Rome, Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, erotic art of the period including photographic and sculptural references of erotic deities (frescoes of Pompeii, Astarte, …. ).
In the ancient civilizations the erotic role of the woman was much reduced compared with the liberty of action of the man. The woman was considered to be the property of the patriarch of the family and then as the property of her husband. After marriage, the woman was predestined to conceive children and to do the house work; nevertheless the man was entitled to have relationships with concubines or prostitutes.
The social norms of days gone by did not permit women to have these opportunities, nevertheless, there were curious exceptions as in the case of Ancient Babylonia, where all women without exception, had to visit the Temple of Militia, the god of love and copulate there with some stranger, according to Herodotus (Greece, 400 BC), the women would sit down in the area of the temple, while the men would choose them by throwing a silver coin into their lap. After this ritual the woman would go home.
In Ancient Greece, the attitude of men in general was summed up in the words of Demosthenes (Greece, 384-322 BC.): “We keep lovers for pleasure, concubines to take care of us and wives to bear legitimate children and take care of the home”.
According to the Greek historian Xenophon (430-354 BC), the wife should take care of all domestic chores and be prepared, at least three times a month, to maintain carnal relations with her husband, until she bore a legitimate heir.
In Ancient Rome wealthy families purchased villas in the then fashionable Pompeii (1st century), which was later destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius. The murals found amongst the ruins not only reveal some erotic decoration of the time, but also the importance of erotic art in the culture of ancient Rome and the superiority of man.
The emperor Augustus (27 – 14 BC) passed a law whereby a father could kill his daughter if she committed adultery. The law also authorized the killing of the adulterous lover.
In Ancient Egypt it was permitted for men to have other wives or concubines. The Egyptian woman had advantage compared with other civilizations: she could divorce her husband, although with one contradiction: if her husband was condemned for some crime, her and her children were condemned and, often sold as slaves. None the less, sexual liberty in ancient Egypt gave women a lot more freedom than in Greece or Rome seeing as it was the women who were the dominating ones in the erotic scenes found by the arqueologists.
