[361] Perhaps it is from this that Bacchus gets his secondary title of _Attis_. _Clement of Alexandria_, Ad Gentes, p. 12, says, δι’ ἣν αἰτίαν οὐκ ἀπεικότως τὸν Διόνυσόν τινες Ἄττιν προσαγορεύεσθαι θέλουσιν, αἰδοίων ἐστερημένον. (For which reason some maintain, and not without probability, that Dionysus is called Attis, as being deprived of the genital organs). According to the Scholiast to _Lucian_, De Dea Syra, ch. 16, Dionysus was roaming about in the search for his mother Semelé, when he came upon Polyymnus, and the latter promised to reveal his mother’s place of abode, if he would practise paederastia with him. This he did, and Polyymnus accompanied him to Lerna, where Semelé would seem to have been, and died there. Mourning the death of his paederast, Dionysus hewed out of fig-tree wood private parts of wood, and carried them about with him constantly in memory of Polyymnus. For this reason Dionysus is worshipped with Phallic emblems. (λυπηθεὶς δὲ ὁ Διόνυσος, ὅτε ὁ ἑραστὴς αὐτοῦ ἔθνησκε, αἰδοῖον ξύλινον ἐκ συκίνου ξύλου πελεκήσας, κατεῖχεν ἀεὶ πρὸς μνήμην τοῦ Πολυύμνου· διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν τοῖς φαλλοῖς τιμῶσιν τὸν Διόνυσον.) The story is related at greater length by _Clement of Alexandria_, Cohortat. ad Gentes, p. 22; but he calls the lover Prosymnus (as does _Arnobius_, bk. V. 27. Comp. Tzetzes, in Lycophron., 213), and actually makes Bacchus practise _Onania postica_ (Masturbation by the posterior), for he says: ἀφοσιούμενος τῷ ἐραστῇ ὁ Διόνυσος, ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον ὁρμᾷ, καὶ _πασχητιᾷ_· κλάδον οὖν συκῆς, ὡς ἔτυχεν, ἐκτεμνὼν ἀνδρείου μορίου σκευάζεται τρόπον· _ἐφέζεταί τε τῷ κλάδῳ_, τὴν ὑπόχεσιν ἐκτελῶν τῷ νεκρῷ ὑπόμνημα τοῦ πάθους τούτου μυστικὸν· φαλλοὶ κατὰ πόλεις ἀνίστανται Διονύσῳ. (Dionysus by way of performing due service to his lover’s memory, hastens to his tomb, and proceeds to _practise passive lust_. So cutting down the branch of a fig-tree, he fashions it to a semblance of a man’s member; and then he _mounts the branch in a sitting posture_, fulfilling his promise to the dead man,—a mystic memorial of his pathic loves. Phalli are set up in Cities in honour of Dionysus). In Arnobius, loco citato, we read that Dionysus: Ficorum ex arbore ramum validissimum praeferens dolat, runcinat, levigat et humani penis fabricatur in speciem: figit super aggerem tumuli, et postica ex parte nudatus, accedit, subdit, insidit. Lascivia deinde luxuriantis assumpta, huc atque illuc clunes torquet et meditatur ab ligno pati, quod iam dudum in veritate promiserat.—(Bringing with him a sturdy branch of a fig-tree, hews, planes and smoothes it, and fashions it into the shape of a man’s penis; then he fixes it upright on the mound of the tomb, and stripping his posteriors, advances, mounts, and sits down on it. Then imitating the lascivious motions of a wanton in the act, writhes his buttocks this way and that, and imagines himself to be receiving from the wooden member the treatment which he had long ago promised in reality).