More on menstruating women and mirrors
Illustration of a red mullet (Mullus barbatus L.). From the book Gervais and Boulart, Les Poissons tome 2. Paris: J. Rothschild, ca. 1860, which I learned about from the wikimedia entry this image comes from.
I covered some of the Aristotelian tradition here. This time, an obscure man named Bithus (Bythus?) from Dyrrhachium, (modern Durrës in Albania), if we can trust Pliny and the manuscript tradition.
“Bithus of Dyrrachium says that mirrors dimmed by the look [sc. of menstruating women] recover their brightness when the same women return their gaze to the backs of them, and that all such powers are broken if women keep mullet-fish on them.”
bithus durrachinus hebetata aspectu specula recipere nitorem tradit isdem aversa rursus contuentibus, omnemque vim talem resolvi, si mullum piscem secum habeant.