The Romans, ILE style

Fancy An Orgy?

I bet the Romans did have cock rings, though. The pervy buggers.

Androclus passes audition for the role of presenter on Animal Hospital.

http://www.byzantina.com/images/6_4d_hagia_sophia.jpg

Emperor Justinian [6th c. AD]:

http://www.newgenevacenter.org/portrait/justinian-i.jpg

*pause for comedic impact*

With a crowbar.

MY GOD it would be great if our leaders did this instead of say, golfing.

ILX.P.Q.R.!!!

A Class Thread: Were Your Grandparents Patricians or Plebians?
(And how many dodgy grandfathers would have turned out to be Greek Slaves?)

ILX Gladiators Fantasy League Coliseum MMIII !!!

(But then again, XXII was during the Roman Era.)

By the way, why did they carry on having S.P.Q.R. be the Roman motto long after they had become an Empire - what with an emporer and all? I mean, SPQR means Senatus Populus Que Romani (I could be mispelling that, it's been a long time since I studied Latin) which is all about democracy and republic and all that, which was the antithesis of the dictatorship of the Roman Emperors.

http://www.leterrae.com/EtruscanArtNigel.gif

HE'S FOLLOWING ME!!! AARRRRGGGHHHH!!!

Ow. I shouldn't scream. My hangover hurts.

Search & Destroy: The Latest Mystery Religion Cults From Judea!

Gaul: Let's Divide It Into Three Parts And See If Anyone Invades it

Cristoferus Brassica on The Search for Edible Dormouse

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Gender & Sexuality
History

by John R. Clarke

University of California Press

Due/Published March 2001, 406 pages, paper

ISBN 0520229045

New in paper (S01)

What did sex mean to the ancient Romans? Clarke investigates an assortment of Roman erotic art to answer this question--and along the way, he reveals a society quite different from our own. Informed by recent gender and cultural studies, he reevaluates our understanding of Roman art and society and focuses on attitudes toward the erotic among both the Roman non-elite and women. Further, he sets many newly discovered and previously unpublished works in their ancient context and defines the differences between modern and ancient concepts of sexuality.

Roman artists pictured a great range of human sexual activities--far beyond those mentioned in classical literature--including sex between men and women, men and men, women and women, men and boys, threesomes, foursomes, and more. Roman citizens paid artists to decorate expensive objects, such as silver and cameo glass, with scenes of lovemaking. Erotic works were created for and sold to a broad range of consumers, from the elite to the very poor, during a period spanning the first century B.C. through the mid-third century of our era. This erotic art was not hidden away, but was displayed proudly in homes as signs of wealth and luxury. In public spaces, artists often depicted outrageous sexual acrobatics to make people laugh.

Looking at Lovemaking depicts a sophisticated, pre-Christian society that placed a high value on sexual pleasure and the art that represented it. Clarke shows how this culture evolved within religious, social, and legal frameworks that were vastly different from our own and contributes an original and controversial chapter to the history of human sexuality.

"Clarke teaches us to think about how this art was understood and felt by those who lived with it in their daily lives and he speculates that it might even reflect what the Romans actually did. This is the first genuinely contextual and theoretically informed study we have of a vast panoply of classical art about sex. It will be an illuminating book for classicists, historians, and anybody else who finds lovemaking interesting."--Thomas Laqueur

"Looking at Lovemaking proves that the ancients were very different from you and me--that they saw sex not primarily as procreation and never as sin but rather as sport, art, and pleasure, an activity full of humor, tenderness and above all variety. John R. Clarke, by looking at Roman artifacts from several centuries destined to be used by different social classes, reveals that the erotic visual record is far more varied, open-minded and playful than are written moral strictures, which were narrowly formulated by the élite and for the élite. This book is at once discreet and bold--discreetly respectful of nuance and context, boldly clear in drawing the widest possible conclusions about the malleability of human behavior. Clarke has, with meticulous scholarship and a fresh approach, vindicated Foucault's revolutionary claims for the social construction of sexuality."--Edmund White

"This is an important book, ambitious in the goals it sets itself and elegantly realized. It succeeds in demonstrating its major thesis, that Roman sociosexual role allocations, values and attitudes do not correspond to familiar modern ones but demand to be understood in their own radical otherness, and that visual imagery can be an invaluable aid to such an understanding. The controversy which Looking at Lovemaking will no doubt provoke cannot fail to have a stimulating effect upon the rapidly developing appreciation of the complexity of Roman visual culture."--Sheldon Nodelman, Art in America

"Clarke has produced a major book which contains much that is new, useful, and stimulating in terms of analysis as well as evidence. He melds contemporary theoretical insights and fresh primary data with a hard look at contexts--not only the original settings of the art works he discusses, but also the intellectual climates which have produced modern analyses. The result is a book which points in significant and unexpected directions."--Dominic Montserrat, The Classical Review

(Hmm... I wonder if that will work...)

There's more Roman Erotic art from their main page.

Pervy Latin joy: the Charles Bukowski memorial centre for classical latin studies. Yay Catullan abuse!

WHO THE F*CK IS PROGRAMMING THESE FILTERS?!

I can look at Roman penises on the web, on their time, but I can't buy a book about Roman penises to read at home. What up with that?

mingo, mingere, minxi, mictum 3
to piss

I wonder if the modern English "Minging" comes from this?

Mentula: literally, prick, in the sense of "dick head"

I wonder if the ILX term, Mentalist comes from this!

(That said, our wonderful 9th/10th Grade history teacher used to dig out all the dirty bits of Suetonius to make us pay attention.)

I wonder if the modern English "Minging" comes from this?

That was the first thing I thought! And also 'minge', obv.

This is the best insult in the history of forever!

TS: II-wheeled chariots vs IV-wheeled chariots (Edoardus Clerkenwellensis), XVII new answers, XVII unread

Say what you like about Nero, he sure knew how to rotate a dining room.
...left even seasoned archaeologists dropping their trowels in amazement...