As regards Greece on the contrary there is scarcely a doubt that the worship of Bacchus, and with it the Phallic ritual[80], was transplanted to that country from India. To explain the occasion of this introduction there is a legend related in the highest degree worthy of attention in connection with the history of affections of the genitals. It is told by Natalis Comes[81] in the following terms:
“Fuerunt et Phallica in Dionysi honorum instituta, quae apud Athenienses agebantur, apud quos primus Pegasus ille Eleutheriensis Bacchi cultum instituit, in quibus cantabant quem ad modum Deus hic morbo Athenienses liberavit et quem ad modum multorum bonorum auctor mortalibus extitit. Fama est enim quod Pegaso imagines Dionysi ex Eleutheris civitate Boeotiae in Atticam regionem portante Athenienses Deum neglexerunt neque, ut mos erat, cum pompa acceperunt: quare Deus indignatus pudenda hominum morbo infestavit, qui erat illis gravissimus: tunc eis ab oraculo, quo pacto liberari possent petentibus, responsum datum est: solum esse remedium malorum omnium, si cum honore et pompa Deum recepissent; quod factum fuit. Ex ea re tum privatim tum publice lignea virilia thyrsis alligantes per eam solennitatem gestabant. Fuit enim Phallus vocatum membrum virile. Alii Phallum ideo consecratum Dionyso putarunt, quia sit autor creditus generationis.”
(There were Phallic rites too established in honour of Dionysus, (these were observed among the Athenians; for it was at Athens that the far-famed Pegasus first established the worship of Eleutherian Bacchus)[82], at which men chanted hymns telling how the god freed the Athenians from a plague, and how he was the giver of many good gifts to mortals. For the story relates that Pegasus brought the images of Dionysus from Eleutherae, a city of Boeotia, to the land of Attica; but the Athenians slighted the god, and did not, as was the wont, receive him with a procession. Wherefore the god was wroth, and afflicted the men’s private parts with a disease that was most grievous to them. So they consulted the oracle, asking in what way they might be freed from the plague, and received the answer: there was one only remedy for all their ills, viz. that they should welcome the god with due honour and fitting procession. And this they did accordingly. And in commemoration thereof they used to bind virilia (male generative organs) of wood to the thyrsi (Bacchic staves), and carry them thus at the solemnity in question; and this was done both privately and publicly. For Phallus is the name given to a man’s privy member. Others again considered that it was consecrate to Dionysus for this reason, because he was deemed the author of procreation).
Still more striking is the legend which the same author, Natalis Comes[83], gives of the introduction of Priapus worship into Lampsacus, though it bears so great a resemblance to the preceding that the one might almost be thought to have been taken from the other. Aphrodité, he says, on the occasion of Bacchus’[84] progress to India was made pregnant by him, and on her return to Lampsacus was brought to bed of Priapus, whose deformity was caused by the goddess Juno[85], who afforded succour to the mother at the time of his birth:
“Deinde, cum adolevisset (Priapus) pergratusque foret Lampsacenis mulieribus, Lampsacenorum decreto ex agro Lampsaceno exulavit.—Fuerunt qui memoriae prodiderint Priapum fuisse virum Lampsacenum, qui cum haberet ingens instrumentum et facile paratum plantandis civibus, gratissimus fuerit mulieribus Lampsacenis. Ea causa postmodo fuisse dicitur, ut Lampsacenorum omnium ceterorum invidiam in se converterit, ac demum eiectus fuerit ex ipsa insula. At illud facinus aegerrime ferentibus mulieribus et pro se deos precantibus, post cum nonnullis interiectis temporibus Lampsacenos gravissimus pudendorum membrorum morbus invasisset, Dodonaeum oraculum adeuntes percunctati sunt an ullum esset eius morbi remedium. His responsum est: morbum non prius cessaturum, quam Priapum in patriam revocassent. Quod cum fecissent, templa et sacrificia illi statuerunt, Priapumque hortorum Deum esse decreverunt.”
(Subsequently when he—Priapus—had come to man’s estate, and was now exceedingly pleasing to the women of Lampsacus, by a decree of the Lampsacenes he was exiled from the territory of Lampsacus.—Some there are to tell the tradition that Priapus was a man of Lampsacus who had a huge “instrument” ready and willing for the making of new citizens, and who on that account was most pleasing to the Lampsacene women. Wherefore it is said afterwards to have come about that he incurred the envy and hatred of all the rest of the men of Lampsacus, and eventually was expelled from the island altogether. But this was a disaster that the women most bitterly regretted; so they prayed to the gods to help them, and after some interval of time had elapsed a most grievous disease of the private parts attacked the men of Lampsacus. Then they reported to the oracle of Dodona, and enquired of the god if there were any remedy for this plague. The reply was to the effect that the disease would not cease till they had recalled Priapus to his native land. This they did; and furthermore built temples and established sacrifices in his honour, and decreed that Priapus should be the god of gardens).[86]
Whatever interpretation we may give to these legends of Bacchus and Priapus, this much at any rate may be gathered from them without fear of contradiction, that affections of the male genitals at the time when they first became prevalent were taken to be the original cause of the introduction of Phallic worship,—in connection with the defloration of virgins mentioned in § 4. This is not without importance as bearing on the antiquity of the well-known Indian legend of the Lingam-ritual; and at the same time shows clearly that those affections of the genital organs must have borne a malignant character that men could not explain to themselves otherwise than as proceeding from the wrath of a Deity, a deity who on the other hand alone possessed the power to remove these ills. Another factor of great importance in connection with affections of the genitals in Antiquity, and of all the greater importance in as much as it leads us to the conclusion that resort was had for their cure not to human but to divine assistance, partly indeed depends on reasons which we shall discuss more exactly later on. However these reasons may in part be gathered at once from the following supremely important poem in the Priapeia[87], to which de Jurgenew first called attention in his Dissertation, p. 11, but without communicating it in its entirety:
Voti solutio.
Cur pictum memori sit in tabella
Membrum quaeritis unde procreamur?