Jul 5, 2023 05:46 PM
EXCERPTS: . . . . Pompeii, often seen under the bright sun with hordes of other visitors, does not hide its darker side – in fact, the single purpose-built brothel identified in the city, known as the Lupanar, is one of its most popular attractions.
[...] Thanks to the graffiti in the brothel, we even know the names of some of the women who worked there: Anedia, Aplonia, Atthis, Beronice, Cadia, Cressa, Drauca, Fabia, Faustilla, Felicla, Fortunata, Habenda, Helpis, Ianuaria, Ias, Mola, Murtis, Myrtale, Mysis, Nais, Panta, Restituta, Rusatia, Scepsis, Victoria, and the daughter of Salvius. Eutychis does not appear in the list, although it might well be that those were working names; some of them appear in graffiti elsewhere in town.
They were on display naked with prices, to be perused, evaluated and chosen by the male clientele.
How would Pompeiians and other visitors have experienced the brothel? We can learn something of this from a fragmentary literary text called The Satyricon, written in the 1st century CE by an elite Roman called Petronius. In the scene, the male character Encolpius has become lost in town. An old woman tricks him into entering the brothel, whereupon:
I noticed some men and naked women walking cautiously about among placards of price. Too late, too late I realised that I had been taken into a bawdy-house. I cursed the cunning old woman, and covered my head, and began to run through the brothel to another part, when just at the entrance Ascyltos met me, as tired as I was, and half-dead. It looked as though the same old lady had brought him there. I hailed him with a laugh, and asked him what he was doing in such an unpleasant spot.
He mopped himself with his hands and said: ‘If you only knew what has happened to me.’ ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, on the point of fainting, ‘I was wandering all over the town without finding where I had left my lodgings, when a respectable person came up to me and very kindly offered to direct me. He took me round a number of dark turnings and brought me out here, and then began to offer me money and solicit me. A woman got threepence out of me for a room, and he had already seized me. The worst would have happened if I had not been stronger than he.’
Petronius was writing comedy, but there is no reason to dispute the incidental details, which can bring the Lupanar to life. His description suggests brothels would be located in more out-of-the-way parts of town and were not necessarily identifiable from the outside; the prostitutes and punters were screened from the outside world by a curtain.
It also reveals that people could be enticed or tricked into visiting – presumably chaperones who drummed up trade got a fee. The prostitutes themselves were on display naked with prices, to be perused, evaluated and chosen by the male clientele. Cubicles or rooms could be rented out for private use.
The Roman poet Horace wrote about men’s choice of sexual partners in one of his satires, where he is pointing out the follies of some men – especially in hankering after or having affairs with elite or married women. He suggests that prostitutes are a much more sensible choice when a man had need of sex. For one thing, their faces and bodies are visible, he says.
In contrast to respectable women, whose bodies were well covered, prostitutes’ clothes could be revealing, allowing the man to view what he might want to buy and use. And, during the encounter, Horace says, a man might call the prostitute by any name – she could be expected to cater better to man’s fantasies. Horace, at least in character, preferred these women to be fair and natural, smartly turned out, prompt and inexpensive.
The Satyricon begins to fill in the details of the lives and environment of some prostitutes – those who worked in brothels, at least – but, so far, from the text and the paintings we have something of a light-hearted view of what went on. However, the reality of the women in the brothel, naked and carrying their price placards, was a grim one: their bodies put to use for the profit of the brothel’s owners, their physical and emotional work performed in tiny open cubicles or sex booths.
Most of them were slaves, who had little choice in what they were doing, at the mercy of their owners and customers. Poorer free women too were vulnerable and had probably been driven to prostitution by necessity. About a fifth of the women’s names in the brothel indicate they were free.
Slavery was an accepted institution in the Roman Empire, and slaves of all kinds – agricultural workers, urban house slaves, labourers, miners, teachers (and prostitutes) – were everywhere... (MORE - missing details)
Tour round the purpose-built brothel (Lupanar) at Pompeii ... https://youtu.be/J_GM7g0jU58