Reading the 'Pages" of the Domus Caesaris: Pueri Delicati, Slave Education, and the Graffiti of the Palatine Paedagogium (original) (raw)
Related papers
Notes on the External Appearance of Roman Public Slaves [Only first pages]
A. Binsfeld, and M. Ghetta (eds.), Ubi servi erant? Die Ikonographie von Sklaven und Freigelassenen in der römischen Kunst (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 43), Stuttgart, 2019
This paper sets out to provide an overview of the literary, epigraphic and iconographic evidence for the external appearance of the serui publici. In the Roman world public slaves were employed for a variety of lowly, but fundamental, administrative tasks and civic activities both in Rome and in the other cities of the Empire. However, they are one of the most underrepresented groups in Roman society, especially in the iconographic evidence. This paper aims to reconsider the textual sources on the clothing and outward appearance of public slaves, and finally to propose an identification of members of this social group in some visual depictions.
The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender on the Margins of Roman Society
2019
In this book, Sarah Levin-Richardson offers the first authoritative examination of Pompeii's purpose-built brothel, the only verifiable brothel from Greco-Roman antiquity. Taking readers on a tour of all of the structure's evidence, including the rarely seen upper floor, she illuminates the subculture housed within its walls. Here, prostitutes could flout the norms of society and proclaim themselves sexual subjects and agents, while servile clients were allowed to act as 'real men'. Prostitutes and clients also exchanged gifts, greetings, jokes, taunts, and praise. Written in a clear, engaging style, and accompanied by an ample illustration program and translations of humorous and haunting graffiti, Levin-Richardson's book will become a new touchstone for those interested in the history of women, slavery, and prostitution in the classical world.
C. Noreña, and N. Papazarkadas (eds.), From Document to History: Epigraphic Insights into the Greco-Roman World, Leiden - Boston, 2019
This contribution aims at offering an update of the epigraphic corpus on public slaves and freedmen, which is currently known, with a view to providing a full-scale reconsideration of the whole phenomenon of public slavery elsewhere in the future. This catalogue has not pretension to comprehensiveness, especially because it does not include possible new attestations from Greek East. While increasing the epigraphic corpus of public slaves, the evidence collected in this paper also provides new data concerning public slavery both in Rome and in the cities of the Latin West.
Sexual Graffiti in the House of Marcus Lucretius in Pompeii (IX.3.5, 24)
Classical World, 2018
[NOTE: UNCORRECTED PROOFS] Ten graffiti have been identified in the Pompeian House of Marcus Lucretius (IX.3.5, 24), but only one, a captioned drawing of a labyrinth (CIL IV 2331), has received much scholarly attention—though it has long been mislocated in the house. The labyrinth and seven other graffiti cluster near the same room (20) along the garden, and most of these graffiti are thematically unified, including three that refer to Nero (CIL IV 2333, 2335, 2337) and three that identify men as cinaedi (CIL IV 2332, 2334, 2338). This article offers new interpretations of these graffiti by tracing a series of sexually inflected dialogues among them.
Brandeis Graduate Conference
From the late first to the second century A.D, Roman military victories over ‘barbarian’ peoples were visually celebrated in reliefs decorating monuments in public spaces, surrounding cities, and Rome’s provinces. This imagery is ubiquitous on state-sponsored triumphal arches, other structures in Rome's forum, and in town centre’s throughout Roman Italy. Archaeological and art historical assessments of these images have consistently focused on the representation of male barbarians engaged in battle with Roman soldiers. However, ‘'other'' women are depicted as being taken as booty and prisoners from these battles or displayed as trophies. In exploring the potential outcomes of their enslavement, various strands of evidence suggest that women were sex trafficked and sexually assaulted by these soldiers. This evidence is well-hidden in conquest iconography via visual tropes. I have identified a three-step methodology in identifying the imagery in the capture of foreign women: 1). Capture; 2). Transport; 3). Trophy/triumph. The sex trade is all but allusive, and I argue that this allusiveness explains the limited imagery depicting these acts. These foreign women served the purpose of displaying the destruction of the complete family unit and, in the context of war, were a prized possession, a trophy to own and to be treated in any way the owner wished, including for sexual gratification. Enslaved non-Roman women were in a physically and morally vulnerable position. However, the topic of the sexual exploitation of foreign women in the Roman world has been neglected due to our acculturation of Victorian puritanism. Thus, scholars are unwilling to directly discuss this topic and use blanket terms like ''slavery'' to describe the acts committed against subdued foreign peoples. The time is ripe for exploring and openly considering the realities lived by the dominated and enslaved 'other' in Roman antiquity as a byproduct of imperial expansion.
"Quisquis amat valeat": Homo- and Bisexuality in Pompeii's Graffiti.pdf
This dissertation investigates homo- and bisexuality in the Roman world, by focusing primarily on Pompeii’s graffiti. Scratched on walls, street facades, public buildings, within the domus and often inserted in paintings or frescoes, Pompeian graffiti differ in topic, structure and kind: they vary from insults to dedications, from political notices to salutations, from jokes to love poems. The quantity of homoerotic graffiti is, in particular, worthy of note, since they offer an important contribution to the study of homo- and bisexual attitudes in the Roman world. If today sexuality is divided into distinct categories and homo- and bisexuality are seen as “unnatural” and “against nature” in some countries, Pompeii’s homoerotic graffiti help us overturn this view: not only do they show that homo- and bisexual behaviours were widespread among the Romans but also that our modern conception of sexuality can be applied only in part to the Roman world, since it was not present in the same form. The graffiti from Pompeii demonstrate that sexuality is a transient concept, which varies according to time, society and culture, and they also invite us to think afresh about our modern way of considering of homo- and bisexual attitudes.