In the 5th century BC, at the height of
its power, Athens had a lot of Herms.
A Herm was a representation of the god
Hermes: a square stone pillar, man-height, with a head on top and
genitals, with erect phallus, partway down.
The Herms were guardians, giving divine
protection to the city and its people, and warding off infertility.
They lined the streets and markets and public spaces; they stood
watch at the entrances to houses and temples. They were posted at gates and intersections, and even served
as mile-markers on the roads.
One night in 415 BC, a gang of vandals
stormed through the city and smashed the stiffies off all the Herms.
Who were they? Some blamed the hetaireiai, societies of
upper-class Athenian frat-boy types; supposedly devoted to wine,
poetry and philosophy, they were apparently equally devoted to
strippers, courtesans and hell-raising.
Others, including Thucydides, thought
it was a political psy-op meant, by creating "omens," to
prevent the launching of a military expedition against Syracuse. The
instigators would have been agents of Sparta, Athens' enemy in the ongoing Peloponnesian War, or perhaps political opponents of the expedition's
commander, Alcibiades. As it happened, the expedition went forward, but
ended in disaster.
Whatever their goal, the rioters
intended to raise Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the populace, and
they succeeded. We can be thankful that our own public statues don't
have genitals.
Well, except for the Wall Street Bull.
Come to think of it, I'm surprised the
statue-bashers haven't yet tried to castrate this guy.
8 comments:
Great post!
The only problem is Sixty wants to post a photo of his junk that he carved in wood.
Well-aged Eastern White Pine, I'm guessing.
Not for nothing is that species known as Pinus strobus!
So when we find the museum full of heads, noses, arms, hands and various other smashed off body parts we will find the missing, er, equipment? The jokes write themselves...
They were known as the Hisms before the castrations.
Note that the bull's balls are worn shiny from touching. Statistically speaking, I wonder if they are touched more often by women than by men?
BTW, wasn't there a small bronze statue of a child in front of the bull, poised as if to say "stop"?
The "Fearless Girl" statue was moved several blocks away. No real reason that I know of unless it was to Ban Bossy.
Right, so back to the balls. It’s clear they represent the intersection of two universal and timeless human fascinations: money and genitals. But when did touching them become good luck? Why do Brazilian businessmen rub their briefcases against the giant genitalia? Why do groups gather around the bull’s majestic butt crack for family photos, parents gently pushing their children to climb underneath and hug the balls from below?
You can watch the lines ebb and flow throughout the day on the handy webcam on Di Modica’s website. The real-time stream allows viewers to see fluctuations in the relative popularity of the bull’s front versus backside. Hardly a moment passes that the bronze testicles aren’t being touched and caressed. Aside, perhaps, from those of Genghis Khan, the Charging Bull must have the most fondled testicles in all of recorded history.
It sounds more like a human response chickelit, than a particularly male or female response, but here's the site for the webcam if you want to take a gander or watch for a goose. http://www.chargingbull.com/
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