser importance: his story primarily represents a playful, literary, charming, and humorous aetiol- ogy of the transvestite demigod Hermaphroditus, in the form of an erotic vir- tuoso narrative in which the inversion of ‘normal’ gendered behaviour is of 3 Cf. Hoheisel K. , art. “Hermaphroditos”, in Realenzyklopädie für Antike und Christentum 14 (1988) 650–682; Ajootian A., art. “Hermaphroditus”, in LIMC V, 1, 268–285; V, 2, 190–198; Hermann P., “Hermaphroditos”, in Roscher vol. I, 2, cols. 2314–2342; Delcourt M., Hermaphrodite. Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiquity (trans. J. Nicholson) (London: 1961; originally in French, published in 1956 with the title Hermaphrodite. Mythes et rites de la bisexualité dans l’Antiquité classique); eadem, “Hermaphroditea. Recherches sur l’ětre double promoteur de fertilité dans le monde classique”, in Latomus 86 (1966). Andrea Raehs deals with the pictorial and religious representations of Hermaphrodite in antiquity and the Renaissance, but unfortunately her study is not specific enough and suffers from numerous misunderstandings and lacunae. Cf. Raehs A., Zur Ikonographie des Hermaphroditen. Begriff und Problem von Hermaphroditismus und Androgynie in der Kunst (Frankfurt a. M. et alii: 1990). For the Renaissance, the number of pictorial representations she found is surprisingly small (cf. ibidem 65–75). 4 De architectura II, 8, 11–12. 5 Cf. Heinze, “Hermaphroditos” 418. 6 Salmacis, the bath and fountain situated in the surroundings of Halicarnassus, was famous for its crystal-clear water; in the first century BC, however, there was a rumour that the water of the bath might cause venereal diseases. However, the architect Vitruvius praised the quality of Salmacis’s water und tried to show that the negative rumours were pointless (De architectura II, 8, 11). Cf. Binder C., “Salmakis”, in Der Neue Pauly, vol. X (2001), cols. 1259–1260; Hermann, “Hermaphroditos”, cols. 2317–2319. 7 Cf. Isager S. – Pedersen P. (eds.), The Salmakis Inscription and Hellenistic Halkarnassos (U.P. of Southern Denmark: 2004)..