Ancient House with Erotic Frescoes Discovered at Pompeii

Age-old paintings of satyrs bedding nymphs and mythological figures fornicating have been newly unearthed at a small house at Pompeii.

In its announcement of the house’s excavation this week, the Pompeii Archaeological Park compared the little domicile to the “tiny house” phenomenon. The dwelling, the park said, was “extremely refined in decoration.” It is one of many like it that have been found at Pompeii recently.

The house, which dates to the 1st century CE, is hardly the only ancient Roman site here to contain erotic imagery. But this structure is is “striking for the high level of wall decorations,” the park noted.

Those decorations include a painting of Phaedra, a Cretan princess from Greek mythology who fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus, only to accuse him of sexual assault when he rebuffed her advances. Venus and Adonis, also the subject of a tale of unrequited love, figure in another painting found here.

Beyond simply providing fodder for ogling eyes, the house also offers its own excitement for experts in the form of its architectural plan. Most houses in Pompeii were built around an atrium, as was common for the time. This one is not, since it was too small to contain space for an impluvium, a basin used to collect rainwater that traditionally figures in ancient Roman courtyards. Still, archaeologists did find evidence that there was a different system for collecting rainwater, which was here directed to a well via a channel.

Archaeologists also found an incense burner, a lamp, and other objects that were buried in ash by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.