HOUSE OF VENUS - POMPEII

The focal point of this house is the peristyle, which is sumptuously decorated with painted garden features (fountains, hedges, birds, flowers, sculptures). The most impressive painting of all is on the rear wall: it portrays a naked Venus with a head of curly hair and resplendent with gold jewels, sailing in a shell with billowing sails accompanied by a retinue of cupids. From an artistic point of view the painting is of poor quality, but its colours are well arranged and the overall effect is highly dramatic.

 

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This temple was built after the earthquake of 62 A.D. as a place of worship for the cult of the Emperor and has a facade projecting slightly further out than the building of Eumachia. A central door leads into a space in front of the inner sanctuary which is bounded on the front side by four columns. Inside these, a staircase on either side led up to a podium on which stood the cella containing the cult statue. Behind the sacellum were three rooms used for the officiators both of this temple and of the adjacent Temple of the Lares which could be reached via a communicating doorway. A marble altar with bas-relief sculptures can be seen in the centre of the sanctuary. ... continue

(Apic. 7, 13, 1) Ingredients:

• 200g fresh or dried dates
• 50g coarsely ground nuts or stone-pine kernels
• a little bit of salt
• honey, or red wine with honey (to stew)
• ground pepper

Instructions:
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Take the stones out of the dates and fill them with nuts or stone-pine kernels and ground pepper. Sprinkle a bit of salt on the filled dates and stew them in honey or honey-sweetened red wine. The dates have to be cooked in on low heat until their paring starts to come off (approximately 5-10 minutes).

Love was a common topic of conversation in Pompeii. Feelings, passions, poetic love, sex, homosexuality, prostitution and so forth were all part of daily life and not a source of prejudice. The concept of “obscenity” seems to have been unknown. Love and sex were considered earthly practices of a man’s life that were encouraged by the benevolence of Venus. The thousands of examples of graffiti found on the town’s walls are unequivocal proof of what the people of Pompeii thought about love and sex.