ASELLINA’S TAVERN - POMPEII

Behind the façade of the tavern, which borders on Via dell’Abbondanza and is covered all over with election propaganda, we can see a masonry counter which contained four terra-cotta vessels for storing cooked meals. At the rear of the tavern are the remains of the staircase which led to the guest rooms on the upper floor. The graffiti on the walls of these rooms suggests that customers could also enjoy the company of Asellina’s waitresses. The tavern-keeper Asellina as well as Zmyrina, Ismurna and Aegle were influential women who used to sign electoral propaganda to support candidates in the elections for high municipal offices.

 

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On Via della Fortuna, a short distance from the House of the Faun heading towards the Porta di Nola gate, we find a house named after the large and evocative fresco on the garden wall depicting a mountain landscape where an ancient hunt for wild beasts is in progress. It is a house of Samnite origin and contains some fine example of fourth style decoration. Personifications of autumn and winter are depicting on the walls of the second cubiculum on the right portray mythological subjects. On the left we can see Leda and the Swan, portrayed amid medallion with the busts of Jupiter and Diana and, on the right, Venus fishing between Mercury and Apollo. In the tablinum w ... continue

(Apic. 9, 9) Ingredients:

• 1 kg fresh sea mussels
• 100 ml Liquamen or 1/2 tblsp salt
• 1 branch of leek, finely minced
• 1 tsp cumin
• 200 ml Passum (or honey)
• 1 tblsp minced Savory
• 500 ml white wine
• ca. 500 ml water

Instructions:
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First water mussels, and clean them. Mix together Liquamen, wine, water, Passum and spices. Boil the broth for about 20 minutes, then add mussels. Boil additional 10 minutes. Serve.

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.