Following a number of films featuring debauched emperors, it is nowadays commonplace to associate the Greek-Roman antiquity with orgies. But is this historically accurate?
The wooden phallus discovered at Vindolanda. Wooden Phallus
Courtesy of The Vindolanda Trust.
Sexuality in Ancient Rome was more preoccupied with power dynamics than it was with gender – as an expert in visual cultures of sexuality explains.
A fragment of a wall painting showing two lovers in bed from the House of L Caecilius Jucundus in Pompeii, now at Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Wikimedia Commons
From phallus-shaped wind chimes to explicit erotica on lamps and cups, sex is everywhere in ancient Greek and Roman art. But our interpretations of these images say much about our own culture.
Brothels in Pompeii were decorated with murals depicting erotic and exotic scenes: but the reality was far more brutal and mundane.
Thomas Shahan/Wikimedia Commons