Pompeii’s Lupanar: An Exclusive Guest Post from Elodie Harper, Author of The Wolf Den 

Two millennia ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted in Southern Italy, burying the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. It was a disaster that preserved even as it destroyed. Whole streets were encased in volcanic ash: their buildings, artwork, temples, and graffiti left waiting to be rediscovered. One of the most startling relics is the town’s ancient brothel. The Romans knew this place as a lupanar, or wolf den, and the women who worked here were called she-wolves; a name that hints at the dangerous nature of their existence. 

Today, the building looms over a fork in a narrow road and is the most visited tourist attraction in Pompeii. Stepping inside, it is almost impossible to believe this place is two thousand years old. Five small cells contain the stone beds where the women would have worked, almost as if they might return at any moment. Erotic frescoes are painted over the doorways, showing the women entertaining their clients, drawing laughter and the flash of cell phone cameras. 

Pompeii’s lupanar is both vivid and disturbing. When I visited the site in 2019, I was struck by how the women who once lived there are still objectified, known for nothing other than the sex work they had no choice but to perform. It made me wonder about all the other aspects of their lives. How did they arrive at this place? What dreams and ambitions did they have? And what were their relationships like—not just with men, but with one another? 

In piecing together the fragments the real women left behind, I was surprised to learn that their written words survive on the lupanar’s walls. This graffiti gave me some of my characters’ names: Cressa, Beronice, Victoria, Paris, and Felix. In the case of Victoria, who repeatedly refers to herself as a conqueror, it also revealed a glimpse into her personality. Another woman mentions her father, a reminder of her lost family, while the numerous doodles on the walls—a ship, a bird, a face—are in stark contrast to the sexualized comments scrawled by the customers. 

In The Wolf Den, my main character, Amara, is a stranger to Pompeii—just like the reader—and we see the city through her eyes. Sold into slavery after the death of her father and trapped in the lupanar, she strives to regain her freedom. Her journey takes her from the city’s lowest taverns to its most celebrated villas. The women she works alongside in the brothel are her friends, found family, and rivals, all with their own passions and dreams. Their story is not only one of survival in the face of hardship, but also of laughter, friendship, and—above all—hope.