Have you ever thought about why male genitalia are often shown as smaller than average in classical sculptures and paintings? This is a question that has puzzled many, and spoiler alert, if you are one of my male readers with a small penis complex, get ready for a pleasant surprise. Once you finish reading this article, you’ll likely experience a boost in confidence! Jokes aside, this article is designed to entertain you while also delivering some curious information, all without stepping on anyone’s toes or making you second-guess yourself.
Anyhow, to earn a deeper appreciation for this fascinating topic, I invite you to follow me on a journey back in time to the Ancient Greek peninsula, where we will stop in a couple of critical places. By delving into the historical and cultural background in which these artworks were created, we can gain a valuable perspective on the significance of their forms and proportions. As with any work of art, context is essential to fully appreciate its meaning. However, before taking this giant leap back in time, let me share with you a brief story. This has two functions: highlighting the two main concepts that will be explored in the following paragraphs and aiding your memory in remembering these notions.
Featured image: Bronze Statue of Athlete, Attica, 340-330 BCE. National Archeological Museum of Greece, Athens, Greece. Photo: Gary Todd, via Wikimedia Commons.
I was going up the stairs with my niece, heading towards the entrance door. The paintings on the walls silently accompanied us, consistently intriguing my guests with their cryptic meanings. Suddenly, I heard my niece’s steps coming to a halt while a pair of puzzled eyebrows formed on top of her brown eyes.
'Why the man in this drawing has such a small sex?' She enquired.
The drawing in question was a copy of one of the male figures that Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel, which I had done many years back when I was still studying painting in Urbino. The genitalia that Michelangelo had given to the figure were as small as those he had painted on Adam on the same ceiling, meaning that one needs a pair of magnifying glasses to spot them!
I like her inquisitiveness - I thought.
So, I cleared my throat and started:
'Ahem! The ancient Greeks linked small genitalia to intelligence and self-control. Thus, the smaller the phallus, the more intelligent and civilised the person was considered! Michelangelo created the Sistine Chapel during the Renaissance, a time in art when the ancient Greek standards of beauty were revived, and their mythical themes were once again valued. This means that his works were influenced by those of the ancient Greek masters. That's why he depicted and sculpted such small phalluses.' I explained.
I saw her thirteen-year-old eyes satisfied with my answer, and I could not conceal a smile of pride. Her curious eyes did not miss small details!!
The takeaway points in the story above are the following: in ancient Greece, the size of one’s manhood was associated with self-restraint, which Greeks called sophrosyne, and other qualities such as rationality, intelligence, and good civic behaviour. Moreover, classical statues and classical-inspired ones adhere to specific canons of beauty, which the ancient Greeks summarised with the word kalokagathia, meaning beautiful goodness.
Now, let’s move to Delphi, let’s say in the fifth century BCE. We stand in front of the entrance to the temple of Apollo, and our eyes are captured by this maxim: 'Know thyself, nothing in excess’. If you were Greek, this maxim would be part of your way of living and, as such, have a strong influence on whatever you did. Thence, artists imbued their statues with sophrosyne. This, in visual form, translated into relatively small, unerected penises – a symbol of control over the urges of the flesh, showing that rational and intelligent minds were capable of exercising control over irrational desires.
However, rationality and intelligence can also be appreciated in the harmony that sculptors achieved, creating perfect bodies that did not exist in nature but were more the result of mathematical formulas used to create idealised proportions - resulting from the harmonious relation of single body parts to the whole figure. This rationalisation of beauty and the control that human intellect had over the wild forces of nature is the essence of the virtue of sophrosyne encapsulated in a sculpture. Indeed, self-restraint was also a sign of good civic behaviour, which in a democratic society was paramount – creating balance and happiness rather than chaos. Thence, the Greek masters created a supersensual type of beauty since it goes beyond the mere appreciation of the senses – being intrinsically philosophical and rational in its essence. However, these concepts can appear somewhat abstract. Therefore, in the next paragraph, we will delve into what Greeks considered beautiful.
