While researching eunuchs for my first novel about a 6th-century B.C. Ethiopian eunuch, I ran across a man named Favorinus, a 2nd-century orator famed in Athens and Rome. Wikipedia calls him a man of “great oratorical powers,” but Polemon of Laodicea, a famous physiognomist during that time and a bitter rival, seems to have erased that legacy by claiming that Favorinus was “born without testicles.” When he said it, people believed him and took it literally.
About 70 years after Favorinus’s death, another orator,
Philostratus, echoed Polemon sentiments, calling Favorinus
a “hermaphrodite.” Since that time, Favorinus has been
called a congenital eunuch and today is known as one of the
most famous intersex people to ever have lived on earth.
I don’t know though. Is it true that he really was a congenital
eunuch, or is that all just fiction fueled by rivalry? Did
Favorinus himself confirm this? Anyone close in his family?
Is there anything else from his time? Are there physician
records or contemporary documents to back it up?
Why does the only claim from his time come from an enemy,
and later accounts, like Philostratus’s, are from those who
never met him? Was it true or has a mean comment
elaborated on and written in history, overshadowed this
man’s entire legacy as a brilliant orator. As anybody else
ever talked this? Does anybody have anything that
substantiates Polemon’s claim. If anything documented from
his own time to verify this.
I really would like to hear from some folks on this.
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