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.
