🎵I know that painting; I know that painting🎵

Why does everything feel so joyless? Welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure Guardian

The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1490-1510, Hieronymus Bosch.

Hemingway saw the painting in the Prado and his decadent mind was enraptured. The experience led directly to his decadent (and best) (unfinished) novel The Garden of Eden.

Among the bites of the forbidden fruit in Bosch's fantasies are several that strongly imply interracial sex. I've snipped several that I saw in brief examination:

That was the 15th-16th century, practically modern compared to 79 AD. That was the year that Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the ancient city of Pompeii. Destroyed and preserved evidence of the life that the ancient Pompeiians lived. Yet, there too.

I imagine that in the age of exploration, Europeans would have had knowledge and contact with the exotic people of Africa. But in the first century?

Unlike Bosch, the Pompeiian frescoes were not fantasy. This was real life.

I mean there are a lot.

There are a lot of depictions of explicit interracial sex--during a time when I would have expected none. I am not a historian and may be making assumptions regarding travel capabilities that are not warranted. But I am not making assumptions about the sexual practices of ancient Pompeiians. My eyes do not deceive me.