CHAPTER X.

PRIAPIC ILLUSTRATIONS.
ALL students of ancient literature, and the admirers, in the modern day, of the unequalled originality and grace wherewith the Greeks and Romans—particularly the former—invested their ideas, must carefully guard them- selves against mingling up their modern prepossessions with the achievements—as they stand before them—of the old-world artists. It is sufficient to reflect that all true art, in its broad sense, comes from the ancients. This art still remains without a rival. Devotional senti- ment of quite another order accompanies all the art and literature of the middle ages. The world—and this earthly state for man, so impossible to be understood for its real meaning and ultimate purposes—was treated gloomily. The earth, and the condition of mankind, were regarded as an arena of penitence, of sorrow, of humilia- tion; and as a condition “lapsed” for some reason, of which man could not see the point, or in reality assent to its justice.
Now, when people began to reflect in the early world upon the vast—the very vast—importance of the sexual relations, which seemed to form the key of all that “ was, and is, and is to be”’—the tools (to speak the fact strangely)—-which were, in their way, to raise, or to build the whole human construction, mind and body ;— these tremendous thoughts as to the “how” in which the whole of this was to be done, impressed and over-
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shadowed, and no wonder that they should so impress and overshadow! The early peoples of the world, find- ing that Man had already got so much in his own indi- vidual personal power, grew to recognise that they had gained a wonderful gift, given to them for some great end, since God had given it. The reflective mind, look- ing inwards, recognised the Gods—and all the powers of the Gods—in the natural facts of reproduction; the machinery (to use such a word) of which, being so contrary and unexpected, struck them as clearly the result of thought, and of a direct design, not accidental. The objects of this grand display—to speak in the abstract—remained the great puzzle. We think in vastly too light a manner—grown free and presuming in our familiarity—of these truly serious things, now, in the modern day, when science seems to have explained all that is the world.
The Greeks and Romans brought’ forward the real and the visible—we mean the instruments—of the sexual relations in a way, and with a freedom, inconceivable to those who know nothing of the underlying meaning evident in their gems and coins, and sculpture.
Indeed, so artfully is all this veiled, and so little obvious is the line of connection between the object set forward as an expression, and the thing itself (which is simply in all cases, the conjunction of the sexes), that it requires very considerable practice, and much learning and quick in- sight, to gather up the meanings. To prove all this, it will be only necessary to refer to the glyptic remains (very remarkable) of which we superadd the descriptions, from a very rare and curious book of the last century, with the title of “ VeNeRes ET Priapi.” ‘These gems
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and coims and fantastic representations come down from the very remote times of the Rome of the Cesars. Priapus, under all his forms, and in his classical, poetical renderings, whether as Hermes, as Pan, as Faun, as Shepherd, as single-bodied or as double-bodied, human, semi-human, half-caprine, block, reversed cone, stone or stump, bears the same lineaments, the same orbicular development, the identical metamorphoses and mystic meaning, and is set up, at all bounds, in innumerable pillars or posts, or obelisks, or reversed pins, or longi- tudinal, reversed, pyramidal fragmentary blocks or shapes, as “‘ God of the Gardens.” ‘This strange figure— Priapus or Pan—with his horns and his hirsute accom- paniments, with the reeds, and the cymbals, and the clashes of metal produced in the jar of the —— “silver-kissing cymbals,”
and the discordant screams and yells and shouts which accompany him—all of this overpoweringly vehement, mythic ritual of which the Bacchanals and Bacchantes gave riotous and disorderly dancing or leaping or convulsionary expression—is, in certain senses, urged in the world’s sense of things as a protest against the order and regularity of nature. This Priapus or unnatural grotesque figure may be treated as a Scarecrow, or as the First of the Scarecrows. Indecency, according to modern ideas, is pushed to an extreme in these irregular, lustful scenes. Most of the representations in “Veneres et Priapr’? are too free (they are all quite the reverse of coarse) to reproduce, almost to describe. The general impression one bears away after an examination of these masterpieces of ancient art, is the false one that the people to whom they were familiar must have been glaringly sensual and systemati-
104 Phallicism.
cally libidinous. But we must remember that Lycurgus, who knew nature well, was the first to be convinced that the free exhibition of the naked human form, whether male or female, when grown familiar, was the surest and most complete means of reducing desire within rule and limit, and of placing irregular eagerness within the bounds of control. For this reason, that wise and prudent legislator made it a rule in Sparta that the public gym- nastic exercises should be partaken of in common by both males and females. ‘Thus, the races and combats, and the round of the training for the healthful and beautiful display of the limbs—of course under proper and judicious regulations—the games which were always, in their in- dications and expressions, sacred and mystical, Lycurgus ordered should be celebrated, in the sight of the whole of the people, by both youths and maidens in a total state of nudity. With our modern ideas, this would seem to be almost impossible. But we can well recog- nise how all these strange exhibitions, and how all these most widely accepted Phallic facts, bore sway among the peoples of antiquity. Every department of the art of the ancients, in all parts of the world, bears the most unmis- takable witness of this great truth.
