Rome | Phillipa Fioretti

Pondering the Phallus

September 25th, 2009

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The title of my book being published next year, The Book of Love, refers to a French book of lithographs detailing the erotica excavated at Pompeii in the eighteenth century. The book is called the Musée royal de Naples; peintures, bronzes et statues érotiques du cabinet secret, avec leur explication

What is extraordinary about the images, to our modern eyes, is the sheer quantity and usage of phalluses. Phallic wind chimes, phallic lamps, phallic charms, birds with phalluses, fauns with phalluses, you name it, there’s a sodding phallus on it. It’s a lovely appendage but is there, or was there, nothing else to decorate wind chimes with?

Yes, it was a male dominated military society and the phallus is good shorthand for male potency. But it was also more than that, the phallus symbolised generative powers and was believed to bring good luck and a fertile garden if you did go for the wind chimes and hang them over your carrot seedlings. Romans celebrated sexuality, and were quite open about it. But don’t romanticise them, it wasn’t a ‘free love,’ Woodstock-in-a-toga set up.

It’s no surprise that the phallus was such a common symbol in everyday Roman life if you consider the following. There were strict rules about who could do what to whom. At the top of the pile were the freeborn Roman men – they were the ‘penetrators’ and could not, by law, be penetrated. Males of this rank could initiate sex with whomever they pleased, except wellborn free boys. Males and females of lower status had to accept the passive, ‘penetrated’ role. For high ranking men to be on the receiving end was a mark of shame.

And if we think in terms of symbolising power we probably have more in common with the ancient Romans than we realise. We have a far more sophisticated visual culture, but it’s still there in our language. Money is our symbol of dominance, not the phallus, yet the symbolic power of the dynamics of penetration, as an active act for real men, has travelled down over a couple of thousand years in language and phrases. ‘I was screwed,’ (cheated), ‘he f**ked me over, (took control), ‘take it up the arse’, (be dominated), and so on. This is the language of power – and you can bet that those at the top of our political and financial food chains are busy metaphorically doing what those ancient Romans did to establish a pecking order.

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If you grew up in Ancient Rome and saw, everyday, male dominance and the sexual symbolism of that dominance being in evidence in all levels of material culture – and were dropped into our culture you’d be forgiven for thinking pretty, curvaceous women symbolise a feminine dominance.

So, is she in charge, asks our sandal clad time traveller? Is that why breasts are everywhere? Yes of course, it must be - this culture values the feminine, the nurturing, and the breast as symbol of life giving. We know better though, don’t we? Ms Breasts is not up on that billboard because we celebrate and value the feminine. She’s up there because someone decided her breasts could sell a soft drink or a computer game. Her fleeting moment of power is only bestowed on her, and then only in the service of financial capital.

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Plutarch declared that a good wife should lie still during intercourse. Another Ancient Roman echo in these pictures?

Plus ca change

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Categories: Pictures, art, media and promotion, on reading | Tags: desire, marketing, myths, reading, Rome | 5 Comments

Artichokes or frozen peas?

April 3rd, 2009

My children choose artichokes every time. Unfortunately for them artichokes in Australia are very seasonal and very expensive. Their favourite dish is ravioli stuffed with artichoke, but it’s the sort of epic dish that I start making and halfway through think, ‘What have I done?’

I trim and braise the artichokes in garlic, olive oil and a bit of stock, and when tender I scoop them out and chop up the tender hearts and small leaves. Then comes the tedious job of scraping the flesh off the leaves with a sharp knife. An hour or so later I have my bowl of artichoke pulp.

By this stage I’ve had enough, all I want to do is hurl them in the compost, return the eggs to the chook shed and go lie down in a darkened room. But I have to keep going.

I mix a bit of Parmesan into the pulp and put aside, and then start making the pasta with eggs and flour. I knead and scrape and feed the dough through the pasta machine, again and again and again. Several hours later I have two trays of artichoke-stuffed, handmade ravioli, a throbbing headache and a strong aversion to all things artichoke.

I serve them with a little more artichoke, olive oil and Parmesan, and a heaped glass of Semillon. Soon the artichokes are nothing but a memory. But I’ve forgiven them by now for being such an arduous vegetable to prepare, because who ever cooked a plate of frozen peas to celebrate a birthday or mark a holiday?

Hostaria Giggetto al Portico d

Rome in the spring is awash with artichokes. Wooden boxes of them are scattered around the Campo de’ Fiori, and they are featured on most restaurants – particularly in the old Jewish quarter near the Portico d’ Ottavia.

One of the best ways to eat an artichoke is prepared as Carciofi alla Giudea. The artichoke is opened slightly and fried in olive oil until tender and the edges of the leaves are a crisp brown, and served simply with pepper and salt. If ever you are in Rome in the spring this is a dish worth risking your life for. And you will risk it – every time you cross the road.