I thought I had seen them all, all those Pompeian phalluses. If you start looking for them, it is really incredible how many there are. Pompeii is, very much, an Itiphallic city. Many phalluses actually serve a clear goal – that is to bring felicitas, by keeping away bad luck. Yet, this one, like some other ones, may have had a different function. The narrow dark street doesn’t have any shops or houses; the doors you see may seem to be back doors but most of them aren’t. They give access to small rooms with a built in bed – excavators call them ‘cellae meretriciae’. Not exactly looking like a red light district, is it?
Miko Flohr, 19/06/2011