The foregomg observations may be referred more particularly to the collection of engraved gems, illustrat- ing the remoter mythology of the Greeks and Romans, published at Leyden some years before the outbreak of the great French Revolution. This work,* consisting
* Veneres, uti observantur in gemmis antiquis, Lugd. Batayorum. n.d- The letterpress in French and English has been attributed to D’Han- carville, but, we think, he was far too serious an author to express
himself, as he seems to do, with the lightness of the writer of the preface and notes to this volume.
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of seventy-one plates, will express things very significant to those who are capable of taking up the meanings of the old, unfortunately discredited theosophy ; and, singular in the matter, it is even more remarkable by the manner in which it is presented. The collection may be con- sidered not only as a monumental masterpiece of the fancy of the ancients, but as a memorial of their talents and skill in designing and engraving. “My real opinion,” says the author of the preface to the volume, “is that the greatest part of these exceedingly curious engraved stones cannot have been executed before the empire of Augustus and Tiberius.” 1 think it also probable that several of them are the precious figures of Elephantis, _ the Greek courtesan—which were supposed to be irre- coverably lost, and only surviving in tradition, for their inexpressible success and magnificence in the Venus-like and Priapean sense. This famous Elephantis, not merely the Greek courtesan, but the courtesan par excellence, had the audacity (or majestic courage?) to compose books, and to provide illustrations upon the choicest secrets of her profession, in justification and in glory of it.
‘Suetonius says that Tiberius had these books placed in his private library, ‘and that the famous ‘ Aula,’ or banqueting-hall in his world-renowned Golden Palace (other historians hint this of Nero) was ornamented with magnificent pictures, painted by the first artists in Rome ; pictures twelve in number, and each named after a sign of the zodiac, of life-size, and wholly in the nude; figures displaying the ‘twelve postures’ in which the Great Act could be the most successfully accomplished— that is, for the purpose of extorting therefrom the most
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exquisite pleasure, and at the same time of realising the original intentions of Nature in the securing of the most felicitously endowed progeny.” Augury, superstition in connexion with those occult studies became, in after ages, in the hands of the adepts, that which was de- nominated the mystic or celestial anatomy, a framework or mathematical plan of human beings wholly formed in the mysterious invisible regions filled with Rosicrucian Intelligencies, and which was called the “ Macrocosm,” in contradistinction to that which was styled the “ world of man” and his surroundings, or the “ Microcosm.” All this, in after ages, was demonstrated by the match- less physiologist, Henry Cornelius Agrippa. It formed a mine, a magic mine, worked into by the Rosicrucians, in which all the complexities of astrology, and all the settlements, and the fixing and the poising and the deter- minatives of the horoscopes of every living human entity born into this world, and all the fatalities of everything, were to be found, caught, as it were, in the eternal web of the necessities of things, as spun by the Immortal Deviser.
The editor of this curious illustrated book thus proceeds :—
“The statement is ascribed to Suetonius that the Emperor Tiberius had some of the designs of the before- mentioned superbly accomplished Elephantis placed in certain of his rooms at Capraea, answering the purposes of the volume to which we refer. This voluptuous tyrant is said to have possessed very considerable taste in par- ticular respects. . .
“Cubicula plurifariam disposita tabellis, ac sigillis lascivissimarum picturarum, et figurarum adornavit, librisque Elephantidis instruxit.”
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My intention in publishing this book,” adds the editor, “is not in order to save from oblivion the writings of the above-mentioned Elephantis, being persuaded that few will regret such a loss; but as I am certain that the original stones from which I had the designs taken must have been executed by excellent Greek artists, I thought I should not displease the public in reducing them to a form easy to be procured, and which should at the same time show how elegant was the noble simplicity of the ancients, and how far they carried that point of perfection which none of the moderns have yet attained.
“‘ Everybody knows that the most eminent amongst the ancients, such as Zeuxis, Philoxene and Apelles himself, have often amused themselves by painting such kind of | subjects: who knows but some of.those 1 am about to produce were of their invention? What I am convinced of is that they could not be better executed.”
From the following descriptions of some of the gems (Veneres et Priapi) which more closely illustrate our Phallic theme it is hoped that the reader, in the absence of the original work, which is exceedingly rare, may gather a sufficient notion of the freedom with which the _ ancients celebrated the religious rites of the worship of Priapus :—
Figure IV. represents a sacrifice to the God of the Gardens. The priest who plays upon the double flute is one of those whom Sidonius Apollinaris calls Mysta, because they were equally to serve Priapus and Bacchus. Herodotus calls them Phalliphori, or Priapus’ carriers, because in processions their business was to carry the symbol of the God of Lampsacus.
