Priapus was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. The emblem of his lustful nature was his permanent erection and his large penis. Originally worshipped by Greek colonists in Asia Minor, the cult of Priapus spread to mainland Greece and eventually to Italy during the 3rd century BC.
About Priapus in brief
Priapus was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. The emblem of his lustful nature was his permanent erection and his large penis. Originally worshipped by Greek colonists in Lampsacus in Asia Minor, the cult of Priapus spread to mainland Greece and eventually to Italy during the 3rd century BC. He became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature. In the 1980s, D. F. Cassidy founded the St. PriapUS Church as a modern church centred on worship of the phallus. He was represented in a variety of ways, most commonly as a misshapen gnome-like figure with an enormous erect penis. A number of epigrams, apparently written to threaten thieves with castration, were written as adornments. The Athenians often confederated Priapos with Hermes, the god of boundaries, and depicted a hybrid deity with a winged helmet, helmet, sandal and huge erection. Another attribute was the sickle, which he often carries in his right hand, if he is sick.
In later antiquity, his worship meant little more than a cult of sophisticated pornography. Outside his Asia Minor region he was regarded as something of a joke by urban dwellers. However, he played a more important role in the countryside, where he was seen as a guardian deity. The 13th century Lanercost Chronicle, a history of northern England and Scotland, records a Cistercian brother erecting a statue of PriAPus in an attempt to end an outbreak of cattle disease. He probably absorbed some pre-existing ithyphallic deities as well as developing his cult as a commonly represented deity. He is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the Priapeia, written in the 4th century BC by Xenarchus. In a ribald anecdote told by Ovid, he attempted to rape the goddess Hestia but was thwarted by an ass, whose braying caused him to lose his erection.
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This page is based on the article Priapus published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
