Roman Vice & sex in the ancient world: Pompeii
If a culture has a collection of share sexual images, scenarios, interpretations etc. we may have inherited a lot of ours from the Romans of the Julio-Claudian Imperial period:
- unrestrained sensuality as a demonstration of power and status.
- combining pleasures, with excitements, into ensembles, as opposed isolating and “purifying” pleasures.
- spectrum of exotic foods
- large heated baths
- wine
- sex
- danger
- violence
- taboo
- extravagance
- novel luxury
- active and passive participants in sexual acts.
- Sex as an expression of relative power, and affecting, resolving or enforcing social status. Well, whether we do this now
- erotica in daily life. Paintings and sculptures in private and public spaces. Sexuality seen as part of a loving relationship, and not as something scarring to innocent eyes.
- prostitution as a safety valve
- adultery more common than publicly stated attitudes would predict.
- The Julio-Claudian era started with the vanquishing of Rome’s major enemies. With no one to war against, the cultural imperative for competition, and struggle may have turned inward. Coliseum contests grew more elaborate, giving the audience vicarious thrills, combined with corporal security, and a sense of control over life and death. Novelty, and extravagance suffused the experience. Animals hunting animals. Animals hunting humans. Humans battling each other, sometimes to the death. At one point the coliseum was flooded, so navel battles could be staged. One of the emperors reportedly loved trident and net fighters most, as they didn’t wear helmets, and he could see their expressions as they died.
- where we differ:
homosexuality, slavery and pedophilia – In Rome slaves were bought young, and expected to accept sexual advances from their masters regardless of gender or age. The younger the slave, the less acceptable sexual advances were, but their was definitely a gradient, in both age and behavior.
Thing is, we don’t differ from the Romans in these areas just casually, we differ intensely – As a nation we’re just getting around to shaking off our irrational discomfort with homosexuality. It’s possible that these attitude developed in reaction to the Romans. At the time that this the roman form of hedonism developed, they were also feeding Christians to lions. In fact, that was part of the hedonism. Since the Christians got out the stadiums and founded the church that governed the post Roman societies for two millennia, it’s not a surprise that some of the behaviors of their former rulers, and tormentors were vilified, and others emulated.
- cruelty as a natural, and exciting, companion of differences in power</li?
This seems very much like the stuff of our television drama’s and commercials. Even where we aren’t watching the shine on these things, we’re struggling against them, trying to discover “deeper” values. The larger than life fetishism of Julio-Claudian Rome can fill in for the absence of the survival struggle. The novelty and taboo can restore missed tensions. Of course the learning and association can lead to intimacy, creativity, and subtle growth. Perhaps the dogmatic pursuit of fetish can undermine perception, intimacy, and “live mind”, but perhaps intentionally varied, and shared experiences of a broad spectrum of sensation can play a part in encouraging these qualities instead.
Incidentally, for comparison see “Sex in the ancient world: Egypt”. There’s many sexual images amongst the Hieroglyphs, but in a very abstract way. For instance if Isis perches atop Osiris’s member, it’s in the form of a flying kite. There’s one well known example of explicit sexual imagery in Egyptian finds, a scroll of twelve sexual scenes, most likely in a brothel. Some records seem to indicate that this may have been pornography. Further records indicate that the crowded living conditions around the Nile may have lead to the prolific double meanings in Egyptian sexual expression. With less privacy, sex may have retreated into fiction, and reproductive need.
“The Tale of the Tape”, T’il Death
noqualitycontrol 