Hermaphroditus: Two Views of Merging Masculine and Feminine

* Check out the new Thinker's Tavern discussion series at * This week's podcast looks at the figure of Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes (Mercury) and Aphrodite (Venus), and his encounter with the aggressive nymph Salmacis, her prayer turning them into a single being that is both male and female and neither at the same time. While Salmacis is often viewed as an aggressive woman attacking an innocent boy, an inscription at Salmacis' pool in Halicarnassus suggests a very different view of the myth. We explore the idea of the Hermaphrodite as representing the bonds of marriage and ideas about marriage, as well as its connection to Plato's myth of the proto-human in the Symposium. The articles referenced in the podcast were: Kelly, Peter. "Intersex and Intertext: Ovid's Hermaphroditus and the Early Universe," Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World , Allison Surtees and Jennifer Dyer, eds. Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Romano, Allen T. "The Invention of Marriage: Hermaphroditus and Salmacis at Halicarnassus and in Ovid," The Classical Quarterly , Vol. 59, No. 2 (Dec. 2009), pp. 543-561.

You can listen to Hermaphroditus: Two Views of Merging Masculine and Feminine online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Hermaphroditus: Two Views of Merging Masculine and Feminine is an episode from Chthonia by Brigid Burke.

This episode is 53:31 long.

This episode was published on May 26, 2025.

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