Figure XI, Adonis, in the presence of Venus, crowns
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the god who is going to give him the preference to Mars.
Festus says that frequently before the young married women were delivered to their husbands they used to be conducted into one of Priapus’ temples and made to sit in sinu ejus. Figure XII. seems to be a prepara- tion for such a ceremony.
Figure XIII. shows Modesty turning her back on a Priapus concealed in a basket of fruit, which Wantonness presents to her.
Figure XXV. Bacchus and Ariadne prepare themselves to sacrifice to Priapus, in the presence of Love, Satyrs, and Bacchantes.
Figure XX VII. This small figure of brass represents (too obviously for description) Priapus as the god of the
_ gardens.
Figuré XXV. In this plate a monster vu/va stands like a forest tree awaiting the arrival of the emblem of Priapus, which is borne aloft on a triumphal car, with attendant nymphs and cupids.
Figures II. and III. (Part I.) A stone which was formerly in the cabinet of Baron Stock (whose collection the King of Prussia purchased) is engraved on both sides. Messalina, wife of Claudius, is seen sitting before a little chapel in which there is a Priapus; while on the reverse are seven Priapuses surrounding a snail (an animal which, as the naturalists say, having both sexes, is the symbol of lubricity), with the word Invicta (“ unconquered’’), attri- buted to Messalina, and which alludes to that verse of Juvenal, Et lassata viris nondum satiata recessit.
Figure V. is a terminal of Priapus, with the attribute of Hercules, in order to commemorate the exploit of the
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god in connexion with the forty-nine daughters of Thespius, King of Beeotia.
Figure VI. represents a dialogue between a “very magnificent Priapus” and a man who puts his ear to it, as if waiting for an answer, in supposed allusion to the violence of passion which speaks with such energy that nothing else is heard.
Figure VII. shows a kind of wheel of a lottery, the prizes attached to which are emblems of Priapus. Cupid turns the wheel with ‘difficulty, a female on each side seeming to retard its progression.
Figure VIII. A terminal of Priapus with the Thyrsus of Bacchus, which alludes to Horace’s verse, Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus.
Figure XI. A Satyr riding upon a Priapus.
Figure XV. A Bacchante, with her knees upon a basket, consecrates a small figure to Priapus, while another woman sitting in a basket plays upon the double flute. ‘The mysterious basket shows that this god’s operations ought to be secret.
Figure XVII. The usual divinity, easily recognised by his natural figure, is walking upon a cock’s legs. Compare with XXV,
Figure XXIII. A young hero sacrificing to Priapus. On the top of the column, upon which the emblem of the god is engraved, is a lighted fire,
Figure XXV. A cupid riding upon a Priapus, with a lion’s legs, holds the bridle and a whip, to show how Love is able to tame Passion.
Figure XX VI. Ceremonies performed at Ge feast of Priapus. The god, standing upon a column, is surrounded with branches of the olive-tree, either because he is the
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protector of the gardens or because he loves peace, of which the olive-tree is the symbol.
Figure XXVII. Venus, followed by a young man, presents to Priapus some branches of myrtle. Behind the terminal of the god (who is represented under the figure of a young man in the vigour of his age) a Satyr plays upon the flute and dances. In the meantime Love burns his bow upon the altar, which is adorned with wreaths, as on a festival.
Figures XXX. and XXXI. Two Priapuses of an immoderate size found in the environs of Albano, the ancient Alba.
Figure XXXIV. A nude female performs a sacrifice to Priapus by pouring wine upon the flames which issue from a brazier at the foot of his statue.
The denomination of Mercury as the god of the frontiers, the borders or limits among the Germans and the Celts, was applied to all the mark-stones, or stones of the boundaries, which indicated the confines of any particular domain. ‘This application, together with the sacred ideas which always went with these monuments, was introduced into that part of Italy to which the Romans gave the name of Cisalpine Gaul, by the Celts or Gauls who effected the conquest of the country, and established in it their usages and religion. Through this introduction Italy came to possess two separate divinities, though both were in certain respects identical in character. Two different names were ascribed to them in regard to an inflection or a change of their potentiality. With one meaning they were called Termes, or the Terminals, or the “ fixed.” With another they were called the “ varying.” France furnishes a great. number of names indicative of the worship of
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Mercury. The monolithic monuments all owe their desti- nation to the same ideas. In innumerable forms, whether the form be slender, as the terminal raised in honour of Pan, or of Mercury, the God of Boundaries (the veritable Priapus); or whether the forms be columns of large size, or stones, hewn and sculptured, either bulky or rough, whether called Thoths, Hermes, Bethels, Bethyles, Menhirs, or by whatever name they were denominated, they all, in various mystic forms and in far-off references, assume the PHALLIc meaning as the all-important hint. In ancient times, by a sort of sublime general signal as tracing to a certain centre-point of abstract particular significance, these votive objects covered the earth. They were the most distinctly and frequently to be met with, and they were the more enlivened (so to express the idea) in their vividness of expression and in their astute direct address (in their meaning to the spectator) in pro- portion to the extent to which art had become expansive and imaginative; but the idea flourished in some form in all the countries of which there are monuments and in which civilisation and poetry and philosophy most. suc- cessfully throve.
