The Machlyes and Auses: Fierce Female Tribes of Ancient Libya, North Africa

Nestled between the Atlas Mountains and the Nile River, amidst wild beast and unforgiving terrain, Libya was a place of wonder and uniqueness in the ancient world. Many associate this land with the great Amazons, female warriors who proved formidable opponents to Greek armies. Although their legends are repeatedly dismissed as myth, there can be no debating that from the ancient’s perspective, this land was ruled entirely by women.

Among the tales ancient historians and the like told of North Africa, stand two rather remarkable sister tribes: the Machlyes and Auses. Both situated along Lake Tritonis in the Northwest region of Libya, they were often described as having an ambiguous gender, both masculine and feminine characteristics. Gaius Plinius Secundus, otherwise known as Pliny the Elder, referred to the Machlyes specifically as “hermaphrodites.”

…there have been found ordinary Hermaphrodites, called Androgyni, of a double nature, and resembling both sexes, male and female, who have carnal knowledge one of another interchangeably by turns.” (Pliny the Elder, VII, ii, 15)

Essentially, as Pliny claimed, the people of the Machlyes tribe could function both as men and women, intersexually, possibly even going as far as asexual reproduction, but that is not clear in his writings. Pliny further elaborated that Aristotle had said their masculine and feminine sides were split right down the middle of their bodies, with a female breast on the left and a male breast on the right. Herodotus mentioned that they wore their hair long, cut and styled in such a way that for the Machlyes, it hung down their backs, and for the Auseans, down their front. Albeit that these descriptions are unusual; perhaps, to some extent, whether accurate or not, it may reflect a vague interpretation of a culture not well-understood.