Italy's PM Silvio Berlusconi. Click for credits (La Repubblica)
I am very depressed about what is happening here in this country.
Even Italian cynicism has its limits.
Sex & the Anglo Saxons. What’s the Matter With You People Out There?
Christine Keeler, in an iconic portrait by Lewis Morley, was the key figure in the British Profumo scandal (1963) that sacked the Tories. Fair use - click for credits
Last night I watched Scandal (1989) together with my wife. It is a British film on the Profumo affair – a big political and sexual scandal in the 60s UK -, well done and especially instructive to me in some way. I needed reflection and data. A few days ago I realised in fact how some readers of the MoR were like disgusted, or scared, by my earlier post “Decameron Reloaded. That the Fun begin“.
I also received 8 mails expressing total dissatisfaction, to put it mildly, AND a few people on the other hand – following my invitation to write stories with some ‘licentia’ – sent me a few original porn stories (2 of them very well written) I will not publish because my blog is not a porn site.
Man of Roma is puzzled. His public is mainly from the English-speaking countries. Given the culture (society) MoR is in, he’s therefore willing to raise his voice a bit and say:
“What’s the matter with you people out there? Why the hell sex is so scary?”
Of course, in the said post some innocent non serious fun between humans and bears occurred, true, but it’s not that I believe people believe I find polar bears sexy. No. And I’m also puzzled for the lack of any in-between thing so far arriving to my mailbox. That is, outrage, dissatisfaction etc. – or porn. Nothing outside that.
Frankly, this to MoR is strange.
While I am waiting from any insight from my readers, I’m thinking it’s probably high time for ‘Sex and the city (of Rome). Season 2‘ new posts. We need some explaining, in other words.
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I did by the way receive an interesting e-mail from a very nice US student of archaeology, complimenting me for my blog and all and asking me thought-provoking questions, like these ones:
[Your opinion about] “the different ways that Roman sexuality is viewed by Americans and Europeans”. For some Americans especially – she argued – “the ancient Romans and modern Italians become the same people. When telling a friend of a friend about all the ‘sexual’ souvenirs that could be bought — replicas of herms and phalli, calendars and postcards featuring Pompeii’s erotic art — the woman’s reaction was something along the lines of ‘What kind of people would sell those sorts of things,’ to which I was quite taken aback. But she clearly viewed the ancient Romans as sexually deviant, and thus by association modern Italians.”
I replied to these and other questions with 2 (3?) LONG letters that will provide materials for the new Sex and the city (of Rome) season. I didn’t though focus on erotic art only (of which I know so little). Being a dilettante polymath, I am afraid I totally confused (better, disappointed) her.
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Other related writings from this blog:
Sex and the City (of Rome). 1
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion
Silvestri, Berlusconi and the Emperor Tiberius
After the No-B(erlusconi)-day last saturday Dicember 5 in Rome (a great success I am witness of) the singer–songwriter Daniele Silvestri has posted on Youtube a rap called L’imperatore Tiberio.
[It reminds me just a bit of the traditional Tammurriate danced in the South of Italy and possibly related to the ancient rites of Dionysus Bacchus - watch this.]
The rap is captivating, the insertion of Totò (a great Italian actor) is exhilarating, and the song time is beat with the syllables of “Ber-lus-co-ni di-me-tti-ti”, i.e. ‘Berlusconi resign.’
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L’imperatore Tiberio a cui teneva un discorso Poi emanava un editto chi chiedeva giustizia, E si vantava Tiberio con gli aneddoti sconci Ma sfuggiva i giudizi nascondendo pasticci |
Emperor Tiberius Whom he used to lecture He then issued an edict Of those who asked for justice, And bragging was Tiberius With anecdotes obscene But he escaped verdicts By hiding his mess |
Read how Mary Beard in the UK Times compares Berlusconi to the Roman emperor Tiberius.
And, thanks to zeusiswatching, here’s the life of Tiberius by the Roman historian Suetonius – not for minors ok?
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Related posts from our blog:
Caesar, Great Man (and Don Juan)
Is Berlusconi’s Power About to Decline?
