Making a festival from scratch: the Priapeia

Whoever worships “minor deities” knows the struggle: historical information is scarce, tends to be fragmentary and/or scattered across centuries and locations, and just overall badly documented. Priapus is one of those, who, having joined the pantheon later than most (not before the 3rd century BC) and having had several different forms of worship, albeit all

Priapus hymns

He’s got none. That’s the whole issue. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with that fact. So far, I’ve honoured him with small prayers that I’d write or make up on the spot. It’s satisfactory but not ideal, as I’m someone who enjoys the formality of reciting/reading an

An updated list of Priapus epithets

Because the list on theoi.com is sad af. Let’s start with those actually. On the theoi.com page for Priapus are listed 5 epithets: Ανδροσαθων, Androsathon “man-pricked” Ιθυφαλλος, Ithyphallos “Erect-phallus” Τυχων, Tykhon “Fortune” Θριαμβος, Thriambos “Thriamb” Διθυραμβος, Dithyrambos “Dithyramb” And they’re fine, Ithyphallos and Tykhon are two important ones and I’m glad they’re there. However, it’s

Priapus of the sailors

About two weeks ago I wrote about Aphrodite and her role as a sea goddess. Finding the epigrams about this aspect of hers led me to a rabbit hole of extracting dedicatory epigrams from the Palatine Anthology. Sixteen of them mentionned Priapus, of those, eleven epigrams present Priapus under a different aspect than the one

More about Priapus

An algorithm has recentely recommended me an article titled “Construction cultuelle dans les Priapées: la séqunence centrale” by Marie-Karine Lhommé which seeks to analyze the description of the cultus of Priapus in the Carmina Priapea, an anonymous collection of 80 latin epigrams. I’m usually someone who screams “cultus before myth” or “cultus before literary sources”

Worshipping Priapus – Practical info

As promised, the second part of this post, because otherwise it would have been a very long read. His portrayal is in various ways: either as a small man with a huge penis, or as a more realistic human, like how this fresco in Pompeii depicts him.  What is always depicted however is how he

Worshipping Priapus – Background info

I’ve mentionned several times in previous posts this month that my worship has evolved over the past years and is continuing to evolve. I’ve come to introduce myself or be introduced to more deities, some of which are less known than others. More recentely, my worship has been leaning towards “minor” rustic deities, all of