Artifact from the Pompeii "Chippendales"
Pompeii, 1st century CE
1.80 m ~ marble

Archaeologists and scholars excavating the buried ruins of Pompeii were surprised to find a section of the old city devoted to vice and dissolution of all descriptions. Some of the signs above the nightclubs and bars were still intact enough to read, which is how we know about the "Leather Girls of Lesbos," the "House of the Greek Way," and "Embraceable Ewe," among many others.

One richly appointed club was apparently the equivalent of a modern-day Chippendales, where Pompeiian women went to ogle and fondle generously endowed young men. This statue was one of a pair that braced the entrance of the club and provided a foretaste of the entertainment offered within.