In ancient Greece Bacchus, the phallic divinity, was equated with Dionysus. In the cities the Greater Dionysia, or the Urban Dionysia, were celebrated in his honor for three days. The locale was at Limnae in Attica, and the season was the middle of the month of March.
In very early times, the Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch declares, the rites were of a simple but joyous nature. But in his own time the celebration had reached a lavish, extravagant splendor.
Women, devotees of the Bacchic symbol and known as Bacchantes, introduced the ritualistic procession. Chaste maidens, impeccable in morality and of distinguished birth, followed. These were the Canephoroi, the Basket-bearers who bore on their heads baskets containing the sacred utensils used at the celebration: together with mystic objects, flowers, salt, sesame, and a flower-bedecked phallus. A detachment came next to the Canephoroi: these were the Phallophoroi. The Phallophoroi were the Phallus-bearers, carrying, attached to long staffs, the phallic emblem.
Musicians were also in the march, chanting and accompanying the choral odes with twanging strings, and at brief intervals emitting loud exclamations in glorification of the god.
There were other strange participants. The Ithyphalli, men dressed in women’s garments, who chanted salacious phallic songs. Scandalous satyrs led goats for sacrifice, while Bacchantes performed obscene dance movements. There was, over the entire celebration, an atmosphere of debauchery and libidinous license consonant with the phallic context of the cult.
In Carthage, a spot outside the city was consecrated to Astarte, the goddess of generation, and called Sicca Veneria. Among the Phoenicians a similar spot, intended for the same purpose, that is religious fornication, was known as Siccoth Venoth.
In Biblical antiquity, the primary concept was for man to be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. To this end, concubinage was consequently not frowned upon and was practiced pari passu with marriage. Maid servants were commonly taken by their masters as concubines, as in the case of Hagar, and also in that of Reumah. Lot even gave his maiden daughters for the satisfaction of the lustful inhabitants of Sodom. Later, he committed incest with these daughters.