October 3. Demonstration Held in Rome to Defend Media Freedom
UPDATE: Just a few hours ago Berlusconi was hit in the face with a model of Milan’s cathedral and knocked to the ground.
He had just finished a speech during a political rally in the centre of the Italian Northern city. According to ANSA the alleged attacker had received many years of treatment for mental disease. Berlusconi is now being taken care of in a Milan hospital and his condition doesn’t seem serious.
A signal of how harsh the political climate is getting in our country, and a horrible gesture to be firmly condemned whatever opinion we may have of Berlusconi and his policy.
Caesar, Great Man (and Don Juan)
Don Juanism
Why Casanova was Italian and Don Juan was Spanish? And this craze about Rudolph Valentino? And this helluva Latin lover thing? Italians do it better? Not so sure, but some people say there is something sensual (and annoying?) in them and in our Latin cousins, something that is felt as sinful and almost amoral but, for this same reason, irresistible (did a star like Madonna build her career partially on this ambiguity? I have to think about it.)
In other posts (see the list at the bottom) we had supposed some connection between Latin people’s behaviours and pre-Christian sexual mores. In our last post we presumed a connection between Italian cynicism and possible survivals of Paganism in our country.
Today we will try to understand the phenomenon of Don Juanism a bit.
Irritating Behaviours
Some Italian behaviours are irritating, without a doubt. When the young males from here go to Oktoberfest in Munich, Bavaria, as soon as everybody is drunk they think they are entitled to seduce ALL the German women around, and of course they are very much frowned upon. When I was a silly teenager, I confess we used to hunt for female tourists all over the historical centre of Rome. We did this rationally, exactly like hunters do, and of course the majority of the women weren’t so happy about it (well, the minority was our shameless, or shameful, reward.)
This behaviour was sort of common to all Italians but now it only gets marked the closer we get to the South of the peninsula, where traditions – good or bad – are preserved.
The males from the Italian South tend to be sexually free, while the women are kept under control (or kinda.) A patriarchal behaviour still alive in many Islamic societies (see Ahmed Abd el-Gawwad, a Naguib Mahfouz’s character) and whose roots are prior to the Greco-Romans. Southern Italian men try to seduce women, no matter what or how: they think they are all Casanovas.
And what about the Italian women? They are very provocative too in their own way, but in this post we will concentrate on the men.
Another Side of Julius Caesar
There is something we have to understand. Searching far back in the past might shed light on present behaviours. Let us consider one of the most admired (and loved) Romans of all times, Julius Caesar (see above the flowers from tourists on his majestic bronze statue.)
He had greatness in all he did, such a supreme soul, more rational than Alexander, abstemious, with intense intellect, courage, utmost strength and daring even in old age.
He had a great vision and many historians think today that without Caesar the Greco-Roman world could have perished many centuries earlier with massive consequences, which makes him even more a giant compared to the average man.
And yet there is another side of Julius Caesar we might like less.
He was totally addicted to sexual pleasure (only ambition in him was greater, argues Montaigne) and he endangered his career a few times because of this. Caesar was very good-looking and narcissistic. He tried to hide his lack of hair (like our prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.) He plucked the hairs of his body and made use of the most exquisite perfumes. He liked his skin to be as perfect as the skin of a woman.
He changed wife four times. He probably had an affair with the King of Bithynia, Nicomedes IV (Caesar was possibly bisexual,) with Cleopatra queen of Egypt, with Eunoe queen of Mauritania. He slept with many of his soldiers (possible but not sure.) He chose himself extremely beautiful male slaves (in secret, same-sex love being not such a misdeed in Rome though less accepted than it was in Greece.)
He cuckolded and was made a cuckold. He made love to Tertulla, the wife of Crassus; to Lollia, the wife of Gabinus; to Posthumia, the wife of Servius Suplitius; even to Mutia, the wife of Pompey, to whom he later gave his daughter Julia as a wife.
He also had a life-long affair with Servilia, the sister of Cato the younger, his great enemy. Servilia was the mother of Marcus Brutus, one of Caesar’s murderers – and possibly Caesar’s son.
Ok, ok, ok.
