A search in Pompeii reveals an erotic fresco on Leda and Swan

Archeologists from Pompeii have found a Roman erotic fresco describing Leda and the Swan – a Greek myth that has inspired artists for centuries.

The latest discovery is thought to have decorated a room in a rich house located near the ancient city center.

Pompeii was buried under volcanic ash when Vesuvius erupted in the 1st century AD. The new discovery is Via del Vesuvio, in the Regio V area of ​​the site.

In myth, the god Zeus turned into a swan and violated Leda, queen of Sparta.

According to classical mythology, this event had enormous consequences: Leda's relationship with the swan and then with her husband, King Tyndareus, produced two eggs, of which Helen, Clytemnestra and the twin Castor and Pollux were born.

Leda's seduction by the swan was a powerful subject for artists of the Italian Renaissance in the sixteenth century: it inspired the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Tintoretto and many other works.

The original works of Leonardo and Michelangelo are missing, but copies are exhibited in galleries.

Leda and the Swan is also a classic poem by William Butler Yeats, a major figure in twentieth-century literature.

Recently, an erotic fresco depicting Priapus – a god of Roman fertility – was exhumed near the fresco of Leda. He is shown weighing his penis on a scale. But the work is in a worse state than that of Leda's fresco.

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The powerful legacy of Leda

Leda's daughter, Helen, then married King Menelaus of Sparta. His abduction by Prince Paris of Troy was at the origin of the Trojan War, according to legend. Helen had many contenders and was considered to be the most beautiful woman in Greece.

Clytemnestra was another iconic Greek woman whose history inspired artists over the centuries. She murdered Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus.

Zeus became the Roman god Jupiter and Pompeii is full of works of art celebrating the episodes of Greek myths.