The Warren Cup is an ancient Greco-Roman silver drinking cup decorated in relief with two images of male same-sex acts. It was purchased by the British Museum for £1.8 million in 1999, the most expensive single purchase by the museum at that time. It is usually dated to the time of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (1st century AD). The cup originally had two vertical handles, now lost. The cup is named after American art collector Edward Perry Warren, its first modern owner. Warren also owned the marble version of Rodin's The Kiss, now in Tate Modern, and an Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder, now in the Courtauld Institute of Art, both also in London.
Imagery
Representations of sexual acts are widely found in Roman art, although surviving male-female scenes greatly outnumber same-sex couples. It cannot be assumed that homoerotic art was uncommon as the modern record may be biased due to selective destruction or non-publication of pederastic works in later times. Illustrated drinking cups, often in pairs, were intended as dinner-party conversation pieces. Roman artwork on pottery, glass and wall-paintings with sexual acts represented were popular and were intended to be seen by all sections of society. The Romans had no word for homosexuality, and the images on the Warren Cup provide an important insight into this aspect of their culture. One side of the Warren Cup depicts a "bearded man" and a "beardless youth" engaging in anal sex in a reclining position, with the youth lowering himself using a strap or sash to be penetrated. A boy watches from behind a door. The two figures do not appear to be a great difference in age and are of a similar size. The apparent weight of the upper figure, as he lowers himself onto his lover's penis using the support, makes this a non-traditional passive role. The use of a strap or support during sex can be found in other Greek and Roman artworks, a close example being an erotic cup by Onesimos where a woman spreads her legs in anticipation while grasping a strap with her left hand. The other side depicts another scene of anal sex, between a "beardless" and clean-shaven "young man" and a smaller figure with long hair, indicating he is a "boy" or "adolescent" (now the "eromenos"). The boy's hairstyle is typical of the puer delicatus, a servant-boy or cup or armour bearer. Roman same-sex practice differed from that of the Greeks, among whom pederasty was a socially acknowledged relationship between freeborn males of equal social status. Roman men, however, were free to engage in same-sex relations without a perceived loss of masculinity only as long as they took the penetrative role and their partner was a social inferior such as a slave or male prostitute: the paradigm of "correct" male sexuality was one of conquest and domination. There are significant differences to pederastic scenes found on classical Greek vases. The sex act is presented in graphic detail, and the "beardless youth" appears to encourage the penetration, grasping his lover's arm. In Roman artwork there is an assumption that the penetrated youth is a slave or prostitute and on the Warren Cup, a mutual tenderness is represented.
Both scenes show draped textiles in the background, as well as a cithara (appearing as an eleven-stringed lyre, often symbolic of pleasure and drinking parties) in the former scene and tibiae (reeded pipes) with finger holes being depicted in the latter. These, along with the careful delineation of ages and status and the wreaths worn by the youths, all suggest a cultured, elite, Hellenized setting with music and entertainment. The active partners in the two sexual depictions are wearing leaf crowns, likely to be symbolically made from myrtle. Myrtle is an evergreen shrub, grown in the Roman period for medical and ritual purposes, such as weddings, and dedicated to Venus, the Roman goddess of sexuality and love. It has a smaller leaf than the more commonly depicted laurel. Myrtle was used to create the corona ovalis, a military crown awarded as an ovation but a far lesser award than the insignis corona triumphalis, one interpretation of the use of myrtle crowns on the Warren Cup, being a visual pun of homosexual penetration as an easy victory.
Modern provenance
Warren purchased the cup in Rome from a dealer in 1911 for £2,000 (equivalent to £204,000 in 2025). It was bought in Jerusalem and said to have been found near the city of Battir in Palestine (ancient Betar), with coins of the emperor Claudius, possibly buried during the upheavals of the First Jewish Revolt (66–73 AD).
We don't know for certain, but it is thought that the Warren Cup was found buried at Bittir, a town a few miles south-west of Jerusalem. How it got to this location is a mystery, but we can make a guess. We can date the making of the cup to around the year 10. About 50 years later, the Roman occupation of Jerusalem sparked tensions between the rulers and the Jewish community, and in AD 66 that exploded and the Jews took back the city by force. There were violent confrontations, and it is thought that our cup may have been buried at this date by the owner fleeing from the fighting.
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