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It is this subject that is behind one of the inscriptions that will be shown in the exhibition, an incitement to a young girl who is furious at having been forcibly kissed to enjoy the pleasures of love: “Oh sensual young girl, you begrudge me my stolen kisses: I am certainly not the first one. Accept them and love! Prosperity to all who love.” That last phrase is a reference to a rather bawdy song found written more than once on the walls of Pompeii: “Prosperity to those who love, death to those who don’t know how to love; and death twice over to those who prevent love.” And it’s really this graffiti, scribbled on walls with a pointed stylet, that best brings back to us in the anonymous voices of Pompeii how much love was an integral part of the earthly condition of man at that time. It shows us the true face of a time when humanity could fully experience the spirituality that is part of the nature of love, in an intimate meeting of flesh and feeling. Emerging from this unknown chorus is the most authentic face of a society for whom love meant anguish, torment and jealousy for sure, but also sensuality, passion and serenity. Listen to those voices a bit more. The voice of a stranger who wants to go home to Rome to embrace his household gods but who is detained in Pompeii by an insurmountable obstacle, as we read on a wall: “We came here full of desire, but our desire to leave is even more intense; alas, this young girl won’t allow it.” The smile of a young girl, her eyes that demand to be gazed into, they all prevent him from turning for home. It’s desire, too, that leads another to write a delicate complaint, in which unattainable happiness is bound up with hope: “Happy are those who share the sleep of the night with you! Ah, if I was one of them I would be so much happier!” Finally, in another couplet, the exciting languor of desire comes across as a sophisticated and painful sensuality: “For a mere hour I would like to be the jewel in your ring, so that when you moisten it with your lips to mark your seal, I would be able to give you all the kisses that I have no right to lavish on you.” To exult in sex, just as to experience it, is a basic human need. When it’s not associated with any notion of sin it’s easy to indulge in such exultation. What the walls of Pompeii reveal is the maturity of a people who have been able to find a balance between sexual desire and moral behaviour. 12
5. Extracts from the catalogue « The matron in her house » By Marine Bretin-Chabrol, master of conferences in Latin language and literature at the University of Lyons. In Roman society at the beginning of the Empire there wasn’t a unique and universal family model within which the feminine condition could be depicted. Women’s lives were determined as much by the social structures they belonged to within Roman society as by their sex. It depended on whether they were slaves, freemen or born free, their age, their place in a network of family and alliances, their social status (dignitas), meaning their place, through their father or husband, within a perhaps prestigious order (senatorial, equestrian, etc) and in an electoral class conferred by their fortune. To our modern eyes the matron who was a free woman, legitimately married, and from a privileged social rank seems a deceptively familiar figure. At the age of 12, but more often between 15 and 18, the young free-born girl puts on the orange marriage veil and goes through the rite of leaving her parents’ house to move to that of her new husband. By marrying, she becomes the wife of her husband (uxor), the mistress of her house (domina) and, in the eyes of society, a married woman and therefore respectable (matrona, or even materfamilias). Outside the house she now wears the stola, a long dress with sleeves, as evidence of her new status. She is allowed to practise the religious rites reserved for married women, such as those of Bona Dea, Pudicitia, Fortuna Muliebris or Juno Caprotina, and she receives gifts from her husband for the Matronalia festival. (…) At the heart of the house, the wife is not cloistered in special quarters. But she has to avoid disturbing her husband’s strictly masculine activities, such as the mornings when he receives clients in the atrium. Apart from the time she spends washing and dressing, helped by one or more servants, she spends the days in that same atrium, in the company of her children who will be playing or studying. From here she supervises the work of the domestic slaves, who could number as many as several dozen in the wealthiest households; she receives her own vassals (the former freed slaves of her father’s, for example) and runs her affairs. She invites her parents and friends, or her husband’s friends, in the reception areas of the house: the suites, peristyles or gardens. In the evening she attends dinners (cenae) and banquets (conuiuia) organised through her husband, if the invitation includes wives. She drinks, plays dice and goes to entertainments, but also watches over the serving of the meals. 13
Page 2 and 3: Contents 1. Press release 3 2. Pres
Page 4 and 5: 2. Presentation of the exhibition b
Page 6 and 7: posterity by Gustave Boulanger in a
Page 8 and 9: with blind loggias that seem to app
Page 10 and 11: 4. « Love on the walls » by Anton
Page 14 and 15: « Water, and its uses around the h
Page 16 and 17: English artists, just like their Fr
Page 18 and 19: Fresque avec Dionysos trônant fres
Page 20 and 21: Récipient pour la cuisson (caccabu
Page 22 and 23: Petite table bois et bronze H. 66 ;
Page 24 and 25: Satyre et ménade fresque H. 46 ; L
Page 26 and 27: Épingle à cheveux os l. 12 cm Inv
Page 28 and 29: Œnochoé à tête de femme bronze
Page 30 and 31: Cratère avec figures mythologiques
Page 32 and 33: Baignoire bronze H. 44 ; L. max 63

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