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★★★★☆ I was provided with this ARC for a review from Netgalley

What’s the book about?

With this one, the entire premise of the book is in the title- Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome. Trafford begins by outlining the language used in Ancient Rome that has anything to do with sex or sexuality, she introduces these concepts and then explains them so you aren’t left lost throughout the book when they inevitably come up again. She then travels through the intricate and somewhat scandalous history of sex in Ancient Rome from the perfect virtuous man and the ideal chaste woman, to how to find a woman and who you are and are not meant to be seen fondling in the forum. She details erotic wall paintings and statues, the concept of witchcraft, the tantalising beauty and fashion and what was all the rage to help you pull on the streets of Rome. Not to mention, Trafford takes it upon herself to tell us all about the sexual exploits of the most well-known figures from Ancient Rome, and she does all this with ample evidence (both textual and archaeological). In short, Trafford answers everything you have ever wanted (and really not wanted) to know about sex and sexuality in Ancient Rome!

My thoughts on the book

Sex was very much on public display in ancient Rome. It was depicted in art, discussed in poetry, scrawled on walls and used in politics to smear your opponent. (x-xi)

This book was a massive undertaking, and may I say the L J Trafford understood the task and executed it incredibly well. In this book, you will find chapters named things like Getting Down to Business: Sex, Sexual Problems and Solutions, Undesirable Partners and How to be Sexy: Beauty and Fashion (just to give you an idea of the types of things discussed)! As a fairly short book (sitting at only 197 pages), Trafford condenses everything you need to know about the Romans in a way that is really easy to read. Her language is colloquial, and her quips and inputs into some of the debauchery that went on in Ancient Rome made me laugh out loud. With her hilarious commentary comes an obvious attempt to remove any modern bias that could be placed upon the way sex, marriage, relationships and all that was used and experienced in Ancient Rome. She reminds the reader over and over that there isn’t really any way we can fully understand the meanings behind the erotic images, or the social importance embedded into the rules and laws attached to relationships and sex, but we can do our best! I loved that as Trafford was discussing some facet of Roman sexual experience, she would then bring in detailed case studies and examples from history.

We simply cannot know because we do not share the same cultural background and baggage. The imagery and what it means is lost to us. (158)

Although sometimes Trafford seemed to take the poetry and writings of men like Ovid and Catullus at face value, often she used it to help build the whole picture around the topic she was handling at that time. It is unsurprising that the book was focused on men and boys and what was expected of them (both from an imperial lens, but also the freedmen and slaves) rather than women for the pure reason that we have a lot more information on men than women. With that being said, Trafford interspersed what we do know about women (imperial, slaves, prostitutes etc) throughout the book in what seemed like as much detail that was available. It was really wonderful to see different types of evidence (images, paintings, statues and literature), all used together to try and piece together just what sex was like in Ancient Rome, and although it was a quick tour, it was still detailed and highly enjoyable.

★★★★☆ I was provided this ARC for a review from St. Martin’s Press. You can find my interview with Nancy on Youtube, and a reduced transcription of it on World History Encyclopedia!

What’s the book about?

The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women by Nancy Marie Brown is, at its core, working to dispel the myth that Viking women stayed at home whilst the Viking men raided and traded. In 2017, DNA tests revealed that the body buried in grave Bj581 outside the Swedish town of Birka between 913 and 980 wasn’t the body of a male Viking warrior as initially assumed, but that of a female in her thirties or forties. Buried with the body was numerous weapons including an axe blade, spearheads a two-edges sword, a sax knife and a short bladed knife as well as a set of game pieces, a whetstone, traders weights, a comb, a bronze bowl and two horses (among other things). The assemblage of this burial initially caused assumption that the body was of a male, and specifically a warrior, but since we now know that it’s a woman buried with this warriors assemblage, Nancy has taken it upon herself to write a book highlighting what feels like all the times women proved their worth in the Viking Age, and the times their strength, cunning and ruthlessness was assumed as myth.

Thoughts on the book

It is obvious that this book was extensively researched. Nancy utilises sagas, poems and epics of the Vikings in conjunction with archaeological and historical evidence to question the way in which females from the Viking Age have been viewed for centuries. Rather than simply providing the evidence that women from the Viking Age have been sorely misremembered thanks to the act of sexing graves by metal, the reflection of Victorian sensibilities of the nineteenth century placed on the Viking Age and the tendency for Icelandic writers of the 12th and 13th centuries (I’m looking at you Snorri Sturluson) to mythologise and generalise the female warriors as valkyries, Nancy merges fiction and solid evidence which captures the readers interest. In order to humanise the skeleton found in Birka, Nancy names the body from Bj581 Hervor, which translates to something like Aware of Battle, after the warrior woman from the old Norse poem Hervor’s Song. Nancy begins each chapter with a fictionalised story, a bit of what Hervor from burial Bj581’s life could have been like, based upon the historical, textual and archaeological evidence provided throughout the book. Nancy not only provides the evidence for warrior women, but then imagines just how a Viking woman could have lived during the time of Bj581’s life. I found it incredibly fascinating and enjoyable to read how the physical evidence may have been interacted with during the Viking Age, in addition to these imagined sections being a breath of fresh air amidst a detailed and well researched book. One thing that annoyed me through this book was when ‘an archaeologist states,’ or an ‘expert historian says…’ I’d LOVE to know which one.

Not only does Nancy debunk common beliefs that Viking women were buried with keys which signified their role as housewives, (whereas men were buried with weapons which signified their roles as warriors, raiders and traders), she exposes the bias placed onto the sagas, poems and written sources we have of the Viking Age which were all written a few hundred years after the fact. These biases come from both the values of Victorian society and Christianity, where women were confined to the home. These strict gender lines, as shown through the extensive historical and archaeological evidence provided by Nancy, simply were not there during the Viking Age. Looking at Viking women’s graves alone shows how weapons were more commonplace than keys. I loved the incorporation of other female warriors which we know of from poems as saga’s, as well as historical Viking queens detailed in concurrence with archaeological evidence found throughout the Viking world. Going into detail about clothing, textiles, trade, architecture, boats, social hierarchies, Norse legends, historical and mythological figures and everything in between, no stone is left unturned in this detailed look at the importance of women, their roles and their importance in the Viking world. If you’re interested in relearning everything you think you know about women, queens and female warriors in the Viking Age, then you should definitely pick this book up.