Note 361 — FIRST SECTION. (continued 2)

Perhaps it is from this that Bacchus gets his secondary title of Attis. Clement of Alexandria, Ad Gentes, p. 12, says, δι’ ἣν αἰτίαν οὐκ ἀπεικότως τὸν Διόνυσόν τινες Ἄττιν προσαγορεύεσθαι θέλουσιν, αἰδοίων ἐστερημένον. (For which reason some maintain, and not without probability, that Dionysus is called Attis, as being deprived of the genital organs). According to the Scholiast to Lucian, De Dea Syra, ch. 16, Dionysus was roaming about in the search for his mother Semelé, when he came upon Polyymnus, and the latter promised to reveal his mother’s place of abode, if he would practise paederastia with him. This he did, and Polyymnus accompanied him to Lerna, where Semelé would seem to have been, and died there. Mourning the death of his paederast, Dionysus hewed out of fig-tree wood private parts of wood, and carried them about with him constantly in memory of Polyymnus. For this reason Dionysus is worshipped with Phallic emblems). (λυπηθεὶς δὲ ὸ Διόνυσος, ὅτε ὁ ἑραστὴς αὐτοῦ ἔθνησκε, αἰδοῖον ξύλινον ἐκ συκίνου ξύλου πελεκήσας, κατεῖχεν ἀεὶ πρὸς μνήμην τοῦ Πολυύμνου· διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν τοῖς φαλλοῖς τιμῶσιν τὸν Διόνυσον.) The story is related at greater length by Clement of Alexandria, Cohortat. ad Gentes, p. 22; but he calls the lover Prosymnus (as does Arnobius, bk. V. 27. Comp. Tzetzes, in Lycophron., 213), and actually makes Bacchus practise Onania postica (Masturbation by the posterior), for he says: ἀφοσιούμενος τῷ ἐραστῇ ὁ Διόνυσος, ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον ὁρμᾷ, καὶ πασχητιᾷ· κλάδον οὖν συκῆς, ὡς ἔτυχεν, ἐκτεμνὼν ἀνδρείου μορίου σκευάζεται τρόπον· ἐφέζεταί τε τῷ κλάδῳ, τὴν ὑπόχεσιν ἐκτελῶν τῷ νεκρῷ ὑπόμνημα τοῦ πάθους τούτου μυστικὸν· φαλλοὶ κατὰ πόλεις ἀνίστανται Διονύσῳ. (Dionysus by way of performing due service to his lover’s memory, hastens to his tomb, and proceeds to practise passive lust. So cutting down the branch of a fig-tree, he fashions it to a semblance of a man’s member; and then he mounts the branch in a sitting posture, fulfilling his promise to the dead man,—a mystic memorial of his pathic loves. Phalli are set up in Cities in honour of Dionysus). In Arnobius, loco citato, we read that Dionysus: Ficorum ex arbore ramum validissimum praeferens dolat, runcinat, levigat et humani penis fabricatur in speciem: figit super aggerem tumuli, et postica ex parte nudatus, accedit, subdit, insidit. Lascivia deinde luxuriantis assumpta, huc atque illuc clunes torquet et meditatur ab ligno pati, quod iam dudum in veritate promiserat.—(Bringing with him a sturdy branch of a fig-tree, hews, planes and smoothes it, and fashions it into the shape of a man’s penis; then he fixes it upright on the mound of the tomb, and stripping his posteriors, advances, mounts, and sits down on it. Then imitating the lascivious motions of a wanton in the act, writhes his buttocks this way and that, and imagines himself to be receiving from the wooden member the treatment which he had long ago promised in reality). Similarly we read in Petronius, Sat., Profert Enothea scorteum fascinum quod ut oleo et minuto pipere atque urticae trito circumdedit semine, paulatim coepit inserere ano meo. (Enothea produces a man’s member made of leather, which first of all she covered with oil and ground pepper and pounded nettle-seed, and then began by degrees to push it up my anus). Now too we shall be able to explain to our satisfaction what is the meaning of the phrase συκίνη ἐπικουρία ἐπὶ τῶν ἀσθενῶν (fig-wood succour,—said of weak allies), which is mentioned by Suidas under the word ὄλισβος (artificial member), and for which in the passage quoted above Aristophanes substitutes σκυτίνη ’πικουρία (leathern succour). On this the Scholiast observes: σκυτίνην ἐπικουρίαν καλεῖ τὴν σκυτίνην βοήθειον, εἴτε τὴν δερματίνην βοήθειαν, τὴν πληροῦσαν ἐπιθυμίαν ἀντὶ τῶν ἀνδρῶν· τοῦτο δὲ ποιοῦσιν αἱ ἀκόλαστοι γυναῖκες· σκυτίνην δὲ ἐπικουρίαν λέγει, παρὰ τὴν παροιμίαν· Συκίνη ἐπικουρία· ἐπὶ τῶν ἀσθενῶν βοηθημάτων καὶ ἴσως ἐνταῦθα γραπτέον, συκίνη ἀντὶ τοῦ σκυτίνη. (leathern succour: so Aristophanes calls the leathern help, or help of hide, the instrument that satisfies (women’s) longings in default of men. This is a practice that incontinent women follow. He says leathern (σκυτίνη), succour playing on the proverb, “Fig-wood (συκίνη) succour”, said of weak efforts at assistance. Possibly we should read συκίνη (of fig-wood) for σκυτίνη (of leather) here. Again: σκυτάλαι· στρογγύλα καὶ λεῖα ξύλα.—σκυτάλη· βακτηρία ἀκροπαχής (batons: rounded and polished staves)—(baton: a blunt-pointed staff) in Suidas, and the passage in Aristophanes, τοῦτ’ ἔστ’ ἐκεῖνο τῶν σκυτάλων, ὧν πέρδετο (this is the particular baton that made him break wind), which Suidas, under the word σκυτάλον (baton) has obviously misunderstood, just as much as the Scholiast has. For in all these passages it is the Priapus ficulnus (Priapus of fig-wood), also well-known to the Romans, that we must understand to be intended. Apposite in this connection is Horace’s (Sat I. 8. 1.), Olim truncus eram, inutile lignum (Once the trunk of a fig-tree was I, a useless log,)—on which the commentators have wasted a host of extraordinary interpretations.