A Certain Power

In ancient Greek and Roman [times] . . . the male hare was thought capable of bearing young and, perhaps for this reason, was associated with both transgenderism and same-sex eroticism. The poet Philostratus writes: "And let not the hare escape us, but let us . . . catch it alive as an offering most pleasing to Aphrodite . . . the hare . . . possesses the gift of Aphrodite [i.e. fertility] to an unusual degree . . . As for the male [hare], he not only [sires offspring], but also himself bears young, contrary to nature." Men desiring other men, having "found in the hare a certain power to produce love," give hares as gifts, "attempting to secure the objects of their affections by a compelling magic art."

-- Excerpted from Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit
by Randy P. Conner, David Hatfield Sparks and Mariya Sparks
p. 170

Image: Roman Hare Mosaic (350 CE).