Article Review: How to Find a Brothel in Pompeii

by Brian Freeman

How to Find a Brothel in Pompeii

McGinn, Thomas A. J. “How to Find a Brothel in Pompeii.” Archaeology Odyssey 7/1 (Jan/Feb 2004):18-25, 62.

The article “How to Find a Brothel in Pompeii” is not for the faint of heart. The article describes pictures that once made the bashful Mark Twain write, “no pen could have the hardihood to describe.” To fully understand The Webster dictionary describes a brothel as a building where prostitutes are available and the synonym says to look up whorehouse. The author looks at many different views and explicit detail on what makes a brothel in the archeology terms. The author first focuses on the certain criteria set forth by the researcher Andrew Wallace Hadrill of the British school in Rome and which argues with other researcher views.

Why is a criteria even needed. This is how the article stands out because it discusses the need for research into the matter. In 1994 two separate studies published that year, added up the number of buildings previously identified as brothels and came up with a total number of thirty five or more. The archaeological criteria set by Andrew Wallace helps narrow down the astonishing numbers. The criteria that a brothel must complete to be considered by Andrew Wallace was erotic art, erotic graffiti and raised masonry platforms that would function as beds. Just because a building has erotic art and graffiti does not mean it is a brothel. Graffiti could just represent insults, and nothing more. Many private homes contained erotic sculpture as well as erotic lamps, drinking cups and mirrors. Under the Andrew Wallace criteria the number dwindles to one. The only structure in Pompeii to satisfy the criteria is the popular tourist attraction called Lupanar. Lupanar is the most certain example of an ancient brothel not only in Pompeii but the entire Roman world. Lupanar has great examples of erotic art with various images of men and women depicted in a variety of sexual positions and over 120 pieces of erotic graffiti. The graffiti scratched on the walls tell the names of prostitutes and in some cases the sexual acts the prostitutes could perform with occasional reference to the price. The most notable of all among the evidence is the raised masonry beds.

The Author makes a very good argument and warning against why the Andrew Wallace Hadrill criteria may be flawed. The one great example of how the Hadrill criteria is flawed is the bath house of Terme Sububane. The two story bath house were made so the Pompeian’s could receive baths and exfoliation treatments. The author says “A trip to the Treme Sububane was, of course, invigorating and refreshing. But were other pleasures available there?” On the wall inside the apodyteruim changing room of the Treme Sububane series of erotic paintings exist. Along with images there is literary and legal text that confirms the sale of sex in baths. There is however only one sure example of erotic graffito found in the bath. The author says “ The graffito sets the cost for a prostitutes services at 16 asses, a relatively high price in Pompeii, where the going rate for a prostitute was in most recorded cases two asses, the price of a loaf of bread.” One of the more hilarious arguments made about the baths and probably in the article are the views Luciana Jacobelli. Jacobelli suggest that the erotic paintings of the Terme Sububane may have served as mnemonic devices to help bathers recall where they had stored their clothing.

The article also informs the reader about cellae meretricae, one room strutuces in which a single prostitiue worked sometimes more than one in shifts. About a dozen of these have been identified in Pompeii.

The article How to Find a Brothel in Pompeii is very informative and gives large insight to the problem archeologist have trying to distinguish a brothel.