Herodotus[294] relates how the Scythians had made themselves masters of all Asia, and how some of them on their homeward march had plundered the very ancient temple of Venus Urania at Ascalon, a town of Syria; and then proceeds as follows:
“On such of the Scythians as plundered the temple at Ascalon, and on their posterity for successive generations, the goddess inflicted the θήλεια νούσος—feminine disease. And the Scythians say themselves it is for this cause they suffer the sickness, and moreover that any who visit the Scythian country may see among them what is the condition of those whom the Scythians call Ἐναρέες”. (a Scythian word, probably having the same meaning as Greek ἀνδρόγυνοι—men-women).
The different views that have been formulated at different times as to the nature of the νοῦσος θήλεια may be readily classified as follows. It was regarded as:—
1. a Vice, this vice being,
a) Paederastia; manifestly the oldest explanation,—already alluded to by Longinus, but specially championed by Bouhier[295], also entertained by the interpreters of Longinus, Toll and Pearce, as well as by Casaubon (Epistolae) and Costar[296];
b). Onanism (Self Masturbation),—a view Sprengel[297] is inclined to decide in favour of.
2. a bodily Disease,—to wit,
a). Haemorrhoids (Piles); an opinion maintained by Paul Thomas de Girac[298], Valckenaar in his Notes to Herodotus, Bayer[299], and the authors of the “General History of the World”[300];
b). actual Menstruation, for which le Fèvre and Dacier would seem to have declared;
c). Gonorrhoea (Clap), which Patin[301], Hensler[302] and Degen[303] understood to be meant;