56 



Notes Antiquarian and Mythical, [no. 7, new series. 



is in India.* Tacitus in his Histories (II. 3) describing the temple 

 of Venus in Cyprus says, " the image of the goddess is not in 

 human shape, but an elongated circumference, broader at base and 

 tapering in girth upwards : its meaning obscure." And Maximus 

 Tyrius in his 38th Essay writes " The Paphions adore Aphrodite, 

 but her image you could liken to nothing but a white pyramid." 

 Taken in connection with aphrodisiac worship what could these 

 have been but lingams ? Herodian in his 5th book thus describes 

 the image of the Sun at Emesa, called by the Phoenicians Elaiaga- 

 balom, and worshipped not only by them but by the neighbouring 

 kings and satraps. " It has no form of a statue, but is a very large 

 stone, round at bottom, and tapering sharply conelike, its colour 

 black ; it is said to have fallen from the sky, and to be an unform- 

 ed image of the sun." Probably a meteorite, uniting both solar 

 and phallic worship — rites, as could be largely shown, almost 

 necessarily running into one another. In other instances when we 

 find Lucian in his Pseudomantis saying of a religious fanatic " that 

 if he should anywhere see a stone anointed with oil or crowned with 

 flowers, he would straight fall down and worship it for a long 

 time, beseeching good luck of it," and Theophrastus in his charac- 

 teristics of a superstitious man describing him " on passing by an 

 anointed stone in the cross-roads, as taking oil from a little flask, 

 falling on his knees and adoring it," we have only to walk along 

 any Indian road to perceive the kind of stones referred to, anointed 

 and garlanded the same as those of classic days.f The stone said 

 to have been devoured by Saturn in mistake for Jupiter and relat- 



* It is noteworthy that whereas in India the lingam assumes a conventional 

 and inoffensive shape ; the phallus in Asia Minor and the antique world gene- 

 rally was in the grossest and most objectionable form. Heuce though the latter 

 was familiar to the ancients, the former when it occurred was misunderstood by 

 or unintelligible to them. It should not be overlooked that the phallic type in 

 its most exaggerated form, was especially connected with Bacchus as conqueror 

 of India. Witness the two colossal phalli, each 300 fathoms high, placed by 

 Bacchus in the vestibule of the great Syrian temple, after his return from his 

 Indian expedition. (Lucian, de Syria Dea.) In that most prodigious of record- 

 ed processions, the great Bacchic pomp celebrated by Ptolemy of Alexandria, we 

 read of a golden phallus 120 cubits high, crowned by a bright golden star 6 feet 

 round. (Athenaeus, Lib. V.) 



•f A friend writes that in the Kunawur Province and high Himalayan villages 

 a stone is set up as a pillar in the fields, its centre and top smeared with white 

 wash, and the top marked with five finger-marks of red ochre ; on this flowers 

 are offered for the prosperity of the field. So too in Southern India the white- 

 washed splinter of stone, tipped with red, may everywhere be seen placed under 

 a tree in fields or gardens, crowned with a few flowers. 



