[WIP] Showing Off Her Toy (Patreon)

Octavia’s secret parties are only open to a select few of her friends. Only those who are discreet, trustworthy, and, most importantly, as perverted as Octavia herself. There, she loves to show off and share her favorite 'toy,' Kabiros.

This drawing is inspired by the erotic fresco in the garden of the Casa dell’Efebo, Pompeii. Casa dell'Efebo belonged to Publius Cornelius Tegeste, who was a rich merchant. The fresco in question is part of a larger mural that adorned the benches of the pergola in the garden—which is also the setting of my drawing. The frescoes depict the various scenes of the Nile River in Egypt, which shows ancient Romans’ interest in these exotic settings.

The erotic vignette shows a couple having sex in the presence of several onlookers. The setting is in the garden near the Nile, under the awning that evokes the garden pergola that this mural is located at. The couple is lying on the lectus triclinaris, a chaise longue commonly used in ancient Greece and Rome. On the man's side, there appears to be a pillow underneath his head. This type of long pillow is often seen in other erotic murals of Pompeii, which I also referenced in the drawing. Their sexual position is called Venus pendula aversa, or the ‘reverse cowgirl’ position.

To the left of this couple, a woman is playing a tibia, a double reedpipe. She is most likely a tibicina, a female piper who was hired for parties and entertainments. Additional female and male figures can be seen the right. The male onlooker is most likely a worker or a slave, as he sits away from the couple and wears only a loincloth.

Two more workers are on the scene. To the left of this group, a man is operating a water screw, an irrigation device that moves water by rotating a screw-shaped device inside a pipe. A dark-skinned man holding an amphora walks past the group. He also doesn’t wear anything other than a loincloth.

According to Caitlín E. Barrett (2017), these Nilotic scenes often depict explicit sexual intercourse, which is uncommon in other banqueting frescoes. This could be reflecting an actual custom in ancient Egypt: “Textual and visual evidence from Greco-Roman Egypt suggests that, during inundation festivals, exaggerated sexual behavior may sometimes have been temporarily appropriate. The characters in Nilotic scenes may thus carry on more explicitly (...) because the Nile festivals provide them with an occasion to do so.”

References

Barrett, Caitlín E. 2017: ‘Recontextualizing Nilotic Scenes: Interactive Landscapes in the Garden of the Casa dell’Efebo, Pompeii’. American Journal of Archaeology, Volume 121, Number 2: 293-332.

Kiilerich, Bente. 2023: ‘The Real and the Ideal in Pompeian Fashion’. CLARA Vol. 10: 1-25

Levin-Richardson, Sarah. 2019. The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender at the Margins of Roman Society. Cambridge University Press.