Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-cx56b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-17T21:15:38.544Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Priapus as wooden god: confronting manufacture and destruction*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2012

Ailsa Hunt
Affiliation:
Queens' College, Cambridge

Extract

quodsi in animum quis inducat, tormentis quibus et quibus machinis simulacrum omne formetur, erubescet timere se materiem ab artifice, ut deum faceret, inlusam. deus enim ligneus, rogi fortasse vel infelicis stipitis portio, suspenditur, caeditur, dolatur, runcinatur; et deus aereus vel argenteus de immundo vasculo, ut saepius factum Aegyptio regi, conflatur, tunditur malleis et incudibus figuratur; et lapideus deus caeditur, scalpitur et ab impurato homine levigatur, nec sentit suae nativitatis iniuriam, ita ut nec postea de vestra veneratione culturam. nisi forte nondum deus saxum est vel lignum vel argentum. quando igitur hic nascitur? ecce funditur, fabricatur, sculpitur: nondum deus est; ecce plumbatur, construitur, erigitur: nec adhuc deus est; ecce ornatur, consecratur, oratur; tunc postremo deus est, cum homo illum voluit et dedicavit. (Minucius Felix, Oct. 22)

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Ando, C. (2008) The matter of the gods: religion and the Roman Empire, Berkeley, Calif.Google Scholar
Blanckenhagen, P. H. von and Alexander, C. (1990) The Augustan villa at Boscotrecase, Mainz am Rhein.Google Scholar
Brown, P. M. (1993) Horace Satires I, Warminster.Google Scholar
Buchheit, V. (1962) Studien zum Corpus Priapeorum, Munich.Google Scholar
Büchner, K. (1955) ‘P. Vergilius Maro’, RE VIII A, 1021–493.Google Scholar
Deyts, S. (1983) Les bois sculptés des sources de la Seine, Paris.Google Scholar
Donohue, A. A. (1988) Xoana and the origins of Greek sculpture, Atlanta, Ga.Google Scholar
Elsner, J. (2007) Roman eyes: visuality and subjectivity in art and text, Princeton, NJ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finney, P. C. (1994) The invisible God: the earliest Christians on art, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, W. (2007) Martial: the world of epigram, Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedberg, D. (1989) The power of images: studies in the history and theory of response, Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, R. L. (1979) ‘The real and the imaginary: production and religion in the Graeco-Roman world’, Art History 2, 534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L. (1965) Hellenistic epigrams: Commentary, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gowers, E. (2005) ‘Talking trees: Philemon and Baucis revisited’, Arethusa 38, 331–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallett, J. P. (1981) ‘Pepedi / diffissa nate ficus: Priapic revenge in Hor. Sat. 1.8’, RhM 124, 341–7.Google Scholar
Herter, H. (1932) De Priapo, Giessen.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruschwitz, P. (2010) ‘Writing On trees: restoring a lost facet of the Graeco-Roman epigraphic habit’, ZPE 173, 4562.Google Scholar
Meiggs, R. (1982) Trees and timber in the ancient Mediterranean world, Oxford.Google Scholar
Nisbet, R.G. M. (1987) ‘The oak and the axe: symbolism in Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1618ff’, in Whitby, M., Hardie, P., Whitby, M. (eds.) Homo viator: classical essays for John Bramble, Bristol, 243–51.Google Scholar
O'Connor, E. M. (1989) Symbolum salacitatis: a study of the god Priapus as a literary character, Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Parker, W. H. (1988) Priapea: poems for a phallic god, London.Google Scholar
Platt, V. (2002) ‘Evasive epiphanies in ekphrastic epigram’, Ramus 31.1, 3350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pugliese Carratelli, G. (1990) (ed.) Pompei: pitture e mosaici II, Roma.Google Scholar
Rand, E. K. (1919) ‘Young Virgil's poetry’, HSCP 30, 103–85.Google Scholar
Richlin, A. (1983) The garden of Priapus: sexuality and aggression in Roman humor, New Haven, Conn.Google Scholar
Richmond, J. (1981) ‘Recent work on the “Appendix Virgiliana”’, ANRW II 31.2, 1112–54.Google Scholar
Salviat, F. (1964) ‘Religion populaire et timbres amphoriques: Hermès; Hélène et les ΔΟΚΑΝΑ’, BCH 88, 486–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steiner, D. T. (2001) Images in mind, Princeton, NJ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, P. (1977) ‘Fine art and coarse art: the image of Roman Priapus’, Art History 20, 575–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, P. (2002) Statues in Roman society: representation and response, Oxford.Google Scholar
Uden, J. (2007) ‘Impersonating Priapus’, AJPh 128.1, 126.Google Scholar
Uden, J. (2010) ‘The vanishing gardens of Priapus’, HSCP 105, 189219.Google Scholar
Woolf, G.D. (2001) ‘Representation as cult: the case of the Jupiter columns’ in Spickermann, W., Cancik, H., Rüpke, J. (eds.) Religion in den germanischen Provinzen Roms, Tübingen, 117–34.Google Scholar