Levin-Richardson on Graffiti in Pompeii's 'Purpose-Built' Brothel

Via Project Muse,

Sarah Levin-Richardson, Facilis hic futuit: Graffiti and Masculinity in Pompeii's 'Purpose-Built' Brothel, Helios 38.1.

Long overlooked by scholarship as obscene recordings of sexual encounters, the 135 graffiti of the 'purpose-built' brothel at Pompeii (VII 12 18-20; CIL IV 2173-96 and 3101a; Add. 215-6 and Add. 465) form a rich corpus that illuminates daily interactions among clients and prostitutes in the Roman world. In this paper, I demonstrate through these graffiti the multiple ways in which male clients, individually and collectively, negotiated male sexuality. Specifically, I analyze how male clients both created a hierarchy among themselves and solidified communal, normative masculinity in opposition to nonnormative males and marginalized females.

Article: Ovid's impotence shows why we can't let Pompeii fall

Well, I suppose this is one reason why we shouldn't let Pompeii fall into ruins, although I can't say it's occurred to me to list it among my priorities ...

Ovid's impotence shows why we can't let Pompeii fall

Evidence of the subtlety of Roman eroticism gets lost in translation, and may be further buried if Pompeii crumbles

By Jonathan Jones at Guardian.co.uk 

... Ovid's poems are in libraries and bookshops all over the world. But only in Pompeii can you explore a Roman brothel, visit Roman baths decorated with saucy scenes and see the seriously kinky frescoes in The Villa of the Mysteries. None of these are reconstructions; they are real places, preserved by chance along with so many aspects of everyday life in an ordinary Roman city.

To let this magical place decay, to fail to care about such rare survivals of human intimacy, is more obscene than anything Ovid wrote. Shame on those responsible.

Read the full article here.

New titles in Studi della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei

New titles just announced from L'Erma di Bretschneider:

Pietro Giovanni Guzzo & Vincenzo Scarano Ussani
Prostituzione nell'antica Pompei. Ex corpore lucrum facere
Studi della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, 27
2009. 180p. ISBN 978-88-8265-558-7. €120

Domenico Esposito
Le officine pittoriche de IV stile a Pompei. Dinamiche produttive ed economico-sociali
Studi della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, 28
2009. 294p. ISBN 978-88-8265-496-2. €250

Antonio Varone & Grete Stefani
Titulorum pictorum imagines qui in CIL vol IV collecti sunt
Studi della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, 29
2009. 470p. ISBN 978-88-8265-392-7. €250

Bars and brothels

This one from Rogue Classicism:

'According to Clare Kelley Bazeby, there is material evidence that the Ancient Greeks may have been opening up bars and brothels in their private residences to supplement their income. She looked at items dating from the period 475 B.C. down to 323 B.C. from sites as diverse as the Villa of Good Fortune at Olynthus to Building Z in Athens. Bazeby dixit:

“This has a real impact on how we view the economy in classical Greece … A lot of trade and industry was based within the home.”

“If you look at the remains coming from ancient Greek homes, it seems very clear to me that these buildings had another function, that some areas were used for commercial purposes … It’s amazing how entrenched people in the field are. We are trying to change archaeologists’ minds by pointing out that houses could be used economically as well being residences.”

“There was nothing to stop part of a house being utilized for commercial gain by using a room fronting onto the street as a shop, or indeed from using the household courtyard for business transactions.”

“My research shows that a lot of trade was embedded within the domestic walls. It also changes our perception of who was drinking wine, and where they were doing it. Women, slaves and foreigners as well as ordinary Greeks, would all have enjoyed time and wine in a classical tavern …”

Added Allison Glazebrook:

“There is no evidence of any purpose-built brothels for ancient Greece. We should not expect brothel spaces to look that different from houses in the material record because girls lived in brothels in which they worked.”

See Rogue Classicism for links to newspaper articles about the papers.

I know this is not 'Roman', but I've got to say that the idea of the house being used habitually for commercial gain fits with my own views on domestic space. All sorts of craft and trade activities could have taken place within the house (all types of houses, too, big and small) on a normal day-to-day basis, without this being anything noteworthy or unusual. I haven't really considered that bars or brothels might have been opened up inside houses, but perhaps this is something worth thinking about. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?