Aphrodite and Eros 400-350 BCE
"It is thirty days' journey for an unburdened man from the Maeetian lake to the river Phasis and the land of the Colchi; from the Colchi it is an easy matter to cross into Media; there is but one nation between, the Saspires; to pass these is to be in Media. Nevertheless it was not by this way that the Scythians entered; they turned aside and came by the upper and much longer road, having on their right the Caucasian mountains. There the Medes met the Scythians, who worsted them in battle and deprived them of their rule, and made themselves masters of all Asia.
Thence they marched against Egypt: and when they were in the part of Syria called Palestine, Psammetichus king of Egypt met them and persuaded them with gifts and prayers to come no further. So they turned back, and when they came on the way to the city of Ascalon in Syria, most of the Scythians passed by and did no harm, but a few remained behind and plundered the temple of Heavenly Aphrodite. This temple, as I learn from what I hear, is the oldest of all the temples of the Goddess, for the temple in Cyprus was founded from it, as the Cyprians themselves say: and the temple on Cythera was founded by Phoenicians from this same land of Syria. But the Scythians who pillaged the temple, and all their descendants after them, were afflicted by the Goddess with the "female" sickness: insomuch that the Scythians say that this is the cause of their disease, and that those who come to Scythia can see there the plight of the men whom they call "Enareis"(the meaning of this word varies from 'loss of virility' to androgynous to unmanly to transvestite in different media interpretations)."
Herodotus, The Histories: Book 1.104-105
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| Aphrodite and Eros 400-350 BCE. Cyrene, discovered in Benghazi. Purchased 1850. Louvre museum (Paris, France). |
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