Really the question all along is not of castrated persons at all, and cannot be, if the sense of the whole passage is taken into account; for these (castrated persons) are specially and separately forbidden access to the Temple in the next sentence,—a fact which nothing but the introduction into the text of the conjunction γὰρ (for) by _Mangey_, (following a MS. it is true), has obscured. The words as they stand are Θλαδιὰς [γὰρ] καὶ ἀποκεκομμένους τὰ γεννητικὰ ἐλαύνει, (he expells all eunuchs, those with strangled testicles, and those with amputated). So if the men-women who suffered from the νοῦσος θήλεια were actual eunuchs, this would indeed be a _Pleonasmus vanus et ineptus_ (silly and idle pleonasm). _Stark_ has evidently been led to maintain the opinion he does, and to blame Mangey’s emendation, which is in any case justified, by a mistake as to the construction of the sentence. _Stark_ construed νοῦσον ἀνδρογύνων (disease of men-women), whereas the construction requires: τὴν ἄρχην ποιούμενος ἀπὸ ἀνδρογύνων, τῶν νοσούντων τὴν θήλειαν (ἀληθῆ) νόσον (beginning with men-women,—those that were sick of the feminine—true—disease), the latter words being simply in apposition to ἀνδρογύνων.
We now proceed to consider the passages from the historian _Herodian_ (170-240 A.D.). He relates[376]:
“Now he (Antoninus) had two generals, of whom the one, an oldish man but stupid and quite unacquainted with state affairs, was yet held to be a good soldier; his name was _Adventus_. The other who was called _Macrinus_, was not inexperienced in forensic practice and possessed besides some knowledge of law. Now the latter _Antoninus_ frequently assailed in public with gibes, saying he was neither a soldier nor a man, going so for as positive _insult_. For having heard that he led a somewhat free life, and abominated scanty, rough eating and drinking (in which _Antoninus_ as a hardy soldier took a pride), and wore a woman’s cloak or other elegant raiment, he accused him of ἀνανδρία and θήλεια νοῦσος (_unmanliness_ and _feminine disease_), and was constantly threatening to put him to death. _Macrinus_ could not endure such treatment and was very much exasperated. And this was the result ... etc.” Here ἀνανδρία and θήλεια νοῦσος (unmanliness and _feminine disease_) are laid to _Macrinus’_ charge by _Antoninus_ by way of insult, but it is not in any way stated that he had become actually impotent or Pathic. True ἀνανδρία (_unmanliness_) is frequently used of the Pathic, but here it refers simply to a womanish way of life in connexion with eating and drinking, whilst the θήλεια νοῦσος (_feminine disease_) is inferred from the female costume, a thing in which, as we have seen, the Pathics delighted[377].