An oracle tells King Alexander that a “biformed one” will appear and bring about Alexander's demise. No one understands this until the king dies and the following accounts are discovered.
Herais is essentially an intersexed person from an era that would not have been able to define such. The story goes that Herais was a woman who was married to a man. During he marriage Herais fell ill from a large swollen area in her groin. Basically, she had a penis that had been encased in flesh that looked like a vagina. It was assumed she had been having anal sex with her husband, that “she had consorted with her husband in the fashion of males” (Fawkes 177). Eventually, the penis bursts from the fleshy mound, testicles and all. She was deemed a hermaphrodite, a term relating to the union of Hermes and Aphrodite, who became a single entity that was both woman and man. She returned to her father's house and kept her penis secret.
When the father refused to turn over his daughter to her husband who was unaware of everything, the authorities got involved and it was taken to the courts. The court could not decide whether the father's rights over his daughter too precedence over a husband's rights over his wife. When it looked like she would be forced to return to her husband, she whips it out and asks if they are going to “force a man to live with a man” in wedlock (178).
As a result of all of this, Hermais takes her father's name, Diophantos, enlists in the cavalry and lives the rest of her life as a man. Her husband had been madly in love with Hermais, can't deal with losing her and the shame of having had anal sex, and kills himself. In his will he names Diophantos as his heir, and we are left with the sentiment, “So she who was born a woman took upon herself a man's reputation and daring, whereas the man turned out to be weaker in mind than a woman” (179).
Relevance of Herais/Diophantos
