Gephyra (Nov 2018)
Crops and Envy in Cilicia
Abstract
Günder and Ender Varinlioğlu have recently published a short verse text from rough Cilicia, apparently engraved on a door post and dated to the 3rd/4th c. AD. It reads ‘For my masters I bring [or, protect: κομίζω] produce; but to the envious, a penis!᾿. A phallus is carved below it. The editors identify the speaker as the god Priapus. This article discusses the problem of translating κομίζω, and goes on to illustrate Priapus’ power against the evil eye of the envious, and to discuss his relation to garden produce: does he merely protect it, or also help it to grow? But it then presents an alternative interpretation suggested by G. O. Hutchinson: the speaker on this view would be not Priapus but the building itself on which the line was inscribed, a warehouse of some kind. Phallic symbols could avert the evil eye whether associated with Priapus or not: the editors of the new inscription have helpfully collected many further examples of phalli inscribed on doorposts or lintels in the same region (where Priapus is otherwise unattested). On either view it is likely that the verse was not composed for this context but was a protective formula of broader use like the widely-attested ‘Victorious Heracles son of Zeus lives here. Let no evil enter!’.
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