Some scholars have even interpreted the prepare of the Forum Augustum as phallic, "with its two semi-circular galleries or exedrae as the testicles and its long projecting forecourt as the shaft". In medieval Latin, a vogue for scholarly obscenity led to a perception of the dactyl, a metrical unit of verse represented - ‿ ‿, as an picture of the penis, with the prolonged syllable (longum) the shaft and the two short syllables (breves) the testicles. The English word "penis" derives from penis, which originally intended "tail" but in Classical Latin was employed regularly as a risqué colloquialism for the male organ. There are close to a hundred and twenty recorded Latin terms and metaphors for the penis, with the most significant group treating the male member as an instrument of aggression, a weapon. To Romans and Greeks, castration and circumcision had been connected as barbaric mutilations of the male genitalia. During the Republican time period, a Lex Cornelia prohibited many types of mutilation, which includes castration. The poetry selection identified as the Priapea deals with phallic sexuality, together with poems spoken in the particular person of Priapus.
