 Depictions of sex and erotic art are some of the most striking aspects of Ancient Rome. Let's have a conversation about sex in the ancient city. It'll help us better understand ancient art and the workings of Roman society. When we study ancient Rome, we are astounded by how similar they are to our modern world. The crowded urban environments, engineering wonders, brick-faced concrete, the concept of the Republic. But ancient Rome was also very different from our societies of today. Slavery was a fact of life. Women couldn't vote or participate in government, nor was there a middle class in ancient Rome. And Romans' views of sexuality and sex were very different from our views today. It is striking to us because we don't see such acts and images that have fused in everyday life and daily objects and in public venues. Why did the Romans? Because they had different attitudes towards sex and sexuality that we can explore. Maybe the first striking feature that we can address is the amount of nudity we see in Roman art. Nudity was not an issue in Roman society. You exercised naked. You went to the baths naked. Not only were you in the baths naked, but so too were the attendants, the abalneatores. Here's one from Pompeii and another one from Ostia Antica. To see those attendants naked, it was normal and it was not shocking. And of course, you went to the bathroom in the public forica without stalls. Such were the norms in ancient Rome and Greece, all of which we do not practice today. Roman society was male-dominated, with the paterfamilias in charge of the household, whereas a man was to be exemplified by his virtuos, his excellence or manliness. A woman's defining characteristic was her pudikitia, her modesty. And within society, the sexual attitudes of men were much more liberal and expansive than those of women. Typically men and not women appeared naked in art, as established by the Greeks when it fit a certain theme, such as athletics or when they're the victor in war. Women were expected to lead a more modest lifestyle. Indeed, in Greek art, women appeared naked much later in art than men, ushered in by the radical depiction of effort deity at the bath, a mid-fourth century cult statue created by the sculptor Precidolis for the Iron of Nidos. It was initially quite against the established conventions, but one which was very much appreciated and imitated. We can also think of nudity of the man as a convention, as an extension of the idea of virtuos, almost as a kind of uniform, as the hero, in the guise of the victor, and even in tomb art. As Hercules himself, this is a recently discovered statue, founded in 2023, of a private person, in a tomb on the Via Apia, depicting himself as the god Hercules. It's now on display in a new exhibit at Museo del Eterme. You can also watch our other videos on Museo del Eterme to learn about the great collection in four unique locations. But it's this kind of statuary where you see the features of an individual who wants to assert himself, he wants to define himself as Hercules himself, a man who had incredible labors, and for the reward of those labors, he was assumed into heaven, a great role model for the deceased figure, obviously a person of prominence and wealth. Prostitution was a way of life and common in all Roman cities. Here we are in region seven in the famous brothel, the Lupinar of Pompeii. And essentially what you have is a series of rooms, and you have above those rooms erotic painting, showing different sexual positions, giving you some suggestions on what you can do with the prostitutes that were slaves. And of course, overseeing all of this activity is the god of fertility, Priapus, who was always shown with an erect phallus. In each room, there's a bed and one slave prostitute. It's a two-story structure, and besides the beds, there's also a single latrine. Prostitution was a standard feature in the Roman world, visible in part because Roman's attitudes towards sex was also hierarchical. Having sex with a household slave or a prostitute in this case was fine and acceptable because the person was beneath your own station in life as a freed person or a free-born citizen. That is what counted and why prostitution was so acceptable in society to Roman citizens. Let's say a word about terminology. Now in modern scholarship, due to a lack of Roman definitions for sexuality, heterosexuality, and homosexuality, there's been a focus on the idea of active versus passive sexual acts, as well as the idea of penetration versus those being penetrated. That is how scholarship has discussed the sexual activities of the Romans. Now, despite not thinking in terms of our own modern categories, even the term pornography did not exist in ancient Roman times, Roman terms like cunnilingus and fallatio are still used today. For the Romans, it was all about who was doing what to whom. What has gotten in the way of having an honest and clear look at Roman sexual norms is modern sexual conventions over the centuries. For example, the creation of the Gabineto Secreto within the Borbon Museum, now part of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, once hid away from the general public the most scandalous images of love-making and erotica, such as a satyr having sex with a goat, Zeus in the form of a swan actually making love would lead up, and all of these phallus wind chimes. What is going on here with the phallus? The wrecked phallus had an important role in Roman society. Associated with the fertility god Priapus, who was always shown with the wrecked phallus, it was also, more importantly, the image that had commonly greeted you when you arrived in someone's home, such as the house of the Vettii. Why? To ensure prosperity and to ward off the evil eye. And your laughter, by looking at the ridiculous image, kept evil at bay. This single image of the phallus, known as the feskinum, was everywhere in society. Even wind chimes. A lucky charm you could even wear for your own protection. Let's keep the erect phallus in mind when we look back at the male nude. A Roman citizen or a god, unless a Priapus figure or a satyr, is never shown with an erect phallus, but rather with an unerrect penis, a symbol of man's modesty and control. The exact opposite of the frequently depicted erect satyrs and pygmies at parties. In addition to daily objects, the phallus, myths and gods of erotic art, there was also plenty of votive art, offerings of images of every body part imaginable, including the phallus, that were in need of healing. They were found in religious sanctuaries throughout the Roman world. Sex obviously also took place in the bedroom, the cubiculum, and we can take a look at one from the Farnesina villa on the bank of the Tiber River, now in the Museo Nacional de Romano, Palazzo Massimo. And this is considered to be a standard image in the master's bedroom. A prompt of what you should be doing in the bedroom. This kind of erotic image usually includes a slave attendant who actually would have been on hand during the act sexual act if required. He looks out to the viewer, drawing him or her into the scene, now a participant voyeur. Sex also took place in the Roman baths, here in the suburban baths of Pompeii. You have a series of sex acts depicted, and beneath them are renderings of labeled boxes. Are they just the numbers of the rooms above the baths that specify where you could have what sex act? Or is it just a fun imagery used to remember your cubby or locker number for your discarded clothes as you head into the baths? Scholars still argue about their meaning, but for the Romans, they were a frequent image that was part of the daily experience in the ancient world. Graffiti, literature, poetry, like the invectives of Cotellus, Ovid's poems of lovemaking, plenty of treatises on philosophy, the attitudes of the Epicureans in Lucretius de Rerum Natorum, and the Stoics attitude towards sex, some of whom advocated abstinence. There was a contrast of ideas of sex and lovemaking and a variety of practices, with Roman laws that underlined citizens' rights regarding issues such as incest and rape. This is a large subject, and we can further return to address these issues in future videos. Please leave your comments, and we can continue to discuss sex in the ancient city. Thanks for watching Ancient Rome Live. Please subscribe to our newsletter at AncientRomeLive.org, and we'll see you throughout the Roman Empire.