In a move that has sent shockwaves of both aesthetic delight and priapic approval through the archaeological community, Italy has proudly restored a Roman mosaic depicting a bull with a remarkably prominent and apparently fortunate scrotum. The mosaic, unearthed in the ruins of Pompeii, has been lovingly cleaned and reassembled, with the bull’s testicles given a particularly meticulous polish. UK heritage experts, ever the arbiters of dusty decorum, have hailed the conservation as ‘exemplary’.
One can only imagine the furious scribbling of grant applications happening in British museums, as curators desperately seek funds to restore similar national treasures: perhaps a chipped gargoyle’s crotch on St. Paul’s, or a faded graffito of a phallus on Hadrian’s Wall. The bull, locals whisper, is a symbol of virility and good luck.
Touch its stone balls, they say, and your lottery numbers will come up, your crops will flourish, and your spouse will finally learn to make a decent pasta. Who are we to argue with centuries of tradition? Meanwhile, British conservationists, no strangers to pompous pronouncements, have declared the work ‘a triumph of international collaboration and a testament to the enduring power of classical art’.
Or, as I suspect they might mutter into their single malts, ‘Bloody Italians, showing off their ancient genitalia again.’ The irony is, of course, thicker than the Roman concrete these mosaics are made of. The very civilisation that gave us aqueducts, law, and the concept of a toga party also gave us an obsessive public fascination with genitalia.
And now, thanks to this restoration, visitors to Pompeii can once again marvel at a bull whose testicles are more famous than any of his agricultural achievements. The bull, I should note, is not alone: the mosaic features various other scenes of pastoral life, but let’s be honest, no one is looking at the shepherds. So, raise a glass of chianti to the Italian authorities, who have proven that even in the face of crumbling empires, one must always keep one’s priorities straight.
Or, in this case, perhaps perfectly rounded. As for the UK heritage experts, one can only hope they emerge from their libraries, wipe the dust from their spectacles, and embrace the sheer, unadulterated hilarity of it all. After all, we are but custodians of the past, and if that past includes a bull with an oversized sense of its own fortune, then by Jupiter, let us polish it until it gleams.
