Levin-Richardson covers the archaeological remains of the brothel and reconstructs the poignant but ephemeral physical and emotional experiences that happened in and around it. Since the renovated brothel reopened to the public in 2006, thousands of men – and now women – per day have visited a space where sexual and emotional labour were sold, paid for and even taxed. The obscene and often witty Latin graffiti interwoven into painted sexual narratives and scrawled along the hallways of the brothel captured Twain’s imagination and continue to reveal the lives of those who visited or worked in the space today.
#DAY OF INFAMY REDDIT FULL#
Although Twain bashfully remarked that ‘no pen could have the hardihood to describe’ these frescos, this richly illustrated volume provides many of them in full frontal colour, accompanied by thoughtful analysis which questions the seemingly straightforward nature of these paintings and the people within them. Just five years after its initial excavation, Mark Twain would visit the structure and remark on the fact that female tourists at the time were kept from entering it due to the rather racy wall paintings. It catered to Roman men who bought sexual services from both male and female prostitutes. In 1862, archaeologists began to excavate the two-story brothel, which sits between the forum of Pompeii and its main North-South business district.
The book is the first to address systematically our only surviving ‘purpose-built’ Roman brothel, which was sealed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. As countries around the world grapple with whether to make prostitution legal, what – if anything – can we learn from the legalised brothels of ancient Pompeii? Sarah Levin-Richardson’s new book addresses the economic, social and legal complexities involved in ancient sex work.