Invisible Romans (41 page)

Sex acts more acceptable to women in general, such as intercourse in the ‘riding’ position, with the woman on top, still proved popular when provided by professionals, to judge from the paintings. Whatever else the Roman viewer, male or female, may have seen in these illustrations, their basic eroticism is unmistakable. Among all the themes possible, surely the choice of erotic scenes in a dressing room of a bath that appears to have rooms available for sex in the story above is no accident. A viewer might chuckle at the acrobatics of some of the figures illustrated, but his or her last thought is likely to have been erotic, of the possibilities existent upstairs, as surely it was intended to be.

As I have emphasized before, prostitutes were available to anyone who could and would pay; there was little shame in using their services. As Artemidorus states, ‘But having sex with a woman working as a whore in a brothel signifies only minor disgrace and very little expense’ (
Dreams
1.78). Plautus has a character proclaim that there is no stigma, much less a negative legal repercussion, in using a whore – contrary to the social and legal risks of adultery. As a character readies to enter a brothel:

No one says ‘no,’ or stops you buying what is openly for sale, if you have the money. No one prohibits anyone from going along the public road. Make love to whomever you want – just be sure you don’t wander off it onto private tracks – I mean, stay away from married women, widows, virgins, young men, and boys of good family. (
The Weevil
32–7)

Prostitutes charged a wide variety of prices for the same sex act, or for specific requests. A common price was around a quarter of a denarius, or somewhat less than a full day’s low pay for a workman. The evidence comes from graffiti at Pompeii. So, ‘Optata, household slave, yours for 2 asses’ (
CIL
4.5105) and ‘I’m yours for 2 asses’ (
CIL
4.5372). Few charged less, and a common insult was to refer to the very small coin, the
quadrans,
a quarter of an ass, and call someone a
quadrantaria
– a ‘five-cent whore.’ Some prostitutes thought they were worth a lot more, however, as Attis, mentioned earlier, who is ‘yours for a denarius,’ or Drauca, immortalized in a scribble on the wall of the Pompeiian brothel: ‘On this spot Harpocras spent a denarius for a good fuck with Drauca’
(
CIL
4.2193). The prices are given in the ‘ass,’ a tenth of a denarius – what is interesting is that even in multiples of the ass that form a larger coin available for use, such as the sesterces (= 2½ asses) or the denarius (= 10 asses), prices are almost always quoted in asses. This is because the small coin was the common money on the street – two asses would buy one’s daily bread or a cup of decent wine, or a chunk of cheese. Ordinary people carried their money in this coin, its multiple the sesterces, and its dividers (a half ass, a quarter ass), and spent it that way. So whores naturally priced their services in this coin. If a person wanted to splurge, it looks like eight asses (i.e. close to a full day’s good wage) would purchase food, a room, and sex in a public house. Naturally, cash up front was required.

About two to three asses per day was enough to scrape by on during most of the empire. A person paid by the day for work could expect between five and ten asses; however, regular daily work for anyone besides a soldier, who got perhaps two to three asses per day as spending money in addition to salary sequestered for required deductions (food, shelter, equipment, savings), was very unlikely. Thus a prostitute who could work regularly and bring in even the low price of two asses a trick could earn twenty or more asses per day. This is far more than a woman could earn in any other wage-earning occupation, and twice what a well-paid male worker could expect.

I would emphasize, though, that most prostitutes would have worked through a pimp, who would have taken much of a free prostitute’s income. A slave prostitute would turn over most if not all of her gain to her master. To get an idea of how that worked, look at the anger Paul aroused in the owners of a slave girl:

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.’ She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!’ At that moment the spirit left her. When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. (
Acts
16:16–19)

Just so, the owner of a slave girl in prostitution regarded her as a profit-maker, sent out into a brothel or onto the street to bring back money at the end of the day. A document from Egypt notes, ‘Drimylos bought a slave-girl for 300 drachmas. And each day they went out onto the streets and made a splendid profit’ (Rowlandson, no. 207). And a literary epigram captures fictionally the grave inscription of a pimp who specialized in evening companions at banquets:

Psyllus, who used to take to the pleasant banquets of the young men the venal ladies that they desired, that hunter of weak girls, who earned a disgraceful wage by dealing in human flesh, lies here. But cast not thou stones at his tomb, wayfarer, nor bid another do so. He is dead and buried. Spare him, not because he was content to gain his living so, but because as keeper of common women he dissuaded young men from adultery. (
The Greek Anthology, Epigrams,
7.403/Paton)

Women on the streets meant that passing men felt free to make lewd remarks and advances – and they did. A married woman from a prosperous family would wear appropriately modest clothing, advertising her condition, when she went out. A girl from such a family was always dressed to display her status and was accompanied by a female slave or older woman charged with keeping prying eyes and remarks at bay. But ordinary girls and young women had to go about whatever business took them onto the street without such a constraint – after all, their presence there was not for show, or to take a stroll, but for some specific task, and their resources did not allow the luxury of delicate clothing or a private guard. The very fact that ordinary prostitutes were unprotected pronounced them reasonable prey in the eyes of men, whether for direct approach, or just as the butt of remarks. In sum, any girl or woman dressed commonly, as slaves, too, dressed, was fair game. And all the more if the woman was dressed to draw attention to herself, as a whore might well do. Ulpian in the
Digest
is eloquent:

If anyone proposition a young girl, and all the more if she is dressed like a household slave, there isn’t much harm done. And even less, if she is dressed like a prostitute, not in the garb of a respectable matron. (
Digest
47.10.15.15)

We therefore know that an insult from a male, or an unwelcome advance, received scant protection from authorities. Prostitutes had to look out for themselves.

