ABSTRACT
Novel or historical account, echoing hagiography or explaining material culture; whatever Agnodice is, this is not a work by a well-known author from the canon of ancient literature. Nor, unlike the sources used by Laqueur, does it come from natural philosophy or medicine. Instead, it is a story that is hard to pin down, not only in its genre but also in its content, which shifted over the period of its popularity, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, in particular on whether Agnodice was regarded as midwife, or as physician. As the previous chapter has already indicated, the uncertain genre of the story made Agnodice’s uncertain gender no less appealing to its users, male and female alike. In its various versions, the ‘true sex’ of the central character is generally very easily disguised by changes to her clothing and hair; Hyginus makes this seem simple, as all she had to do was cut her hair and wear male clothing (Lat. demptis capillis habitu virili). But, as we have seen, this challenges Galen’s comment in On Seed, quoted in Chapter 1, that ‘We also distinguish man from woman … not undressing them first so that we may examine the difference in their parts, but viewing them with their clothes on.’ 1 For Galen here, sexual difference is obvious without uncovering the body itself: for Hyginus, as in the tradition of the ancient novel, disguise can confuse the audience. However, in later versions the simple uncovering of Agnodice’s lower body no longer features as the only way in which her ‘true sex’ is ultimately revealed.
