_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; d). _actual loss of the Testicles, true Eunuchs_, _Mercurialis_[304] considered must have been implied; and with this view _Stark’s_ conclusion in part coincides, who understood a disease involving complete loss of virile power, both corporeal and mental, and producing an actual metamorphosis of the male type into the female. (3). _a mental Disease_, in fact a form of Melancholia. This is the view adopted by _Sauvages_[305], _Heyne_, _Bose_, _Koray_[306] and _Friedreich_. It would naturally be our task to examine the reasons alleged for and against these separate views. Supposing however we succeed in satisfactorily proving one of them to be the right one, then _ipso facto_ all the rest come to nothing; and so we propose here to essay the advocacy of the oldest of them,—the view that makes the νοῦσος θήλεια to be the vice of paederastia. _En passant_ we must call attention to the fact that under the name of paederastia must be understood not only the vicious habit of the paederast pure and simple, of the man that is who _practices_ the act, but also of the _pathic_, who offers opportunities for its commission. This is a point which above all others has been quite left out of sight by the adversaries of the view in question.