15 Facts About Priapus

In Greek mythology, Priapus is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia.

Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism.

Priapus became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature, and is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the Priapeia.

Priapus was described in varying sources as the son of Aphrodite by Dionysus; as the son of Dionysus and Chione; as perhaps the father or son of Hermes; or as the son of Zeus or Pan.

Priapus was eventually found by shepherds and was brought up by them.

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Priapus joined Pan and the satyrs as a spirit of fertility and growth, though he was perennially frustrated by his impotence.

Priapus won the contest, and then killed the donkey, which was put by Dionysus among the stars.

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.

Lucian tells that in Bithynia Priapus was accounted as a warlike god, a rustic tutor to the infant Ares, "who taught him dancing first and war only afterwards, " Karl Kerenyi observed.

Outside his "home" region in Asia Minor, Priapus was regarded as something of a joke by urban dwellers.

Priapus was regarded as the patron god of sailors and fishermen and others in need of good luck, and his presence was believed to avert the evil eye.

Long after the fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity, Priapus continued to be invoked as a symbol of health and fertility.

Priapus' iconic attribute was his priapism ; he probably absorbed some pre-existing ithyphallic deities as his cult developed.

Priapus was represented in a variety of ways, most commonly as a misshapen gnome-like figure with an enormous erect phallus.

Statues of Priapus were common in ancient Greece and Rome, standing in gardens.