Pompei - Guide Tematiche

Antonio Varone critically re-evaluates sexual iconography and epigraphic evidence in Roman Pompeii, asserting that modern interpretations often misread ancient imagery through post-classical moral lenses. Rather than functioning as pornography or erotic art in the contemporary sense, ubiquitous phallic symbols, apotropaic charms, and public murals predominantly served protective, religious, or apotropaic roles aimed at averting bad fortune and invoking fertility. Furthermore, sexually explicit depictions—such as those found in the Suburbs Baths—frequently operated as lighthearted parodies, humorous mnemonic devices for bathers, or theatrical caricatures rather than instruments of sexual arousal. Authentic eroticism, Varone argues, belonged primarily to private and social spheres. There, it was cultivated through literature, dining culture, visual stimuli in bedchambers—such as shuttered erotic paintings (tabulae pictae)—and public fascination with gladiators and performers, revealing a complex, culturally distinct framework of ancient desire and seduction.