This might not be easy if ruffians decided to set upon you. When C. Plancius, a friend of Cicero’s, was a young man he was involved in the gang rape of a female mime:

They say you and a bunch of young men raped a mime in the town of Atina – but such an act is an old right when it comes to actors, especially out in the sticks. (
In Defense of Plancius
30)

Surely prostitutes fared no better if hoodlums or dissipated boys or men attacked.

As I have noted, once in prostitution, most prostitutes were managed by a pimp. The opportunities for exploitation and physical abuse were rampant, and a whore had little or no recourse; she was in many respects like a slave, even if freeborn. This condition must often have meant a mean, abusive, depressing life from which there was, in practice, no escape. Social abuse was added to physical. Although disgrace is exaggerated as a ‘scarlet letter’ worn by prostitutes, there certainly was some stigma attached to selling sex. A graffito from Pompeii reads:

The lass to whom I wrote and who accepted my message at once is my girl by right – but if she responded with a price, she is not MY girl, but everyone’s. (
CIL
4.1860)

I have already noted that prostitutes were
probrosae,
meaning they, according to Augustan marriage laws, could not marry freeborn Roman citizens. They also suffered from
infamia
– they could not write a will or receive full inheritance. But on the one hand, prostitution was not an irredeemable condition; one could quit the profession, marry, and live happily ever after. On the other hand, the moral stigma was not so
great that it prevented many women from staying in the business. When faced with a number of bad choices, it is no wonder that ‘disgrace’ alone did not keep women from turning to prostitution.

And practical concerns were certainly higher in the prostitute’s mind than supposed shame. For example, getting pregnant was very inconvenient. As Myrtium says in Lucian’s
Dialogue of the Courtesans,
‘All the good I’ve had from your love is that you’ve given me such an enormous belly, and I’ll soon have to bring up a child, and that’s a terrible nuisance for a woman of my kind’ (282/Harmon). Insofar as preventing pregnancy was concerned, a favorite method was magical spells, for example this instruction for a charm to prevent conception: ‘Take a pierced bean and attach it as an amulet after tying it up in a piece of mule hide’ (
PGM
63.26–8/Betz). The rhythm method was also tried. Doctors
thought
they understood female ovulation, but in fact had it all wrong – the periods recommended as safe for intercourse were in fact a woman’s most fertile times. Pessaries and ointments were more practical; these were thought to ‘close’ the uterus and so prevent conception. Oil was a favorite component of these, whether olive or some other, mixed with ingredients such as honey, lead, or frankincense; they were probably ineffective. Potions were recommended as well, such as a combination of willow, iron rust, and iron slag, all ground finely and mixed with water, or mixing male or female fern root in sweet wine and drinking it. And there is archaeological as well as textual evidence for the use of sponges and other intercepting materials by women for contraception with common vinegar as an active sperm-fighter (which it is); these were used extensively. Of course, the desired outcome – conception prevention – may often have occurred coincidentally after resorting to one of the many methods touted by folk and professional medicine, thus encouraging prostitutes to resort to such methods, but in fact contraception must have been a very hit-and-miss affair.

During pregnancy, abortion was an option. As a medical procedure it was rare, and recommended against by medical writers as being extremely dangerous. However, there were various potions that were guaranteed to produce an abortion. These were taken orally or as a vaginal suppository; in both instances, misunderstood physiology rendered the techniques of dubious value, although some oral concoctions
may have actually worked. Once a child was born it could be disposed of by infanticide or abandonment.

In modern times, prostitution carries with it very real dangers of sexually transmitted diseases to the health of both prostitute and customer. The Romano-Grecian prostitute had a bit less to worry about in this regard. Of course, the most deadly STD of all, HIV-AIDS, did not exist in antiquity. And syphilis was unknown. Although there has been a lively discussion among medical historians over the years, some claiming syphilis as a New World disease brought to America as part of the ‘Columbian exchange,’ some claiming Old World evidence from antiquity, still others claiming both origins concomitantly, bone analysis done on ancient skeletons has proven conclusively that there was no syphilis in Western antiquity. Whatever symptoms some have attributed to that disease can be explained by other diseases that present in similar ways. So a whore did not have to worry about this particular scourge of brothel life. Gonorrhea, the second-most-feared sexually transmitted disease, may have existed in the Roman world, but as it does not leave a mark on bones, osteology cannot help us here, and the references by medical writers are inconclusive. However, it is certain from these authors that two less-serious (but nonetheless painful and damaging) venereal diseases did exist, namely genital herpes (chlamydia) and genital warts (condylomas); oddly, however, no medical writers actually connect these or any other infections directly with sexual intercourse. As irritating as the latter diseases might be, a prostitute could reasonably expect to practice her trade free of life-threatening sexually transmitted disease. In this small way, at least, ancient life was safer than modern.

We must imagine prostitution as widespread among ordinary people in the Romano-Grecian world – a possibility for children, women, and some few men, and a normalized sexual outlet for males. Women through choice, necessity, or compulsion, both free and slave, worked in this oldest profession. Walking down the street of any town, you would have seen the whores standing around the forum, beckoning you from a doorway, or soliciting you leaving the theater. They were a familiar and popular aspect of the lives of ordinary folk. But being a prostitute was often dangerous, and exploitation was widespread. There was some disgrace, although none comparable to the vilification they receive in the elite literature. In good circumstances, prostitutes could lead a
reasonable life, perhaps even a bit better than average among ordinary folk. In bad conditions, the vicious exploitation would have led to abuse and an early death.

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FAME AND DEATH: GLADIATORS