Appendix Vergiliana: Priapea

Three short poems spoken by or about Priapus, the rustic god of gardens and fertility, transmitted in the Appendix Vergiliana. In the first, an elegiac epigram, the god lists the gifts of the seasons that adorn him and fears only winter, when farmers might burn his wooden statue for fuel. In the second, in iambics, the poplar-wood image guards a poor man’s small farm and recalls the humble offerings it receives through the year; the third warns thieves away from the property.

The poems are distinct from the larger anonymous Carmina Priapea and are notably restrained, more pastoral than obscene, picturing the small plot, the cottage and the offerings of a poor farmer. Their authorship is uncertain; they were attached to Virgil’s name in the ancient lists of his minor works. They are a graceful example of the Latin dedicatory and pastoral epigram, close in spirit to the Hellenistic epigrams of the Greek Anthology.