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" Aristophanes, in Plato's "Symposium", is purported to suggest that human form was not always as it is today:
Originally, humans were spherical, with four arms, four legs, and two faces on either side of a single head. (In evolutionary terms, it's hard to see the advantage of this construction.) Such was their hubris that they dared to challenge the gods themselves. Zeus, in his wisdom, split the upstarts in two, each half becoming a distinct entity.
Since then, men and women have been running around in a panic, searching for their lost counterparts, in a desire to be whole again.
(Plato makes clear what he thinks of this theory by having Socrates casually dismiss it. We should at least give some credit to Aristophanes for originality.) "
― David Mazzucchelli , Asterios Polyp