Mr. Hot Sex & Ms Voluptuous

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Meanwhile, over in the Times Literary Supplement, critical superstar Mary Beard has found a naughty Roman tombstone... or has she?

Her account begins:

Another of my favourite Roman inscriptions, which I have mentioned before and talked about at Bard, is what may be the tombstone of a couple, known for business purposes (one presumes) as Calidius Eroticus and Fannia Voluptas. All those names are individually well attested at Rome, but together they roughly equal Mr Hot Sex and Mrs Gorgeous (though Fannia in Latin does not mean what you might imagine).  So it seems highly unlikely that they were the names the couple were born with, but the one’s they took to brand their bar or cheap lodging house.

You can read the whole thing here.

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