Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Garden of Priapus Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor by Amy Richlin The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor by Amy Richlin. Our systems have detected unusual traffic activity from your network. Please complete this reCAPTCHA to demonstrate that it's you making the requests and not a robot. If you are having trouble seeing or completing this challenge, this page may help. If you continue to experience issues, you can contact JSTOR support. Block Reference: #9ff15c20-cf3a-11eb-aba4-2d8971f5415c VID: #(null) IP: 116.202.236.252 Date and time: Thu, 17 Jun 2021 07:07:06 GMT. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor by Amy Richlin. Our systems have detected unusual traffic activity from your network. Please complete this reCAPTCHA to demonstrate that it's you making the requests and not a robot. If you are having trouble seeing or completing this challenge, this page may help. If you continue to experience issues, you can contact JSTOR support. Block Reference: #9fee27d0-cf3a-11eb-9587-41a106e09297 VID: #(null) IP: 116.202.236.252 Date and time: Thu, 17 Jun 2021 07:07:06 GMT. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992) is a book by Amy Richlin. From the publisher: Statues of the god Priapus stood in Roman gardens to warn potential thieves that the god would rape them if they attempted to steal from him. In this book, Richlin argues that the attitude of sexual aggressiveness in defense of a bounded area serves as a model for Roman satire from Lucilius to Juvenal. Using literary, anthropological, psychological, and feminist methodologies, she suggests that aggressive sexual humor reinforces aggressive behavior on both the individual and societal levels, and that Roman satire provides an insight into Roman culture. Including a substantial and provocative new introduction, this revised edition is important not only as an in-depth study of Roman sexual satire, but also as a commentary on the effects of all humor on society and its victims. Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice. Ancient Romans drew penises on everything, and here’s why. Penis depictions are alive and well in America, whether in all-boys-Catholic-school graffiti or a bachelorette party’s baked goods. Usually, though, the social accepted-ness stops there, right at those specific kinds of situations. You wouldn’t walk into a neighbor’s house and be greeted by a phallus statue, or paint a mural of one in your bedroom. (Well…usually. We can’t speak for everyone.) Ancient Rome, though, held back no penis punches. There were graffiti scratchings, carvings, mosaics, frescoes, statues, wind chimes, necklaces, and more featuring everyone’s favorite third leg. And they were found everywhere , from the brothels to around a child’s neck. For example, in Pompeii, penises have been found carved into the streets, pointing to the nearest brothel: Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Young boys were given amulets known as bulla , which included a fascinum —a phallus amulet meant to grant protection[i]. Soldiers wore fascina as well[ii]. Credit: Wikimedia Commons. There are plenty of frescoes, too. Like this one of the god Priapus weighing his member against a sack of gold, from the entryway of the House of the Vetii, Pompeii: Credit: Wikimedia Commons. And of course there were loads of graffiti penises and graphic writings all throughout Pompeii. This one below was written to a woman named Thyas, and reads “Thyas, don’t love Fortunatus. Goodbye.” Credit: Wikimedia commons. And this carved going into a Pompeiian theater: Credit: Wikimedia Commons. They were even found on some controversial coins/tokens known as spintriae : Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Obviously, penis depictions were far more acceptable in the public sphere than they are now—and they were everywhere . But why? What’s the difference? It’s hard to categorize a culture that spanned over 1,000 years, but there are many attitudes that were generally true across the years. Probably the most important distinction is the general attitude towards sex and nudity in ancient Rome. Instead of sex being a fairly stigmatized, shameful act, it was a well-accepted and occasionally encouraged facet of life. For example, male and female prostitution was legal for nearly the entire length of the empire. And it was normal to have regular sex (unless you were a virgin woman) or for men to have sex outside their marriage (with men or other women[iii]). Indeed, sex generally only became an issue if you couldn’t exercise the proper level of self-control over your desires and became hypersexual, which could indicate that you were unfit to govern others[iv] or were uncultured[v]. Further, when the Roman population had dipped too low, Emperor Augustus made it a high honor for men to have three male offspring[vi], and instituted laws such as the Lex Julia and Lex Papia Poppaea, which provided tax breaks for those who had a certain number of children, and granted men with larger families preferential treatment when applying for public office. Penalties were struck against those who failed to comply[vii]. This new emphasis on children can be seen in Augustus’ Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), a monument dedicated on his wife’s birthday that actually features images of their children—an incredibly rare feature on Roman art up until that time. Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Lastly, male nudity was far more common across the empire, as it was necessary for certain religious practices[viii] and athletic competitions[ix]. Because of this lack of stigma, certain images—like penises, or images of various sexual acts—were prevalent throughout Pompeii and the Roman world, where even children were exposed to them. But more than that, penises had different connotations outside of the sexual. They were often a source of humor in images and writings[x]—much like today—but they also could represent luck, protection, fertility, and guidance[xi]. In fact, the phallus was seen to be protective against the evil eye and to bring prosperity and luck—hence children and soldiers wore them as amulets in the form of fascina . Fascina were also fashioned into windchimes, known as tintinnabula , which were believed to protect and grant fortune to homes. (The bells attached to the penises were seen as protective as well, and were tied to religious use[xii].) Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Penises were tied to certain gods. For example, Greek Hermes (who served as the god of boundaries) was often carved into boundary stones and signposts known as herma , which featured his head and genitals[xiii]. Romans adapted the same practice for their equivalent god, Mercury: Credit: British Museum. But even more heavily tied to phalluses was the deity Priapus , who was a god of fertility and male genitalia. Famously, he has an enormous, permanent erection—which is now called priapism in his honor. Like before, his phallus was seen to avert the evil eye and grant good luck[xiv], but he was also seen as a god of navigation—and his penis was a guiding force. Naturally, this made him popular among mariners, but his penis was also used in domestic setting to point people in certain directions[xv]. As indicated in the famous collection of poems to Priapus, the Priapaea , it seems statues of Priapus used his penis to guide people to certain features of a town, like a fountain: Falce minax et parte tui maiore, Priape, ad fontem, quaeso, dic mihi qua sit iter . (“Priapus, terrific with thy sickle and thy. greater part, tell me, prithee, which is the. way to the fountain?”) This may add a second explanation to why phalluses were used to point out brothels (besides the obvious). Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Penises were also tied to healing magic; votive offerings ( vota ) in the form of penises have been discovered at various Roman healing sanctuaries, like these ones discovered at Pompeii: Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Feature Image: Wikimedia Commons. [i] Pliny, Natural History 28.29; Varro, De lingua latina 7.97; Barbara Kellum, “Concealing/Revealing: Gender and the Play of Meaning in the Monuments of Augustan Rome,” in The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 166. [ii] Henig, Religion in Roman Britain , p. 176; Portable Antiquities Scheme, cat num: LIN-2BE126, http://finds.org.uk/database/search/results/q/LIN-2BE126. [iii] Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992), p. 225. [iv] Catharine Edwards, “Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome,” in Roman Sexualities , pp. 67–68. [v] Edwards, “Unspeakable Professions,” p. 68. [vi] “The Romans: From Village to Empire: A History of Rome from Earliest Times to the End of the Western Empire” by M. Boatwright, et al. 2nd edition. 2011. [vii] Neurath, Paul (1994). From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back . M.E. Sharpe. p. 7. ISBN 9781563244070. [viii] Plutarch, Life of Caesar 61:1. [ix] Crowther, “Nudity and Morality: Athletics in Italy,” pp. 119–121. [x] David Fredrick, The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), p. 156. [xi] Amy Richlin, “Pliny’s Brassiere,” in Roman Sexualities , p. 215. [xii] Duncan Fishwick, Imperial Cult in the Latin West (Brill, 1990), vol. II.1, pp. 504-5. [xiii] Paus. vii. 22. § 2; Aristoph. Plut. 1121, 1144; Hom. Od. xiv. 435, xix. 397; Athen. i. p. 16. [xiv] Clarke, John R. Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B. C. – A. D. 250. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1998. [xv] Neilson III, Harry R. 2002. “A terracotta phallus from Pisa Ship E: more evidence for the Priapus deity as protector of Greek and Roman navigators.” The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 31.2: 248-253. Comments. The information provided is no substitite for an informed medical professional. Please consult an expert before taking any action. Amy Richlin. Amy Richlin took her B.A. from Princeton in 1973 and her Ph.D. from Yale in 1978. At Princeton she wrote her senior thesis on "Defense Problems in the Roman Occupation of Britain" and otherwise focused on rowing; she founded the Princeton women's crew and on graduation won the Class of 1916 Cup, "awarded each year to the Princeton varsity letterman who continuing in competition in his senior year achieved at graduation the highest academic standing." At Yale she wrote a dissertation on "Sexual Terms and Themes in Roman Satire and Related Genres" under the direction of Gordon Williams. Since then she has taught at Rutgers University, Dartmouth College, Lehigh University, and the University of Southern California, and now teaches at the University of California at Los Angeles. She is the author of The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Yale 1983; rev. ed. Oxford 1992), editor of Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (Oxford 1992), and co-editor, with Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, of Feminist Theory and the Classics (Routledge 1993). Recent and forthcoming publications include: Rome and the Mysterious Orient (University of California Press, 2005), translations of three plays by Plautus with notes and introductions, focusing on Roman attitudes to the Near East and Africa; and Marcus Aurelius in Love (University of Chicago 2007), translations of the letters of Marcus Aurelius and Cornelius Fronto. She has also published many articles on sex and gender in antiquity, the history of sexuality, and feminist theory.