Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates
RELIGION AND EROTIC
have been anticipated thousands of years before by Greek mythology. ‘The other stories—some of them very complicated and profound—about Phanes do not concern us here; but it may be mentioned that Phanes was also identified with Priapus, and sometimes with Adonis, the beautiful favourite of Aphrodite, who, also, is often regarded as having been double-sexed.
Phanes is also the name of one of the twelve Centaurs of Helicon named by Nonnus, others of whom—namely Spargeus (lustful), Kepeus (gardener, like Priapus), and Orthaon (standing)—by their names allow us to infer ithyphallic characteristics. With these details the statement of Pausanias, that the cult of Priapus was native on mount Helicon, is in agreement.
Triphales (the man with three members) (CAF., I, 528 ff.) was the title of a lost play by Aristophanes, in which probably the sexual life of Alcibiades was attacked. Varro also had named one of his satires Triphallus ; it treated of manhood. Also according to Gellius (Noct. Att., Il, 19) it was the name of a comedy of Nevius. Tychon was the name of an ithyphallic spirit attached to the retinue of Aphrodite, who, according to Strabo (xui, 588), was worshipped especially in Athens, and according to Diodorus Sicilus (iv, 6; cf. Eiym. Magnum, 773, 1, Hesychius, s.v. 7¥ywv), also among the Egyptians, as Priapus.
An amiable form is the god Pan, the friendly mountain-spirit, protector of flocks and symbol of peaceful nature, whom Cyllene bore to Hermes in the wooded mountains of Arcadia. Singular in appearance, with goat’s feet, two horns and a long beard, he is especially the god of goats, which one sees feeding and jumping everywhere on the slopes of the Greek mountains. In his company the nymphs dance, sing, and play music, when they are not enjoying the sweets of love with him—for Pan is constantly in love. The singular voices and sounds,
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