The Vettii fresco. Photo: Christine McIntosh 
 
 A first century fresco in the ruins of Pompeii could reveal an embarrassing truth about ancient Roman men, an Italian researcher told The Local. 
 
 The fresco in question is found in the entrance to the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, which survived Mount Vesuvius's eruption in AD 79, and depicts minor Roman god Priapus and his famously large, erect penis. 
 
 Priapus was a Roman god of livestock, fruit, plants, gardens and male genitalia. 
 
 But according to research by Dr Francesco Galassi, in the fresco, Priapus was suffering from a debilitating condition known as phimosis. 
 
 Phimosis is a medical condition where the foreskin fails to retract from the head of the penis, and its depiction in the fresco could suggest it was a problem that blighted the men of ancient Pompeii. 
 
 The Vettii fresco is notable because in other surviving depictions of Priapus he is not shown to be suffering from the phimosis. 
 
 So why did the artist choose to give him the condition? 
 
 Perhaps a prominent member of the Vettii family suffered from the condition and wanted to hide their shame by having Priapus suffer from it too, Galassi said. 
 
 "Or it could be that the condition was so widespread that the artist chose to depict it,” he added. 
 
 Put like this the evidence seems a little flimsy and anecdotal, but when considered alongside archaeological finds it starts to become more convincing. 
 
 In the area around Pompeii a huge number of anatomical votives have been found. These are small penis-shaped objects, made from wood and stone that were believed to ward off evil. 
 
 There could be some mileage to the theory. 
 
 Jessica Hughes, a classics lecturer at the Open University, told Discovery news: “Anatomical votive offerings made in Italy between the fourth to second centuries B.C. do often show the penis with the foreskin closed around the top, as in the later Priapus painting from Pompeii." 
 
 Perhaps these trinkets were a way for the ancient Romans to ward off even the condition itself, which can be quite debilitating. 
 
 “The Romans didn't have the technology to treat it. It is a condition that causes pain, infection and problems during sexual intercourse,” Galassi pointed out. 
 
 Today, the problem is easily treated, through steroid creams, stretching techniques or circumcision. 
 
 This is by no means the first time scholars have attributed Priapus with physical illnesses. In 2007, an academic writing in BJU International argued that Prapius suffered from Proteus syndrome, otherwise known as gigantism of the penis. ||||| According to Pompeii's archaeological superintendent, the vases are direct evidence that the workshop was fully active at the moment of the eruption. "They represent a key element in the study of craft activities in the Roman town," the superintendent said in a statement. 
 
 Decorated with small carvings, the vases were used to pour wine or water. 
 
 The 10 raw clay vases represent a unique finding as they reveal a frozen-in-time picture of the exact moment panicked potters realized they were facing an impending catastrophe. 
 
 Archaeologists found 10 raw clay vases sealed under a layer of ash and pumice from Mount Vesuvius' devastating eruption of 79 AD. The vases were dropped and abandoned. Here, a kiln (left) and the vases appear ready to be fired (right). 
 
 This fresco of Priapus shows the god of fertility suffered from a penis defect. 
 
 One of Pompeii's most recognized frescoes, the portrait of the Greek god of fertility Priapus, holds an embarrassing truth, according to a new study of the 1st-century A.D. wall painting. 
 
 Found in the entrance hall to the House of the Vettii, perhaps the most famous house to survive Mount Vesuvius's devastating eruption, the fresco shows the ever-erect Priapus with his engorged penis. 
 
 But this phallus-flaunting symbol of male potency and procreative power shows signs of a condition which can result in difficult sexual relations and infertility, says a study published in Urology journal. 
 
 Photos: Pompeii Pottery Workshop Frozen in Time 
 
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 "The disproportionate virile member is distinctively characterized by a patent phimosis, more specifically a shut phimosis," Francesco Maria Galassi told Discovery News. 
 
 Galassi is an M.D. now back in Italy who recently worked at Imperial College London. He co-authored the paper with his father Stefano, also an M.D. 
 
 An inability to fully retract the foreskin, phimosis was treated only with circumcision or prepuceplasty before the introduction of topical corticosteroids. 
 
 "This condition presents different grades of severity, and in this specific case appears to be of the highest grade, in which there is no skin retractability on the glans," Galassi said. 
 
 Defects of the genitourinary tract, including phimosis, have been depicted in artistic representation since prehistory, showing a high degree of precision. 
 
 But why someone would portray the god of fertility with a severe phimosis? 
 
 "It is not unlikely the painter might have desired to report objective evidence of a high prevalence of that anatomic defect in Pompeii, at a time mixing it with fertility attributes traditionally ascribed to Priapus," Galassi said. 
 
 In this view, widespread among the male population in Pompeii, phimosis might have been the reason for the abundance in Pompeii of anatomical votive artifacts used to dispel that anatomical and functional defect. 
 
 "Anatomical votive offerings made in Italy between the fourth to second centuries B.C. do often show the penis with the foreskin closed around the top, as in the later Priapus painting from Pompeii," Jessica Hughes, lecturer in classical studies at UK’s Open University, told Discovery News. 
 
 Vases in Pompeii Reveal Panic Before Eruption 
 
 Hughes, co-author of a research project on votive offerings, noted these objects have sometimes been interpreted as offerings made by men suffering from phimosis, and the idea isn’t discordant with the overarching interpretation of anatomical votives as objects related to healing and fertility. 
 
 She found the interpretation of the Pompeian Priapus "very intriguing," as the image is conventionally seen as a representation of fertility, abundance and prosperity. 
 
