Ars amatoria Carnuntensis – Living and loving in ancient Carnuntum

Carnuntum is a place where Roman everyday life can be captured in unusual detail—not only in monumental buildings and public spaces, but also in those smaller social spheres where closeness, desire, bonds, and conflict were negotiated. Valentine's Day therefore offers a fitting occasion to talk about love in Roman Carnuntum: in ancient times, relationships were rarely “just” between two people, but were closely intertwined with legal norms, social status, and societal control. It is precisely this tension between duty and the realities of life that gives archaeological and epigraphic sources their particular significance.

Roman couple getting married at the 2025 Roman Festival in Carnuntum - © Römerstadt Carnuntum 

Roman ideas about physicality and desire are found not only in the literary works of Ovid or Catullus, but also in a variety of material media: in wall paintings and mosaics, on lamps, jewelry, small everyday objects, and in graffiti. From today's perspective, these testimonies sometimes seem astonishingly direct. This is less due to a supposed “unrestrained” Roman sexuality than to the fact that different categories of order applied. Age, gender, and above all legal status—born free, freed, or enslaved—structured what was considered legitimate, tolerated, or taboo.

Particularly revealing are small objects with inscriptions that served as gifts of love. Fibulae, rings, styluses, vessels, or spindle whorls could be inscribed with short, often deliberately ambiguous texts that professed love, sought reciprocation, or cemented existing bonds. These so-called pignora amoris – “love tokens” – were signs of togetherness and fidelity that only developed their social effectiveness through acceptance and use. Their particular value for research lies in the fact that they originate predominantly from the provinces and thus provide insights into everyday practices that are hardly tangible in the literary tradition.

In the Roman world, marriage was primarily a legal and social framework. It regulated legitimate offspring, ownership, inheritance, and social networks. A romantic “love marriage” in the modern sense was not the guiding ideal—but that does not mean that feelings were absent. Tomb inscriptions in particular reveal emotional bonds: partners, children, or freedmen express loss, recognition, and care in fixed but nevertheless meaningful linguistic patterns. Such formulas are part of social communication about bonds and merit and can be found in the provinces as well as in Rome itself.

Free men had comparatively broad scope for sexual relationships outside of marriage, as long as social boundaries were respected. At the same time, there were clear taboos: free-born girls and boys, married women, and—depending on the context—widows were under special protection. Violations could have serious social and legal consequences. The stakes were particularly high for wives, as extramarital relationships were considered an attack on legitimate descent and thus on the order of the household. Augustan legislation explicitly made certain forms of adultery and “illicit” relationships subject to public prosecution. Same-sex relationships were not generally considered offensive in Roman society; they became problematic primarily when, from the perspective of the social order, they could not contribute to securing legitimate offspring.

Roman couple at the Late Antiquity Festival 2023 in Carnuntum - © A. Hofmarcher

Carnuntum was a hub where people of different origins, legal statuses, and lifestyles came together. For soldiers in legionary camps or auxiliary forts, balancing service and family life was structurally difficult, as legal restrictions on fully valid marriages existed for a long time during the imperial period. At the same time, archaeological and epigraphic evidence clearly shows that stable partnerships did in fact often exist. Military diplomas and inscriptions reveal how the tension between norm and practice was negotiated – and how “family” remained a social reality in the garrison environment, even if it was not always fully recognized in legal terms.

Roman couple before their wedding at the Late Antiquity Festival 2023 in Carnuntum - © A. Hofmarcher

In addition to law and norms, magic played a central role as an emotional coping strategy. Defixiones (talismanic tablets) provide impressive documentation of how people dealt with hurt feelings, competition, jealousy, or unfulfilled desires. Depictions of male and female genitalia should also be viewed in this context and are often hastily misunderstood as mere “erotica.” Many pendants, fittings, or amulets in the shape of genitals served to ward off evil: they were intended to distract envy and the “evil eye” and ensure protection.

Deities also played an important role in the context of ideas about love. Venus, as the personification of beauty and erotic attraction, and Amor or Cupid, as the unpredictable power of desire, are omnipresent in Roman imagery—and can also be found in the range of finds from Carnuntum. They refer to a religiously charged understanding of love that fluctuated between divine favor and dangerous passion.

Archaeological finds of Carnuntum: Seal capsule with phallus (inv. no. CAR-M-3112), vulva fitting (inv. no. CAR-M-3224), statuette of Cupid (inv. no. CAR-M-3283), and statuette of Venus (inv. no. CAR-M-3267) -  © Landessammlungen NÖ 

An extraordinary love message has been handed down for Carnuntum, which illustrates this tension particularly vividly: a round spindle whorl made of black oil shale with a white incrusted inscription, which is only known from an older publication and is now considered lost. The two-line inscription reads “VENIS MEA DOMINA” – meaning “You come (to me), my mistress” or, depending on the emphasis, also as a request or invitation “Come (to me), my mistress.” The term domina is not to be understood in a social-legal sense, but belongs to the established erotic-affective vocabulary of Roman love language. Comparable inscribed spindle whorls from the western provinces show that everyday objects and intimate messages were deliberately intertwined here. Such objects reveal how closeness, desire, and hope could be communicated through small objects.

Gallic spindle whorl with love inscription from Carnuntum (Thüry 2020, 165, Fig. 01)

The finds from Carnuntum show that love and sexuality in antiquity should be understood neither as a taboo subject nor as boundless freedom, but rather as a social field with clear rules, distinct inequalities, and at the same time real bonds. Grave inscriptions, love gifts, protective amulets, images of deities, and magical texts are snapshots of a society in which people sought closeness, expressed recognition, resolved conflicts, and materialized hope. It is precisely the small objects that reveal how “love” was not only felt in everyday Roman life, but also practically organized, communicated, and secured.