The History of Sex: Pompeii -- Brothel Cruising in Nero's Day -- (Chap. I, Pt. 8)

One of the earliest Latin novels gives a good idea of the iniquities that took place in the dens of antiquity.

Written around 60 AD by Nero's fashion adviser (yes, even back then), Petronius' Satyricon is set in the area surrounding Pompeii.

Early on, the main character gets lost in an anonymous 'Greek' town—possibly Naples, the 'new city' of Neapolis—and a hag tricks him into a brothel, where he bumps into his companion, Ascyltos, who claims he was conned into the knocking shop by 'a most respectable looking person' who later 'pulled out his tool, and commenced to beg me to comply with his appetite… But for the fact that I was the stronger, I would have been compelled to take my medicine.'

Graffiti in Pompeii:
'On 9 September Quintus Postumius begged Aulus Attius to have anal sex with him'
(source: Pompeii's Erotic Songbook)

Nevertheless, the men decide to have a look around the cells, seeing 'many persons of each sex amusing themselves. They attempted to seduce us with pederastic wantonness, and one wretch, with his clothes girded up, assaulted Ascyltos, and, having thrown him down upon a couch, attempted to gore him from above.'

Having escaped, the 'hero' of the satire goes on to indulge in depthless debauchery, including a scene where he and a whore spy through a chink in a door while his male slave lover forcibly deflowers a seven-year-old girl.

A poster for Fellini's 1969 film
'A really bad, terrible movie,'
according to the New Yorker

Though far less detailed, the graffiti in Pompeii hint at similar excesses, particularly the raunchy jokes and boasts scratched into the plastered walls of the lupanar, such as FVTVTA SVM HIC: a woman declaring I WAS FUCKED HERE.

The going rate for a piece of ass (as Petronius might have put it) was, well, a couple of asses—that being the basic unit of currency in ancient Rome.

'The prices went from one to sixteen asses,' Dr. Varone explains. 'For sixteen asses, you got someone very special—but don't forget we're talking about prostitutes whose clients were slaves and the very, very lowest classes.

'Seventy-five percent of the Roman Empire was comprised of slaves and the lower elements of society. The most important need was to keep this 75% happy and to provide them with the bare necessities, including a sexual outlet.'