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The corollary is that sterility is a personal reproach in Biblical times, a social defect that is looked upon with opprobrium, particularly in Oriental countries.

In Spain, the phallic cult was practiced under the name of Hortanes. This cult is mentioned by the Roman epic poet, Silius Italicus, in his Punica. He describes the orgiastic revels of Satyrs and Maenads in nocturnal rites in honor of the Hispanic fascinum.

In the South of France, also, and in Belgium, excavations unearthed relics, monuments, amulets and other artifacts, bas-reliefs and antiquities of various kinds, all testifying to the ancient cult of Priapus and his functions and the deep and wide reverence for his omnipotence. In Germany, Priapus lost the somewhat indulgent character of a phallic and generative deity responsive to supplication and promise, and became a violent, blood-lusting monstrosity. In parts of Eastern Europe, again, Priapus became Pripe-Gala, sanguinary and destructive.

Ancient Armenia had a deity analogous to Priapus or Aphrodite or Astarte. She was known as Diana Anaïtis, and her cult involved temple prostitution. The same practice, on the testimony of the Greek historian Herodotus, was in vogue in Lydia. Another writer, the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela, who belongs in the first century A.D., has similar references in the case of an African people called the Augilae.