some scandalous events of the Middle Ages

I want to start a little earlier than the Middle Ages (which began at 476 CE, after the fall of the Roman Empire). The reason is that I just came to visit Naples, and in particular: Pompeii


I had been in Naples before, but visited Herculaneum instead of Pompeii, so it was finally time to see the Pompeiian remains.


And I must say that we — my 10-year-old daughter and girlfriend — were deeply impressed by this utterly magnificent and magical artifact !


It’s absolutely mind-blowing that in 79 CE, the Vesuvius blew all life out of this prosperous Roman city, and it’s even more impressive that almost 2000 years later, we can walk in its endless streets, and visit the beautiful domi (houses), as if not much has changed since then.


Although it was raining African wild cats and the origins of dogs, we decided to be brave and get into a voracious fight agains the pouring water and swim through the Pompeiian streets, while the Vesuvius was silently watching us.


And I must say we did not regret that decision — not by a mile.


At some point, we entered a domus called Lupanar, and we had no idea what it was.



(Today I know that “Lupanar” means “brothel” in Latin, but I did not know this linguistic fact one week ago. It wouldn’t have made any difference though.)


In any case, we entered the brothel, and although we were only allowed to see a small part of the Lupanar, this small unprepared casual visit turned out to be a thing of beauty.



Besides some stone beds in rather small rooms, the Lupanar contained a number of stunning frescos which showed some of the penetrating actions which occurred in this Pompeiian house.


We were also relieved that our ten-year-old could enter the brothel, and see the ancient paintings with her own eyes — this would be a definite no-go in the US !


She did not like them very much, though:


“The Pompeiian people were really dirty. Yikes.”


And she might have had a point.



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