Briefly Noted
Ancient amour
Ancient Greek Love Magic
Christopher A. Faraone
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999) 223 pp., $35
Lacking Viagra and adult cable stations, ancient Greek men and courtesans invoked curses as they burned barley, bay leaves and voodoo-like wax images to enflame their lover’s desire. Weary wives, on the other hand, were more likely to concoct debilitating potions to dampen their philandering husbands’ libidos. Christopher Faraone’s analysis of magical papyri, gemstones, curse tablets and other artifacts is leavened with recipes and spells for inducing unbridled passion and formulas for ointments guaranteed to soothe a lover’s pique (try a smear of myrrh).
Love Songs in Sumerian Literature
Yitschak Sefati
(Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1998), 445 pp., $49
Composed 1,000 years before the Hebrew Bible, Sumerian love poetry is a celebration of sex—specifically, the amorous courtship and marriage of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar) and her divine husband, the shepherd Dumuzi (Tammuz). Venerated as the “Queen of Heaven,” Inanna was associated with the morning and evening stars, wars and weaponry, and love and fertility. Yitschak Sefati has updated earlier translations of more than two dozen Inanna love songs/poems by collating various texts found in museums from Istanbul to the United States. His translation includes photographs and drawings of the original cuneiform texts and literary commentaries on eroticism in the 21st century—B.C., that is.
Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250
John R. Clarke
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), 406 pp., $39.95
Is it possible to slough off our modern cultural biases and view ancient images of lovemaking from the perspective of our Roman predecessors? Maybe so, armed with insights provided by John R. Clarke. His lucidly written, illustrated survey of Roman sexual imagery in art puts these depictions of men coupling with women, men with men, and women with women in the context of the society that produced them. For ancient Romans, sex was a raucous part of public life; taverns were painted with mischievous scenes of gaming, eating, drinking and sexual acrobatics that served as invitations to enjoy a good meal or bottle of wine. Pictures of individuals making love in luxurious settings had as much to do with evoking the elite values of physical beauty and leisurely dalliance as with titillation. Clarke also points out that depictions of lovemaking between males were usually infused with the same tenderness and intimacy as male/female couplings and appeared on all matter of objects, from outrageously expensive cameo glass perfume bottles to cheap terracotta vessels. Sex sells, then as now.