Father or Mother? : Stories of Male Pregnancies in Phlegon’s De mirabilibus

Abstract

Phlegon was a representative of the genre „paradoxography”, telling stories about marvellous, interesting and fabulous events and phenomena. Frequently he is looked at as a pure fictionist without any real background and relevance from the point of view of historic research. However a comparative analysis of his stories and our recent knowledge in natural sciences indicate the feasibility of the background of his „tales”. Accordingly even such fantastic topics like male pregnancy and parturition may potentially have a core of truth.