Priapus

Fresco of Priapus, House of the Vettii, Pompeii.

In Greek mythology, Priapus (Greek: Πρίαπος) was a minor rustic fertility god of purely phallic character, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. He is most famous for this later attribute, which were clearly the focal point of his depictions, and the subsequent myth and literature which centred around his comically massive penis. His mother was Aphrodite, though his fathers varied from myth to myth and from region to region. His Roman equivalent is Mutinus Mutunus.

Mythology

Priapus was said to be a son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, or in some cases, Chione, a snow nymph. His father is variously given as Hermes, Dionysus, Pan or Adonis. In these latter three fathers, Priapus' inevitable connections with the lecherous, animalistic and the aesthetic is obvious. With Dionysus and Pan, Priapus inherits a tradition of unfettered ecstaticism and the instinctual, while with Adonis (and to some extent Hermes) Priapus comes to exist in contrast to an ideal of effeminate, adolescent masculine beauty which was popular among the Greeks. Hera, the frigid wife of Zeus, out of a mix of outrage and jealousy with Aphrodite's promiscuity cursed Priapus with enormous genitals. His mother promptly abandoned the child, and he was raised by shepherds. Priapus would go on to find favour with Hera later in his adult life, as the queen of the gods went on to appoint him as dancing instructor for the infant Ares, the god of war.

In Ovid's Fasti, the nymph Lotis fell into a drunk slumber along with the rest of the gods and goddesses after a great feast, and Priapus seized this opportunity to advance upon her. With stealth he approached, however, just before he could ensnare her in a loving embrace, Silenus's donkey alerted the party of the transpiring events with "raucous braying". Lotis awoke and sent Priapus running away sheepishly, but her only true escape was to be transformed into the lotus flower. To repay the donkey for spoiling his opportunity, Priapus slaughtered him. Ovid's anecdote served to explain why donkeys were sacrificed to Priapus in the city of Lampsacus on the Hellespont, where he was worshipped among the offspring of Hermes. In later versions of the story, Lotis is replaced with the virginal Hestia, the goddess responsible for the hearth. This violation of Hestia, the personification of domesticity, perhaps hints towards disruptive potential of the dionysian and aphrodisiac natures upon family life when combined.

In another story involving a donkey, Priapus and the ass debate the sizes of their physical appendages relative to one another. Priapus lost the contest, as the donkey is well-noted by the Greeks to be erotically skillful, and so a bitter Priapus beat the victorious donkey to death with a stick. Dionysus eventually placed the dead ass in heaven as one of two stars referred to as "The Asses".

Function and Iconography

Statues and images of Priapus typically show a well-built, bearded man distinguishable by way of his enormous, erect penis. Sculptures of Priapus with large, erect genitalia were placed in gardens and fields to guarantee an abundant crop, as the large phallus undoubtedly symbolized generation and fecundity. In this function as a bestower of plenty, Priapus was thought to preside not only over crops but also flocks of sheep, vineyards, fishing, and the raising of bees. He is often depicted with a pruning knife, illustrating his function as pruner of the pear-tree, a plant related to Hera. Statues of Priapus also functioned as guardians of homes, fields, and crops, serving as a "no tresspassing" sign, of sorts. In this case, Priapus represented the threat of violent rape, a common punitive measure in the ancient world. Epigrams inscribed upon these statues, later collected in Priapeia (see below), show Priapus using sodomy as a warning toward transgressors of the boundaries he protected like a herm:

"I warn you, my lad, you will be sodomised; you, my girl, I shall futter; for the thief who is bearded, a third punishment remains."

"... If I do seize you . . . you shall be so stretched that you will think your anus never had any wrinkles."

For the Romans, Priapus' statue was also used as a scarecrow or as a rack for a scythe. Lucian (De saltatione) reports that in the Roman province of Bithynia, Priapus was identified as a warlike god due to his mythological function as tutor to the infant Ares.

A number of notable icons depicting Priapus existed throughout ancient Greece and Rome. For instance, the travel-writer Pausanias noted that a statue of Priapus at Mount Helicon in Boeotia was "worth seeing". One of the most famous images of Priapus that is still extant is that from the House of the Vettii in Pompeii. This particular image is a wall fresco in which Priapus is weighing his phallus against a bag full of money. By all indications, it appears that his phallus is heavier.

Worship

In general, Priapus was given worship by agrarians in hopes that he would bestow great bounties of grains and vegetables upon them. The first fruits of the farm were often sacrificed to him as a sign of gratitude for his fecundity. In both Greece and in the wider Roman world, masked phallic figures were prominent on many festive occasions, and many were found attached to statues of the god.

Priapus was particularly popular in the region near the Hellespont, a narrow strait now known by the European name 'the Dardanelles'. In ridiculing the literal aspects of pagan gods given human form, the Christian apologist Arnobius mentions "the Hellespontian Priapus bearing about among the goddesses, virgin and matron, those parts ever prepared for encounter." In the city of Lampsacus on the Hellespont, where Priapus was worshipped among the offspring of Hermes, sacrifices of donkeys were made in his honour, probably because of the sexual prowess Greeks attributed to that animal. Also, Pausanias notes that the people of Lampsacus revered Priapus more than any other god, since they identified him as a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite.

Literature

The epigrams dedicated to Priapus were compiled in the Priapeia, a collection of unknown authorship written in Latin. This collection illustrates the various ways in which poets invented comic and obscene situations for Priapus, including monologues in which the god congratulates himself for the size and virility of his prodigious member. This collection gave him more literary prominence than he enjoyed in rites or cult. Some scholars used the Priapeia as primary evidence toward the conclusion that in the ancient world, large penises were generally considered comical rather than attractive: Priapus' large penis ensured that no woman wanted to sleep with him, whilst his curious phallus warned potential burglars that their punitive rape would be extremely painful.

However, this theory is not supported by all of the literary evidence available. For example, in the Satyricon of Petronius, when the heroes arrive in Croton in Sicily, they come across a youth who is exposed and found to be very well endowed. As a result the townspeople, including the women, hold him in reverence and literally trip over each other to touch his phallus for good luck. In this instance there does not seem to be any indication that the youth's unnaturally large phallus is regarded with disgust, but rather on the contrary. It cannot therefore be decidedly concluded what the classical view of penis size may have been. In the case of art and sculpture it seems likely that an average or smaller size was desirable, but this does not exclude the possibility that the public held different views. Thus, Priapus' large genitals were just as likely to have been an alluring symbol of fecundity as they were the subject of lighthearted scorn.

Legacy

Although no longer worshipped Priapus has remained a recurrent subject of allusion in religion, literature, and science throughout history. Richard Payne Knight, in his 1786 work An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus, identified Priapus-worship as surviving in Catholic phallic votives offered throughout parts of Italy during the 18th century. Priapus is also recognized as a saint in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, a branch of Ordo Templi Orientis upholding the philosophy of French author François Rabelais and occultist Aleister Crowley. In the field of medical science, the rare condition known as priapism, in which a male suffers persistent tumescence of the penis even in the absence of sexual desire, gets its name from Priapus.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Kerenyi, Carl. The Gods of the Greeks. Trans. Norman Cameron. London: Thames & Hudson, 1951.
• Parker, W.H. trans. Priapeia: Poems for a Phallic God. London: Croon Helm, 1988.
• Trip, Edward. The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology. New York: Meridian, 1970.
• Wyly, James. The Phallic Quest: Priapus and Masculine Inflation. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1989. ISBN 0-919123-37-6

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