Priapus- Greek GodDeity"God of Fertility"

Birth and Exile

Aphrodite bore Priapus to Dionysus, though some traditions name Hermes, Adonis, or even Zeus as his father. Hera cursed the unborn child while he was still in the womb, jealous of Aphrodite or angered by the judgment of Paris. The curse left Priapus permanently and grotesquely deformed, and the gods cast him out of Olympus in disgust. Shepherds raised him in the countryside, where he became a god of fertility, gardens, and livestock.

The Donkey's Braying

Two closely parallel episodes capture Priapus's character. At a feast of the gods, he crept toward the sleeping goddess Hestia, intending to assault her. Before he could act, a donkey brayed loudly, waking Hestia and alerting the assembled deities. Priapus fled in humiliation. In the parallel version told by Ovid, the victim is the nymph Lotis, who had fallen asleep at a rural festival. Again a donkey's cry saved her, and Priapus was driven away by the laughter of the other gods. These episodes explain his enmity toward donkeys: he demanded they be sacrificed to him in recompense.

Priapus's primary cult center was Lampsacus on the Hellespont, where local tradition held he had been born. The men of Lampsacus initially expelled him out of envy and fear of his sexual potency, but after his departure the city was afflicted with a disease of the genitals. An oracle instructed the citizens to recall Priapus, and they established his cult with great honors. The donkey became his primary sacrificial animal.

God of the Countryside

Wooden or stone statues of Priapus, painted red and displaying his characteristic phallus, stood in gardens, orchards, and vineyards across the ancient world. They warded off thieves and evil spirits and promoted fertile crops. He kept the company of Pan and Silenus in the retinue of Dionysus — gods of the pasture and the vine, not the temple.