The fascinus, or phallus, was at the heart of classical Roman art and
life. No god was more represented in ancient Rome than the phallic deity
Priapus, and the fescennine verses, one of the earliest forms of Roman
poetry, accompanied the celebrations of Priapus, the harvest, and
fertility. But with this emphasis on virility also came an emphasis on
power and ideas of possession and protection.
In Sex and Terror, Pascal Quignard looks closely at this delicate
interplay of celebration and terror. In startling and original readings
of myths, satires, memoirs, and works of ancient philosophy and visual
art, Quignard locates moments of both playful, aesthetic commemoration
and outward cruelty. Through these examples, he describes a colossal
cultural shift within Western civilization that occurred two millennia
ago, as Augustus shaped the Roman world into an empire and the joyous,
precise eroticism of the Greeks turned into a terror-stricken
melancholy. The details of this revolution in thinking are revealed
through Quignard's astute analysis of classical literary sources and
Roman art.
This powerful transformation from celebration to fear is a change whose
consequences, Quignard argues, we are still dealing with today, making
Sex and Terror an intriguing reconsideration of ancient Rome that
transcends its history.