The worship of the Phallus was greatly cultivated among the Gauls, It does not appear that much atten- tion this way, or as afforded to this worship, became conspicuous anterior to the arrival of the Romans. Logs, pieces of wood, and longitudinal stems were fixed up to represent, sometimes, these figures as presiding over boun- daries. The ancients placed on the summit of these significant figures a human head, and, in continuation, a part of a masculine body. Thus erected and detailed in whole, or, more commonly, in part, these “ bounds,” or
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terminals, or blocks of wood, or trunks of trees, consti- tuted the Hermes, the Termes, the Mercuries, or those idols or halves of men, that our artists have reproduced in so many classic forms, most of which are very beautiful, In course of time the origin of these diverse figures, thus metamorphosed, thus strangely composed, grew indistinct in the ideas of the peoples. ‘The Phallus idol with the feet of the goat, placed in the fields or erect in the midst of cultivated lands, became the god Pan. Placed in the groves, in the forests, or amidst the mountains, it was the Faun, the Silvan, the Satyr. Amongst the vines the figure saluted the observer as Bacchus. At the limits of territories, in the public ways, at cross-roads, or at the entrances of villas or dwelling-houses, the Idol Phallus received the name of Hermes Casmillus, or Mercury, with the distinguishing masculine points openly displayed or more covertly or slyly suggested, according to the free- dom of the ideas prevailing in the district.
We will terminate this section of our history with the following interesting particulars, drawn from the “ Di- vinités Génératrices chez les Anciens et les Modernes” of J. A. Dulaure. At page 417 of the second volume of the second edition the author says :—
“Les vases” (a case collateral with all the classic vases) “dont je viens d’indiquer les peintures lascives étaient des objets religieux. IIs sont dans le Musée du Roi de Naples, 4 Capo di Monte, Ils ont été decouverts dans des tombeaux, prés de Nola; et lon sait que les tom- beaux étaient, chez les anciens, sacrés comme le sanctuaire,
“‘ Le savant auteur qui a décrit ces vases, et publié les dessins de leur peinture, vient 4 Pappui de mon opinion. ‘On rencontre,’ dit il, ‘dans les monuments, une mul-
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titude de Priapées; on en trouve méme dans les lieux les moins susceptibles de les recevoir: ce qui prouve combien les Grecs étaient familiarisés avec ces images que> dans nos moeurs, nous nommons obscénes.
“ sont en trés-grand nombre—Quelque systéme qu’on se fasse a cet gard, il faut toujours revenir a cette idée principale, que les anciens n’y voyaient qu’un embléme de la nature fécondante, et de la reproduction des étres qui servent 4 la composition et a l’entretien de Punivers. C’est a cette idée que nous devons ces Priapes de toutes les formes qu’on rencontre dans les cabinets, et ces offrandes de toute espéce, qui rappellent le culte du dieu de Lampsaque.’
‘Je méme auteur parle de lampes antiques qui offrent des images licencieuses, et dont plusieurs sont conservées a la Bibliothéque Royale : il croit qu’elles pouvaient étre appliquées a usage de la religion.
“Jl cite les pierres gravées, et méme ces médailles, appelées spintriennes, qui représentent, 4 ce que lon a cru, les débauches de Tibére dans Pile de Caprée, et les bizarres accouplemens auxquels il donnait le nom de Spintrig. Il place au rang des plus célébres productions antiques de ce genre le groupe du Satyre et la chévre du Musée de Portici, qu’on ne peut voir qu’avec une permission particuliére; un autre groupe, a peu prés semblable, trouvé a Nettuno, vendu par le cardinal Alexandre Albani au dernier roi de Pologne, et conservé actuellement a Dresde; le Priape du Musée du cardinal Albani, avec ‘Vl inscription,’ et le Priape du Musée de Florence.
“Si Pon s’étonnait moins de ce que la religion des
I
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anciens a commandé des sacrifices humains, le plus grand attentat contre les sociétés, que de ce qu’elle a consacré Pacte de la reproduction des étres, acte conservateur de Pespéce humaine; s’il nous paraissait moins étrange de voir ’homme abuser, par piété, de son penchant a la cruauté que de le voir abuser, par le méme motif, de sa . propension naturelle aux plaisirs de l'amour, nous ferions nous-mémes la satire de nos propres opinions, et nous avouerions notre préférence pour un culte qui détruit et donne la mort a celui qui conserve et donne la vie.”
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