Domestic violence and servile vulnerability in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii.

This article examines the vulnerability of enslaved household members to physical and sexual violence through a detailed study of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii. It reinterprets the house's material culture—such as frescoes depicting cupids and psyches engaged in labor and statuettes of bound children—to reflect the real tasks, punishments, and exploitation enslaved individuals likely endured. Employing Saidiya Hartman's methodology of critical fabulation, the article presents a fictionalized narrative of Eutychis, a homeborn enslaved woman recorded in graffiti as prostituted, to illuminate the embodied experiences of domestic violence and servile vulnerability. The study highlights the complex interplay of power, punishment, and sexual exploitation within Roman households, emphasizing the acute and enduring trauma faced by enslaved persons whose lives are often obscured in historical records.