With all the books written on Roman architecture and art, I was thrilled to find this comprehensive book on domestic Roman interiors. Written in a reader friendly manner - the book covers all elements of Roman interiors from mosaics, architectural elements, layout and visual axis to the four decorative styles. It even helps the reader to understand the motivation behind these styles, and how the Romans felt about their interiors. I would say this book is a must have for any interior design student.

The greatest injustice a potential reader of this book could commit would be to see it as merely a handsomely illustrated presentation volume. As John R. Clarke writes in the introduction to this work, it presents a more adequate synthesis and overview of the findings and researches he has pursued on Roman sexuality over the last two decades or so. The essay, a series of discrete chapters, reveals the finest descriptions of Roman sexuality informed by the analysis of ceramic, fresco, and engraved art.

Most clever about Clarke's approach, similar in this respect to his earlier, more site-specific work, is the emphasis put on the interpretation of the artworks by recreating what Roman viewers would look for and find. Roman taboo and Roman prescriptions for the realm of sex differ profoundly from ours and Clarke explicitly draws the distinctions. He explains the narratives on the Roman walls with convincing acuity.

Images from Pompeii figure prominently here. Still, the author has also sought out and discusses more recent findings from Roman France as well as special items that seem finally ready to be shared by their keepers in private collections and museum holding rooms in Switzerland.

Clarke imaginatively and convincingly tries to set the images and objects of art into their original contexts. For example, the images of the Suburban Baths at Pompeii according to the author depict positions and situations that would induce laughter from Roman bathers, male and female alike, thus warding off the evil eye. I am not convinced that a frequent bather would continue to find the same fresco images comical and therefore a protection, but Clarke's understanding of Roman sexuality is stunning and gracefully communicated.

For those who wish to read a beautiful exposition of Roman intimate pursuits and daily encounters with the erotic, I recommend this book highly.

Clarke claims he is going to reach down from the Roman elite (which produced the literature) to the masses and to reveal a totally alien (to a presumably homogeneous "us") sexuality. The illustrations are plentiful and may be interpreted in many ways--so many and with so little evidence that any Romans saw any of the ways Clarke does that the reader is left to choose with no real guidance from the author. (And rather a lot of the images come from luxury objects so we remain in the world of representations for the upper stratum of Augustan Rome.)

Only one problem (I think): Clarke doesn't really follow up very well on his early-proposed problem, i.e. just how it is that textual representations of sex don't allow us the same latitude of insight into Roman practices as visual works might otherwise. Still, it might be argued that these thousand-word-speaking pictures do the talking for him, and if that's the case, then I'm fine with that. Get this, though. It's a very worthy study.

Clarke's book provides very clear analysis of the purpose and nature of ancient Roman erotica. He uses a wide range of sources--literature, instructive manuals, precedent in Greek and Roman art, setting, etc.--to back up his arguments, which he presents in a lucid style that is as pleasurable to read as it is easy to follow. I particularly recommend the chapter on erotic art in public locations in Pompeii.