…
(if these were the ways of the best man in Rome …)
Related posts:
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion
“Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial”
Survivals of the Roman Goddess Fortuna (comments section)
Sex and the city (of Rome) 1
Sex and the city (of Rome) 2
Sex and the city (of Rome) 3
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4
About Caesar and France:
Sex and the city (of Rome). A conclusion
Amazing Continuities
In Notebook IV of Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks we read an appreciation of Ernst Walser’s suggestion that, in order to better understand Italian Renaissance men, one should think of contemporary Italians (to a certain extent). We believe that, inversely, the same could be said of Italian Renaissance men. To better understand them one should think of the Ancients, namely the Greeks and the Romans (to a certain extent).
Ok, but don’t we have a greater distance between contemporary Italians and the Ancients? Of course, but nonetheless there are some amazing continuities, and these only interest us. Which are these continuities?
An Army of Don Juans
Narrowing our focus on the matter discussed in Sex and the city (of Rome) 1, 2, 3 and 4, we heard this sentence in a History Channel war documentary film: “An army of Don Juans was about to land…”. The film referred to an Italian military expedition sent by Mussolini to some place in the Mediterranean.
Now, I find this funny, and I am asking myself: is this the way many people from the English speaking countries consider us? A bunch of Don Juans lol? I know it was maybe only a boutade but if this is even just partly true, what is the reason for that?
Other associations in fact arise. Why Latin folks are considered sensual by many people in the United States? And why Casanova is Italian and Don Juan is Spanish? Why all American women went crazy for Elvis Presley (well, well, even more for Rodolfo Valentino) who came from the south of the USA, an area marked by some influence of the Spanish and the French? Was it only because he was a very handsome man and his voice was great?
Now the big question: isn’t it possible that we have here those long-period permanences or survivals French historian Braudel was talking about? I mean, aren’t we dealing here with the remnants of a different, pre-Christian, way of living one’s sexuality? Isn’t this what is so seductive, though felt as sinful and almost amoral (think of Elvis the pelvis), but, for this same reason, irresistible?
It is not our intent to exhaust (or to applaud) the phenomenon of Don Juanism, which is a complicated topic (and has a few unpleasant aspects). Please understand that there is no self-indulgence by our side and that all we care about are the possible survivals of a far away past.
Let us then continue with our associative questions.
Amoral Pagans
Why the North Europeans who came down to Rome during the Renaissance were both spellbound and disgusted? Is it because they perceived the Christian religion was not taken seriously by the Romans and by the Italians of that time? Can’t it be this was due to the fact that most of these northern people had started to be really civilised only with the spread of Christianity, while we were already civilised one thousand years earlier? (magnificently civilized pls allow me readers: Italian Renaissance didn’t come out of a desert, read a moving page here)
Can’t it be that they are the true Christians while in us paganism (and behaviours attached to it) has left some (at times very deep) traces? (an overview from the MoR’s here). Can’t this be the reason (I know I am obsessive) why here the Christian religion was mainly felt as a political thing, namely a way of governing the minds and the spirits of men, in ways not so dissimilar to the times when Rome was a ruler of folks and nations?
And why our cardinals and even numerous Popes had lovers? And why the great Polish Pope (who surely had no lovers) was more appreciated by the big politicians of the planet (who flocked to his funeral) and less by the spiritual gurus of our time? (Today the Vatican is perceived as a political – more than a spiritual – institution, I do not have many doubts about it; even in Germany the Dalai Lama is more popular – 44% – than the German Pope Benedict XVI – 42% -, a datum emerged from a poll published by Der Spiegel in July 2007.).
Why finally many British historians, when discussing until recently the Italian Renaissance, still show(ed) some kind of moral repulsion?
Let us listen to the words of Preserved Smith, a British historian of the Middle Ages, who wrote the Renaissance entry in the 1956 edition of the Britannica:
“A succession of worldly pontiffs brought the Church into flagrant discord with the principles of Christianity. Steeped in pagan learning, desirous of imitating the manners of the ancients, thinking and feeling in harmony with Ovid and Theocritus, and, at the same time rendered cynical by the corruption of papal Rome, the [Italian] educated classes lost their grasp upon morality …”
“The Christian virtues were scorned by the foremost actors and the ablest thinkers of the time … The Church saw no danger in encouraging a pseudo-pagan ideal of life, violating its own principle of existence … and outraging Christendom openly by its acts and utterances.”
Italian society – Preserved Smith continues – was hardly aware that the New Learning it had mostly contributed to create had provoked “an intellectual force of stupendous magnitude and incalculable explosive power …”. His conclusion is beautiful (though tragic for us):
“Why should not [Italian] established institutions proceed upon the customary and convenient methods of routine, while the delights of existence were augmented, manners polished, arts developed and a golden age of epicurean ease made decent by a state religion which no one cared to break with because no one was left to regard it seriously? This was the attitude of the Italians when the Renaissance, which they had initiated as a thing of beauty, began to operate as a thing of power beyond the Alps”.
And in fact Italy was soon to be overwhelmed by that same ‘power’ she had mostly contributed to create.
(Getting back to paganism, Gramsci argues in that same Notebook IV: “There is no doubt that Italian religious feelings are superficial, as there is no doubt that religion here has a character which is mainly political, of international hegemony”.)
So it seems we are often considered amoral and not true Christians. Are we amoral? Are we not true Christians? Are we decadent, rotten? Or maybe someone is simply not fully capable of understanding us?
I will finish this draft conclusion of Sex and the city (of Rome) with this interesting passage written by a British historian, C. P. Rodocanachi (probably of Greek descent), and dedicated to what he considers a potent factor of the Greek miracle (Athens and the Greek Miracle, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1948). This text sheds light in our view on the Greek mind and, to a certain extent, on the Roman mind, plus on some aspects of Italian Renaissance men as well:
Life with no Pang of Conscience
Absence of conflicts of conscience: the Greeks were quit “of this inhibiting and agonizing struggle. Their morals were civic and not religious. Their sense of duty was directed exclusively to the city … They knew nothing of the Christian idea of good faith, of intentions conditioning acts in such a manner that the most law-abiding citizen may feel himself a great criminal at heart… [They] may be considered as being intrinsically amoral and this very amorality was a powerful constituent of balance of mind which they could never have attained if their conscience had been torn, as ours is, between the conflicting forces of good and evil, virtue and vice, pleasure and sin. They could enjoy beauty, taste the delights of life without a pang of conscience. So long as they were faithful to the laws and interests of the city they had no damnation to fear, either in this world or the next.”
Italian version
Related posts:
Pre-Christian Rome lives (where this movie by Fellini reveals papal Rome’s pagan nature)
Sex and the city (of Rome) 1
Sex and the city (of Rome) 2
Sex and the city (of Rome) 3
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4
“Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial”
Survivals of the Roman Goddess Fortuna (comments section)
Constitutional Happiness by Australia Felix
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PS
We had to erase some insulting comments to this post. They were written by some persons from the UK. I ask for pardon if I have offended anybody, it was not my aim, really, plus I do not really know why these people felt offended. My style is sometimes aggressive but I am fond of the British people. I wouldn’t have toiled so much to learn their language decently enough. The main idea behind this post (a bit hasty and in some parts obscure, I’ll admit) is the fact (an historical fact, no doubt) that the people in the Italian peninsula were civilized long before Christianity arrived. I mean by civilization something distinguished from other cultures by its high level of social complexity and by the presence of urbanisation.
This fact, the existence of this pre-Christian civilization, may have created some cultural differences (living until today) with people who reached this fully civilized stage mostly thanks to (and together with) the spread of the Christian religion. These differences can regard for example some survivals of the Roman religion in our country – traces of paganism which many scholars do recognize and which Protestants, it is well known, always condemned – but could also regard, why not, sexual behaviours as well. Did scholars try to research on this? We do not know so far, but we do not think so. See the comments area for further information on this point.
Sex and the City (of Rome). 2
As we have said in the first post regarding Sex and the city of Rome the ancient Greco-Romans had a totally different attitude towards sex and enjoyed a sensuality open to possibilities whose variety can confuse contemporary people (in spite of what we Westerners think of our sexual liberation) to the extent that what we are about to narrate could offend people’s feelings. We therefore ask for pardon but we also make known to minors and prudish people to please do themselves the favour not to read any further.
Open sensuality? Yes, since for example the sacred poet Virgil probably sighed for Alexis, a beautiful boy; Horace celebrated incest, adultery and sex with female slaves; Ovid, Petronius and Catullus went a lot further (we might see later); not to mention the Roman phallic festivals like the Liberalia, held on the 17th of March,
“where a monstrous phallus was carried in procession in a car… and the most respectable of the matrons ceremoniously crowned the head of the phallus with a garland”, or festivals like the Bacchanalia where similarly a huge phallus was carried and “as in the Liberalia, the festivities being carried on into the night, as the celebrators became heated with wine, they degenerated into the extreme of licentiousness, in which people indulged without a blush in the most infamous vices.”
This is of course Victorian Thomas Wright‘s opinion (1810-1877, English antiquarian and writer), not Man of Roma’s (see the Wright’s original text where our two quotes are taken from).
Before trying to understand what is left today of these distant habits (the post title actually refers to survivals of ancient behaviours in today’s world, we’ll see why), we are going to provide a few detailed illustrations of this freer (or diverse, in any case) attitude .
So we’ll start by mentioning a Roman goddess, Dea Bona (‘Good Goddess’) and a scandal occurred at the time of great Julius Caesar.
Roman Dea Bona
In Roman religion Dea Bona (Latin for ‘Good Goddess’) was a “deity of fruitfulness, both in the earth and in women … The dedication day of her temple on the Aventine was celebrated May 1. Her temple was cared for and attended by women only, and the same was the case at a second celebration, at the beginning of December, in the house of the Pontifex Maximus [the chief Roman Priest, today's Pope being still the Pontifex Maximus of Rome], where the Pontifex’s wife and the Vestal Virgins ran the ceremony.” (Bona Dea. 2007. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 9, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online).
I wonder if the online Britannica is exact here, since the December celebration was conducted “by the wife of the senior magistrate present in Rome in his home” (any senior magistrate then: Pontifex, consul etc.). In fact, according to Plutarch (2nd cent. A.D., Life of Cicero 19.3, 20.1-2) when Cicero was consul, the day he made the famous speech which is known as his third Catiline oration, he was escorted in the night “to the house of a friend and neighbour; his own being occupied by women who were celebrating the secret rites of the goddess whom the Romans call Bona.”
Roman Bona Dea
The December festival was more interesting than the May one since “it was not held in the goddess’ temple … it was an invitation-only affair and pretty exclusive”. The wife of the magistrate managed the whole thing during the night, all was secret and occurred in a context of classy luxury (quote from here).
What was happening during these secret-sacred rites from which men were strictly excluded? Surely it was something like a mystery cult, hence little we know about it (maybe you can find something in Macrobius’ Saturnalia). According to the Latin poet Juvenal, who wrote his satires many generations later (but was also probably a bit of a misogynist), the Bona rites included drunken orgies among women (Juvenalis Sat. vi, l. 314):
“Well known to all are the mysteries
of the Good Goddess,
when the flute stirs the loins
and the Maenads of Priapus sweep along,
frenzied alike by the horn-blowing and the wine,
whirling their locks and howling.
What foul longings burn within their breasts!
What cries they utter as the passion palpitates within!
How drenched their limbs in torrents of old wine!
Saufeia challenges the slave-girls to a contest….”
(See a complete version in English prose of Juvenal Satire 6, plus the same passage in Latin verses).
Well, what happened in the house of Julius Caesar according to Plutarch seems to confirm Juvenal’s opinion. Let’s see why.
Sacrilege in Julius Caesar’s house
- Julius Caesar.
- Aurelia, J. Caesar’s mother.
- Pompeia, J. Caesar’s very beautiful wife.
- Publius Clodius Pulcher, a scoundrel and troublemaking politician, trying to seduce J. Caesar’s wife Pompeia.
- Abra, Pompeia’s slave, who tries to help her mistress to meet Clodius.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, lawyer, writer and politician, one of Rome’s greatest orators.
The scandal broke during the Dea Bona December ceremonies in 62 BC, when Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus. This is why the celebration took place in his house. Caesar of course was absent, being a man. The way it all developed seems to confirm Juvenal’s view, as we have said.
As Plutarch writes, our great source of the Ancient world (Life of Caesar 9-10):
“(9.1) Publius Clodius was a man of noble birth and notable for his wealth and reputation, but not even the most notorious scoundrels came close to him in insolence and audacity. Clodius was in love with Caesar’s wife Pompeia, and she was not unwilling. But a close watch was kept on the women’s apartment, and Caesar’s mother Aurelia followed the young wife around and made it difficult and dangerous for the lovers to meet.”
“(9.3) The Romans have a goddess whom they call Good… It is unlawful for a man to approach or to be in the house when the rites are celebrated. The women, alone by themselves, are said to perform rites that conform to Orphic ritual during the sacred ceremony.”
“(10.1) At the time [when the incident occurred] Pompeia was celebrating this ritual; Clodius did not yet have a beard and for this reason thought that he would escape detection if he were dressed up as [woman] lyre-player, and went into the house looking like a young woman. He found the doors open and was led in without difficulty by a slave-woman who was in on the plot; this woman went to Pompeia and told her, and some time passed, but Clodius could not bear to wait, and as he was wandering around the large house and trying to avoid the lights, one of Aurelia’s [female] attendants got hold of him, and asked him to play with her, as one woman might with another, and when he refused, she dragged him before the others and asked who he was and where he came from.”
“(10.3) Clodius said that he was waiting for Pompeia’s slave Abra (which happened to be the woman’s name), and gave himself away by his voice. The [woman] attendant dashed away from him towards the lights and the crowd, shouting that she had caught a man. The women were terrified, and Aurelia called a halt to the rites of the goddess and hid the sacred objects; she ordered the doors to be shut and went around the house with torches, looking for Clodius. He was found in the room that belonged to the girl where he had gone in an attempt to escape. When he was discovered, he was taken through the doors by the women and thrown out of the house. That night the women went right off and told their husbands about the affair, and during the day the story spread through the city that Clodius had been involved in sacrilege and had committed injustice against not only those he had insulted, but the city and the gods.“
“(10.5) Clodius was indicted for sacrilege by one of the tribunes, and the most influential senators joined forces against him and testified about other dreadful outrages he had committed and his incest with his sister.”
[Her name was Clodia - prob. the slutty Lesbia loved by Catullus - a perpetual scandal like her brother Clodius. We'll probably talk about her again, it is important in our view of Roman sex. In the painting below you can see Catullus visiting aristocratic Lesbia's mansion, a nice work by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836 - 1912,) an interesting painter of late nineteenth century Britain]
[Online Britannica: “In December 62, when the winter ceremony of the Bona Dea (from which men were excluded) was celebrated in the house of Julius Caesar, a man believed to be Clodius was discovered disguised as a female harpist among the participants. Charged with incestum he was tried before the Senate...Caesar divorced his wife in suspicion that she had admitted Clodius to the ceremony....Clodius maintained he had been at Interamna, 90 miles (145 km) from Rome, on the day in question, but Cicero, who abused the defendant intemperately, presented evidence to the contrary. Clodius was acquitted, perhaps because the jury had been bribed, but immediately began to devise ways to revenge himself on Cicero.” (Clodius Pulcher, Publius. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 9 Dec. 2007) ]
Plutarch (10.6): “Caesar immediately divorced Pompeia, but when he was summoned as a witness in the trial said that he knew nothing about the accusations against Clodius. The prosecutor asked him about the apparent contradiction: ‘why then did you divorce your wife?’ He answered, ‘because I thought my wife should be above suspicion’….Clodius was acquitted because most of the jurors handed in their opinions in illegible writing, so that they would not endanger themselves with the common people by voting against him, or disgrace themselves with the nobility by letting him off.”
I think the reason why Caesar supported Clodius was because they belonged to the same common people (democratic) party. Clodius was popular and influential therefore deemed useful by Caesar for his own political career.
Italian version
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Related posts:
Sex and the city (of Rome) 1
Sex and the city (of Rome) 3
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion.
Sex and the City (of Rome). 1
The ancient Greco-Romans had a totally different attitude towards sex (so the minor or the puritanical shouldn’t read further.) Suffice it to have a look at these statues, both beautiful and erotic, to intuitively grasp a sensuality open and entirely different from the Western manners prevalent today. The beauty and natural perfection of these bodies in fact convey the idea – a very simple idea, this very gifted Greek student I recently met would say – that sex wasn’t perceived as lewd or licentious; it was felt instead as one of the joys of life:
It is so simple:
as simple (and beautiful)
as a Greek temple.
Hence sex was enjoyed so naturally though in ways most contemporary folks wouldn’t even imagine, especially when we think that these statues were somehow linked to rituals and religion.
Above we can admire the perfect classical beauty of Venus Kallipygos; below, the statue of a Satyr (which a female Roman friend chose among a set and assured me it was a pretty good erotic sample. I couldn’t but yield to her superior discernment.)
Venus was the Goddess of love (both carnal and spiritual) while a Satyr, according to the Wikipedia – a very good tool for initial research, but nothing more – is “a Dionysian creature lover of wine, women and boys, and ready for every physical pleasure…”. Also child satyrs existed (which seems such a sad thing today, to all of us) taking part in Bacchanalian/Dionysian religious rituals, which usually (or sometimes) involved orgies as well.
At this point I’m really sure that every reader cannot but agree that the Greco-Romans had a VERY different attitude towards sex. No doubt about that. An ENTIRELY different attitude indeed.
If we could forget these are classical statues and regarded them just as they appear to our senses and out of their context we’d surely see them as porn or pornographic. According to the Wikipedia “the concept of pornography as understood today did not exist until the Victorian era. …When large scale excavations of Pompeii were undertaken in the 1860s, much of the erotic art of the Romans came to light, shocking the Victorians who saw themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Roman Empire. They did not know what to do with the frank depictions of sexuality, and endeavored to hide them away ….. The moveable objects were locked away in the Secret Museum in Naples, Italy.”
(In case you want to know more about these Pompeii erotic artifacts, read this post of ours and have a look at a large collection of them offered by Arch Art)
I do not quite agree with Wikipedia about how and when the modern concept of pornography was conceived, seeming this to me a totally Anglo-Saxon centred observation, forgetful of how history can be ancient.
I might be wrong (or right) but who the hell cares, chissenefrega, this whole Victorian thing being so incredibly funny.
I can see these prudish Victorians feeling themselves as heirs of the Romans (which somehow they were, at least in my view) who much to their horror found out how perverted these Romans had been (at least in their view), while together with the Italians they were uncovering these sexy statues and paintings.
I can imagine their pale shocked faces and especially I’m fantasizing about their shamefully and hastily helping the Neapolitans to hide somewhere the horrendous, abominable truth.
The Neapolitans incidentally were then probably laughing at them a bit as well, being of course much less disturbed than the Victorians by all these “frank depictions of sexuality” (dear reader, try to guess why …).
Getting back to the Ancients, this Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks is uncovering herself and looking back (and down) in order to evaluate her perfect buttocks. The reason is again very simple (and very erotic, I’ll confess.) All originated from a buttock contest between two beautiful sisters, so, who knows, the statue dedicated to Venus-Aphrodite might exactly represent both the winner and her buttocks. I mean – and of course mine is mere historical interest – there is a chance we are looking at her real ass, and not at the usual idealized one. I am pretty sure she evaluated her rear even more evidently since statues were mostly painted in full colour, therefore the direction of her gaze was probably even more visible (pupils etc. being painted too.)
This cult of Venus-Aphrodite with beautiful buttocks appeared in Greek Syracuse (Sicily, Italy,) according to some ancient author, because this is where the sisters apparently lived. Again, needless to say, it would be nowadays inconceivable to dedicate a sanctuary (or a holy place) to a goddess because of a pair of sexy buttocks (read in the Wikipedia the whole peculiar story of the two lovely sisters.)
Venus was the goddess of beauty, fertility and love. The Roman Venus was born around Lavinium not by chance, since Aeneas, the great Roman ancestor (son of Venus, by the way) may there be landed and there probably lived. So technically the Romans were children of Venus but also of Mars, God of War: what a weird mix, isn’t it.
This I’m thinking while strolling between the Colosseum, to my left, and the temple of Venus and Roma, to my right, between these two symbols of Life and Death. How complex the Romans were.
The Greek Aphrodite was instead born in Cyprus – incidentally where the Greek student comes from, but I do not believe in signs, like Brasilian Coelho does.
Young couples gathered close to the Venus temples for petting, necking and even coupling. Youths were probably discreet but what is interesting is that their loving felt somehow enhanced, even sanctified by the presence of the Goddess, which is again unimaginable today. Think of a today’s scenario where teenagers flock near a Catholic or an Anglican church, in spring time, or in any time, for petting and sex. I mean, even the mere thought of it could offend true Christians.
Of course I do ask for pardon though please it’d also be nice if you religious people did some effort as well. We are not here to offend religion(s) nor to make a porn site out this blog (which could make us richer though not necessarily happier.) We are here to talk about our Western roots. And it turns these ancient Greeks & Romans had entirely different views on sex.
Is it bad? Is it good? Difficult to say. We somewhat prefer the ancient views, but it is our personal opinion. We just love to think Sex to be Beauty, love and sex to be a sublime joy of life that shouldn’t necessarily be related to reproduction (like too many Popes tried to teach us endlessly.)
Ok, one might say, if it’s true these were our Western roots, what the hell has happened? Why had we this oppressive revolution that made one of the joys of life into something to be ashamed of? Was it because of the Victorians? Of the Muslims? Was it because of the Christian priests and intellectuals? Maybe in India, who knows, the Victorians had some influence. Out there Kama Sutra was created, the first great text about love and sexual intercourse – beautiful, poetic and scientific – and the Victorians arrived with their not entirely positive influence in this field of human life (if what the Wikipedia says is true …I need some feedback here by my Indians readers.)
As for the West I am sure the answer is to be found at the times when the Roman Empire turned into a Christian Roman Empire, hence from Emperor Constantine onwards (4th century AD: no trace of the Victorians yet lol). Not immediately though. No. It took some time. It surely took some time to become totally repressed.
One last thing. Are anywhere to be found survivals of this ancient freer attitude towards sex? I believe so. We have said (Braudel had said) great civilisations never die. Plus we had entitled this post Permanences III (but changed the title later.) But we do not want to reveal too much about the Roman sex post num. 2.
So, how can we conclude this writing?
1) With this Roman copy of Castor and Pollux, or Dioscuri (youths of Zeus) by Praxiteles, Madrid (see below), which has also been enthusiastically approved by my female friend.
2) With Lucretius’ initial prayer to Venus.
Lucretius is a great Roman poet. From his verses one can get a good feel of how a true Ancient Roman felt about Venus. So it is a pretty good conclusion for this Sex and the Romans num. 1 post. If you are lucky enough to appreciate these verses you’ll live a unique experience, a real time-machine experience. This also classics offer, a time-machine experience.
Try then hard to read these words attentively. You might be able to penetrate the mysteries of a lost, arcane – though still living, though still living wonder why – world …
Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura.
Initial invocation to Venus.
“Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands- for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away,
For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers,
For thee waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth,
Kind after kind. And since ’tis thou alone
Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
Is risen to reach the shining shores of light,
Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born,
Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
Which I presume on Nature to compose
For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
Peerless in every grace at every hour-
Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words
Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
O’er sea and land the savage works of war,
For thou alone hast power with public peace
To aid mortality; since he who rules
The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
How often to thy bosom flings his strength
O’ermastered by the eternal wound of love-
And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,
Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
Hanging upon thy lips. Him thus reclined
Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!.”
Of The Nature of Things [De Rerum Natura]
by Lucretius [Titus Lucretius Carus]
(Initial invocation to Venus)
Translated by William Ellery Leonard
(1876-1944)
Project Gutenberg Text
Italian version
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Related posts:
Sex and the city (of Rome) 2
Sex and the city (of Rome) 3
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion
Caesar, Great Man (and Don Juan)
Sex and the city (of Rome). Season II. 1
See also:
