Priāpus

, a deity among the ancients, who presided over gardens, and the parts of generation in the sexes. He was son of Venus by Mercury or Adonis, or, according to the more received opinion, by Bacchus. The godde of beauty, who was enamoured of Bacchus, went to meet him as he returned victorious from his Indian expedition, and by him she had Priapus, who was born at Lampsacus. Priapus was so deformed in all his limbs, particularly the genitals, by means of Juno, who had a isted at the delivery of Venus, that the mother, ashamed to have given birth to such a monster, ordered him to be exposed on the mountains. His life, however, was preserved by the shepherds, and he received the name of Priapus propter deformitatem & membri virilis magnitudinem . He soon became a favourite of the people of Lampsacus, but he was expelled by the inhabitants on account of the freedom which he took with their wives. This violence was punished by the son of Venus, and when the Lampsacenians had been afflicted with a disease in the genitals, Priapus was recalled, and temples erected to his honour. Festivals were also celebrated, and the people, naturally idle and indolent, gave themselves up to every lasciviousne and impurity during the celebration. His worship was also introduced in Rome; but the Romans revered him more as a god of orchards and gardens, than as the patron of licentiousne . A crown painted with different colours was offered to him in the spring, and in the summer a garland of ears of corn. An a was generally sacrificed to him, because that animal, by its braying, awoke the nymph Lotis, to whom Priapus was going to offer violence. He is generally represented with a human face and the ears of a goat; he holds a stick in his hand, with which he terrifies birds, as also a club to drive away thieves, and a scythe to prune the trees and cut down corn. He was crowned with the leaves of the vine, and sometimes with laurel or rocket. The last of these plants was sacred to him, as it is said to raise the pa ions and excite love. Priapus is often distinguished by the epithet of phallus , fascinus , Ictyphallus , or ruber , or rubicund us , which are all expre ive of his deformity. Catullus , poems 19 & 20.— Columella , bk. 2 , de Res Rustic a .— Horace , bk. 1 , satire 1.— Tibullus , bk. 1 , poem 1, li. 18 .— Ovid , Fasti , bk. 1 , li. 415 ; bk. 6 , li. 319 .— Virgil , Eclogues , poem 7, li. 33 ; Georgics , bk. 4 , li. 111 .— Pausanias , bk. 9 , ch. 31 .— Hyginus , fable 190.— Diodorus , bk. 1 .――A town of Asia Minor near Lampsacus, now Caraboa . Priapus was the chief deity of the place, and from him the town received its name, because he had taken refuge there when banished from Lampsacus. Strabo , bk. 12 .— Pliny , bk. 5 , ch. 32 .— Mela , bk. 1 , ch. 19 .――An island near Ephesus. Pliny , bk. 5 , ch. 31 .