"City Builders And Vandals In Our Age"
By Caleb T. Maupin
From the obelisks of Egypt to the nuclear missiles of the Pentagon, the phallus has always been the primary glyph of imperial authority. It is no accident that ancient kingship rituals—whether the sacred marriage of Sumerian rulers or the coronation of European monarchs—were steeped in the symbology of generative potency. The king’s body was not merely political; it was cosmologically erect, a living axis mundi chanelling divine power into the earthly realm.
Egypt: The god Min, depicted with an ithyphallic stance, embodied the Nile’s fertilizing force—directly tied to the pharaoh’s claim as guarantor of abundance.
Rome: The fascinus, a phallic amulet, was carried in triumphal processions to ward off envy—a magical assertion of the empire’s invincible virility.
Modernity: The Washington Monument is no mere obelisk; it is the stone erection of a republic that still bows to Caesars.
II. The Imperial Cult and the Performance of Potency
The imperial cult—whether deifying Roman emperors or sacralizing presidential "command authority"—is fundamentally a phallic liturgy. To rule is to penetrate: geopolitically, economically, spiritually. Consider:
The Spear as Scepter: The Holy Lance of Charlemagne, the hasta of Roman augury, the "nuclear football"—all are variants of the same myth: he who holds the shaft holds destiny.
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