 "In this case it’s more challenging for us to understand why the artist would have chosen to represent a biological condition that may have been seen to threaten fertility and health," Hughes said. 
 
 "Perhaps we need to see this painting as a comment on the power of the divine body, which didn't suffer from the same biological limitations as the mortal body," she added. ||||| Anyone with a casual knowledge of the Romans knows about the various erotic art found at Pompeii. From the paintings of sexual acts performed in each room of the brothel to a "flying phallus" amulet to a statue of Pan copulating with a goat, there is a veritable buffet of images that speak to a culture that used sexuality in a different way than we do. One of those frescoes, of minor god Priapus from the House of the Vettii, is getting a new interpretation by a medical doctor who has diagnosed a shut phimosis, a condition in which the foreskin cannot be fully retracted over the penis. 
 
 The fresco in question has an interesting history. It was discovered at the end of the 19th century by archaeologists working in the House of the Vettii, a large villa owned by two successful freedmen. After an earthquake in 62 AD, the wall paintings in the villa were created in the so-called fourth style, which boasts complex, textile-like images. The Priapus fresco adorns the entryway to the House of the Vetii, essentially the equivalent of our foyer, and a statue of Priapus lay just past it in the peristyle in front of the garden. Because of the subject matter, rumor has it that the Priapus fresco was covered over and its reproduction locked away until the end of the 20th century. 
 
 But Priapus was not meant as a titillating image, in spite of the fact that his name now means the most famous side effect of Viagra. His story is a sad one and starts with Greek mythology. The son of Dionysis and Aphrodite, Priapus was cursed by Hera, the queen of the gods, as a means of revenge because of the Judgment of Paris. Hera lost this beauty contest to Aphrodite, and it is claimed to be one of the precipitating events of the Trojan War. In utero, Priapus was cursed with a large penis and impotence. He was, however, worshipped as a minor deity particularly by rural Romans, who saw him as the guardian of livestock, plants, and gardens, as well as the patron of merchant sailors. The use of Priapus in a fresco and garden in the House of the Vettii reflects his status as an accidental fertility god, and by extension, reflects the wealth of the Vettii family. 
 
 In her 2006 paper on the role of the phallus and its symbolism in Roman Italy, Claudia Moser noted that "Priapus and his giant phallus represent three different kinds of prosperity: growth, represented by his enormous phallus; affluence, represented by the bag of coins which he holds and weighs; fertility, symbolized by the basket of fruit at his feet. The combination of money and the large member allowed the viewer to link the two, to equate the extensive quantity of each, an association evoked in the juxtaposition of the phallus and the bag of coins on the scale." 
 
 But in a closer look at the image (which follows on the next page, as it might not be suitable for reading at work, unless you work in a classics department), medical doctor Francesco Maria Galassi noticed something else about Priapus' penis. 
 
 Writing in the journal Urology last month, Galassi and his father Stefano, also a doctor, note that Priapus' "disproportionate virile member is distinctively characterized by a patent phimosis, more specifically a shut phimosis." This, according to the Galassis, means that Priapus is depicted as being unable to retract his foreskin at all. In Roman times, the treatment for this condition was likely circumcision. 
 
 This isn't the first time Priapus has been retro-diagnosed. In 2007, Venkatachalam Raveenthiran, writing in BJU International, pointed out that, even though he is always shown as ithyphallic (the technical term for "having an erect penis"), Priapus is also said to have been impotent. This means that Priapus' penis may never have been erect and rather that he might have suffered from Proteus syndrome, or local gigantism of the penis. 
 
 What is the real meaning of the fresco of Priapus from the House of the Vettii? It almost certainly had apotropaic properties, meaning it was designed to ward off evil. While the Galassis think that this image may have been an attempt to ward off other cases of phimosis, Moser sees it as a way to ward off bad luck and to gain wealth. 
 
 The fact that we can have this discussion about the meaning of art from the perspective of both classical studies and modern medicine, though, is quite extraordinary. Learning about the potential health issues of Julius Caesar or Menander have to color our understanding of the past, as they very well may have influenced politics, art, and literature at the time.
– A Greek god portrayed in one of Pompeii's best-known frescoes has quite the prominent feature—for better and for worse, apparently. The painting of fertility god Priapus, which survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, depicts a man whose phallus extends nearly to his knees and the fruit basket sitting beside him. But this symbol of procreative energy and male power also contains evidence of a medical condition that can curb fertility and hinder sexual relations, medical doctor Francesco Maria Galassi tells Discovery. "The disproportionate virile member is distinctively characterized by a patent phimosis, more specifically a shut phimosis," he says. In other words, Priapus' member seems to have a foreskin that couldn't fully retract: "It is a condition that causes pain, infection, and problems during sexual intercourse," Galassi adds, per the Local. So why would such a condition be shown in a fertility god? Galassi, who describes his theory in Urology, says the first-century painter may have wanted to report "a high prevalence of that anatomic defect in Pompeii." That could also explain why so many anatomical votive artifacts (showing a penis with closed foreskin at the top) were used in Pompeii between the second and fourth centuries BC to seek removal of that very condition, according to an expert who writes about votive offerings. This isn't the first time Priapus has attracted medical interest, either: One doctor pointed out back in 2007 that Priapus was reportedly impotent, so what looks like an erection in the fresco may really be evidence of Proteus syndrome, or local gigantism of the penis, Forbes reports. (See how Julius Caesar may have had mini-strokes that changed his personality.)