According to the Greek playwright Aristophanes, the ideal man should have had ‘a gleaming chest, bright skin, broad shoulders, tiny tongue, strong buttocks, and a little prick.’ Therefore, the ideal body had to be athletic, display self-restraint, and be aesthetically pleasing. The word kalokagathia - beautiful goodness - synthesised the Greek ideals of aesthetics, ethics, and athleticism. However, these qualities could only be exhibited in statues through nudity, and it is interesting to explore the relationship that Greeks had with nakedness since this differed from that of other contemporary Mediterranean cultures.
Based on the accounts of the Greek traveller and geographer Pausanias, in 720 BCE, during the 185-metre run at the Olympic Games, the Megarian Orsippus lost his loincloth. However, rather than slowing down to grab it and cover his nudity, the athlete sprinted, showing no shame – winning the competition. In contrast, the ancient historian Thucydides argues that the Spartans were the first to compete naked around the end of the fifth century BCE. We don’t know for certain who did it first, but ever since the Greeks started competing naked, this somehow changed them for the better, or so they believed!
Thucydides also makes an interesting association, asserting that ever since athletes began competing naked and nudity had become a synonym of Greekness, Greeks had become more peaceful due to the impossibility of concealing any weapon. On the other hand, barbarians could easily hide a sword or a dagger under their clothes. Therefore, nudity was associated with Greek civility. Statues embodying these ideals were depicted naked, sometimes only wearing sandals or headbands. However, not all the nude representations were virtuous. You might wonder - if small, unerected genitals represented sophrosyne and kalokagathia, what did big, erected ones symbolise?
In Greek mythological stories, Priapus was the minor god of fertility and protector of male genitals. Born from the adulterous passion between Aphrodite and Dionysus, he was cursed by Hera while still in the maternal womb. He was born with ugly features, little wit, and a permanent erection, which he would lose before attempting a sexual act, making him impotent. This god was the opposite of what was considered virtuous and desirable. Big, erected phalluses were, in fact, synonyms of stupidity, degeneration, barbarism and lack of self-control.
However, if Greeks publicly encouraged self-restraint, good civic behaviour, and moderation, they had a different attitude behind closed doors. The Greek oikos – home, had a room called andron – a private space reserved for men where symposia were held. Symposia were drinking parties, gladdened by music, poetry, and sex. Archaeological discoveries of vessels painted with symposium scenes tell us sometimes brutal stories, characterised by excesses, violent sex and bestiality, painting a different story than that suggested by ancient erudite text and by the idealised bodies of statues. Some of these vases represent satyrs with large and erected penises mocking the genitals of ordinary men.
However, satyrs were wild spirits with more in common with beasts than gods, so they did not have to self-restrain themselves. Just like Priapus, they were represented with erected genitalia, but since they were not impotent, they often engaged in disturbing sexual acts. Therefore, even though Greeks adopted virtuous conduct in public, their idea of everything in moderation probably included the excesses in which they indulged in the privacy of the andron. This is a reminder that ideals imbued in Greek statues were unachievable by ordinary men and were more something to aspire to rather than something that could be easily possessed.
Delving into the morals of an ancient society is always challenging. You might have noticed that ancient Greek principles such as that of self-restraint and moderation did not often take a linear trajectory but were somehow flexible. Since time immemorial, men have fought against wild forces threatening to corrupt them, and the ancient Greeks were no exception. However, they used rationality to fight the urges of the flesh. Nudity became a symbol of Greekness, a feature that distinguished them from the outsiders – the barbarians. Their civilisation was advanced, democratic, and educated. Since they wanted to infuse their art with sophrosyne and what was the Greek spirit of the time, they created an ideal body, especially in sculpture, which mirrored what they perceived as desirable and beautiful. Ultimately, what we now see as small manhood was then a synonym for intelligence, self-restraint and Greekness.
Written by Gabriella Sentina.
11.10.2023
Note from the author:
Since my writing has changed over time, and now I have a more personal writing style, I decided to review this article. So, if you have returned to it and found it different, that is why!
31.12.2024
Bibliography:
Blanshard, A. J.L. (2010) Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity. Available at:
Carpenter, R. (1889) The Aesthetic Basis of the Greek Art of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C. Available at:
Flynn, T. (1998) The Body in Sculpture, The Orion Publishing Group, London.
Gotthardt, A. (2018), Why Ancient Greek Sculptures Have Small Penises, Available at: