Lupanar (Pompeii)

One of the roughly carved stone beds in the lupanar

Early Pompeian excavators, guided by the strict modesty of the time period, quickly classied any building
containing erotic paintings as brothels. Using this metric, Pompeii had 35 lupanares. Given a population of
ten thousand in Pompeii during the rst century CE, this
The Lupanar at VII, 12, 1820. Vico del Lupanare is on the leaves one brothel per 286 people or 71 adult males. Usright. Vico del Balcone is to the left.
ing a stricter standard for identifying brothels brings the
number to a more realistic gure including nine single
The Lupanar of Pompeii is the most famous brothel in room establishments and the Lupanar at VII, 12, 1820.
the ruined Roman city of Pompeii. It is of particular in- [4]
terest for the erotic paintings on its walls. Lupanar is
Brothels during this period were typically small with only
Latin for brothel. The Pompeii lupanar is also known
a few rooms. The Lupanar was the largest of the brothels
as Lupanare Grande.
found in Pompeii with 10 rooms. Like other brothels,
rooms in the Lupanar were plainly furnished. A mattress
on a brick platform served as a bed. [5]

Location

The Lupanar (VII, 12, 1820) is located approximately 3 Grati

two blocks east of the forum at the intersection of Vico
del Lupanare and Vico del Balcone Pensile.[1]
There have been 134 grati transcribed from the Lupanar at Pompeii. The presence of this grati served as one
of the criteria for identifying the building as a brothel.[1]

Brothels

Examples of grati from the Lupanar include:

Hic ego puellas multas futui (Here I fucked many
girls).[6]

The Roman word for brothel was lupanar, meaning a wolf

den, and a prostitute was called a lupa.[2][3]
1

5 NOTES

Pompeii. Archived from the original on 20 November

2012. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
[2] Mazzoni, Cristina (2010). She-wolf : the story of a Roman
icon. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 978-0-521-19456-3.
[3] McGinn, Thomas A. J. (2004). The economy of prostitution in the Roman world : a study of social history &
the brothel ([Reprinted]. ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of
Michigan Press [u.a.] pp. 78. ISBN 9780472113620.

Grati inside the Lupanar

[4] John R. Clarke (1998). Looking at lovemaking: constructions of sexuality in Roman art, 100 B. C.-A. D. 250.
Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-52020024-1.
[5] Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002. BNP 2, 790791
[6] "CIL IV. 2175.
[7] CIL IV. 2175; observation by J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982,
1990), p. 120 online.
[8] Thomas A McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the
Roman World (University of Michigan Press, 2004), p.
162.
[9] Franklin, James L. (1986-04-). Games and a Lupanar:
Prosopography of a Neighborhood in Ancient Pompeii.
The Classical Journal 81 (4): 319328. JSTOR 3297215.
Check date values in: |date= (help);

Sexual scene from a wall painting at the Lupanar; the woman

wears the ancient equivalent of a bra

Felix bene futuis (Lucky guy, you fuck well, a prostitutes blandishment to her client,[7] or Lucky guy,
you get a good fuck[8] ).
Other examples can be traced to other locations in Pompeii. Given that persons of wealth generally did not visit
brothels because of the availability of mistresses or slave
concubines, the names cannot be connected to known historical gures. The grati do tell stories, however. Various authors respond to each others carvings in a sort of
dialogue.[9]

See also
Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum
Prostitution in ancient Rome
Sex in the Ancient World Pompeii History Channel
Documentary

Notes

[1] Seeing the Past: Sex, Sight, and Societas in the Lupanar,

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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