The horrors of Pompeii

utychis, a Greek lass with sweet ways, 2 asses.’ This pithy graffito advertising sex for sale comes from the walls of Pompeii. The ancient Roman city was already an old town when it was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August 79 CE – and thus preserved for posterity. 

Located on the Bay of Naples, near the mouth of theThe horrors of Pompeii river Sarno, there are early signs of Etruscan culture, though the area was later settled by Oscan-speaking Samnites, who began the town’s real growth after around 200 BCE. The land around Pompeii was fertile, and the city and region grew wealthy.

As Rome expanded its power throughout Italy, Pompeii became a Roman city, though one that retained a diverse population. We can imagine a busy place of some 12,000 people, rich and poor, free and enslaved, of public squares, fountains and gardens, fine houses and poorer dwellings, taverns, shops and workshops, and a stone amphitheatre for the provision of large-scale public entertainment. There would have been a clamour of Oscan, Greek and Latin, and all the activities we would expect from a thriving town – politics, business, love, crime.

Graffiti is one of the most exciting kinds of evidence preserved for us by the destruction of Pompeii, because it comes not from the literature of the elite, or the inscriptions of the powerful, but from a wider cross-section of society. The Eutychis graffito gives us a woman’s name, an ethnicity, a price, the hint of a good time to be had – and suggests a seamy side to the ruined town now frequented by inquisitive tourists and keen culture-vultures.

 It was written on the vestibule wall of a well-to-do house owned by two freedmen, the Vettii, which is perhaps best known to the world for its painting of the well-endowed Priapus weighing his member on a balance against a bag of coins. While brief and to the point, this announcement, calling out to us from nearly 2,000 years ago, can set us on a journey to understanding more about the life of Pompeii’s haves and have-nots. At the same time, it may well leave us with more questions than answers about Eutychis herself and the prostitutes of Pompeii.

Pompeii, often seen under the bright sun with hordes of other visitors, does not hide its darker side – in fact, the single purpose-built brothel identified in the city, known as the Lupanar, is one of its most popular attractions. The sexy frescoes are one highlight. Eight can be seen above the doorways of the little cubicles with their masonry ‘beds’. 

Five or six are female-male sex scenes, another shows a woman standing next to a reclining man as she points at an erotic picture, and the last depicts the god Priapus with two erect phalluses. These show something very basic and timeless that we have in common with ancient Pompeiians – sex – but they also titillate the visitor and sometimes prompt dirty jokes from both guides and visitors. The frescoes presumably indicate the kind of activities that were available to customers, and helped in creating an erotically charged atmosphere.