Among the Romans the symbol of satisfied and contented love was the myrtle branch, offered in sacrifice, along with milk and honey, to the obscene deity Priapus. * * * * * As a fetish, an apotropaic periapt, protective against all kinds of mishaps, the Romans made use of an amulet in the form of a fascinum. It was fashioned of various materials, often in the shape of a phallic symbol in high relief, on a plaque or medallion. The object was hung round children’s necks, on garden walls, on doors, or chariots, and on public buildings. * * * * * The Roman historian Julian Capitolinus, in his biography of the Emperor Pertinax, mentions glass vessels, phallic-shaped, that were used by the Romans for drinking. These vessels were known as phallovitroboli. * * * * * The ithyphallic concept as the source of creation was so deeply ingrained in the Roman consciousness, that they attached the ithyphallic device on all manner of objects: stones, seals, rings, medals, and lamps. As an extension of this concept, the Romans engraved on their drinking vessels phallic designs, as well as lewd scenes that would create in the drinker violent erotic provocations. * * * * * Sextus Pompeius Festus was a Roman lexicographer of the second century A.D., who describes a shrine in Rome dedicated to the obscene deities Mutunus and Tutunus. In this religious cult the suppliants were women. With head veiled, they came to offer sacrifice to the phallic powers. * * * * * The lewd rites of the phallic god Bacchus were celebrated by the Romans in a sacred wood near the River Tiber. Originally open to women only, the ceremonies were later on extended to men also, particularly to young men not over twenty years of age. At the nocturnal rituals there was clashing of cymbals, beating of drums. After an interval of excessive wine drinking, there ensued wild scenes of sexual promiscuity and perversions unlimited. Those initiates who seemed to have any scruples were sacrificed, and their bodies were thrown into the depths of a cavern. Men and women went frantic, shrieking their exultation to the deity, performing abandoned dance sequences. Sinister plots and furtive machinations also formed part of the aftermath of these tenebrous rites, malefic in their intentions, often fatal in their effects. * * * * * In addition to Priapus as the supreme generative deity, the Romans were dedicated to a number of other divinities endowed with analogous properties. Venus herself was worshipped at Rome in four temples.