Invisible Romans (39 page)

Diodemos was found guilty, executed, and a tenth of his property turned over to the mother, ‘who, because of the poverty which constricted her, dragged her own daughter away from the path of virtue, on account of which she has lost her …’(It is worth noting in passing the sympathy the magistrate had for the mother and, posthumously, for the daughter forced into prostitution – so much so that he was willing to punish a fellow elite.) In literature, too, mothers turn their daughters to prostitution in order to bring money home; Lucian’s
Dialogues of the Courtesans
features a number of such mothers.

Others ran away into the profession. Still others were raised in slavery, and many were enslaved for the work. A standard motif in the romances is a girl who is kidnapped by bandits or pirates and sold into slavery. In
The Golden Ass
Charite, a girl from a provincial elite family captured by bandits, faces such a prospect. The bandits have voted to kill her for trying to escape, when one comrade (actually Charite’s lover in disguise) urges a different path:

But if you cruelly kill the girl, you will have done nothing more than vent your anger without gaining anything in return. Now what I think is this: We should take her to a nearby town and sell her. For such a sweet young thing will bring a pretty price, for sure, especially since I myself have pimps of long acquaintance there – one surely will be able to make a good offer for such a high-born lass. There, she must display herself in a brothel and won’t be able to escape like she almost did just now. Seeing her service men in a whorehouse will be sweet revenge for you. (
The Golden Ass
7.9)

Another standard theme in literature is raising foundlings for prostitution; other ancient evidence corroborates this source as well.

Prostitutes were, quite literally, everywhere. It has been estimated that perhaps one in every hundred people (men, women, children) in
Pompeii was a prostitute (based on an estimate of a hundred prostitutes in a population of 10,000). It would have been much higher for women in the prime ages of, say, sixteen to twenty-nine. Premodern comparative material points to something like 10 to 20 percent of ‘eligible’ women who worked at least intermittently as prostitutes. With an average of around ten customers a day, not a high figure using comparative data, this would mean 1000 tricks a day in Pompeii alone. Such figures might seem at first blush very high, but the combination of strong demand, a relatively low health risk (see below), and an absence of alternative ways for women to make money pushed many into prostitution. While the elite would have automatically considered any whore unsuitable for marriage, and certainly strongly disapproved of husbands overtly or indirectly allowing or coercing a wife to take up prostitution, not all ordinary people would necessarily have shared this view. A husband might well sexually abuse his wife, prostituting her:

A man dreamed he had brought forward his very own wife in order to offer her as a sacrifice on an altar, sell the sliced up flesh, and gain a great profit for himself. He further dreamed that he rejoiced in his deed and attempted to conceal the profits because of those standing around watching him. Now this man brought his own wife into a shameful life of prostitution and earned his living from her work. The deed was most lucrative as a means of gain for him, but it was properly to remain hidden. (
Dreams
5.2)

In addition, the presence of slavery and the good return prostitution brought on investment meant that the market was constantly supplied by slave owners as well. So the sex industry had a steady source of workers not only in the slave owners using their possessions to reap profits, but in pimps ready to employ free women in brothels, inns, or baths.

A person is a pimp if he has slaves working as prostitutes; but he also is a pimp who provides free persons for the same purpose. He is subject to punishment as a procurer whether he makes this his main business or conducts it as an ancillary activity of another business, as for example if he were a tavern owner, or a stable master, and he had that sort of slave working and taking advantage of their opportunity to make money, or if he were a bath manager, as happens in certain provinces, having slaves to guard the clothes people leave and who also offer sex in their workplace. (Ulpian,
On the Edict,
in
Digest
3.2.4.2–3)

Brothels were the most organized locales for prostitution. Combining what can be learned from the only certainly identified purpose-built brothel known, the Lupanar in Pompeii, with literary references, a picture can be drawn. There might be a reception area open to the street except for a curtain; inside, prostitutes walked about gauzily dressed or naked for inspection by prospective customers, or they might sit on chairs or couches; each had a small room furnished with a bed, whether wooden or brick. Women were advertised by what their expertise was, and perhaps by what they charged for their services; this might be set and posted either in the reception area or above the chamber door. There was scant room for loitering in the individual cells; they seem to have been for business only. Privacy seems not to have been a concern; there is little evidence for a fabric barrier at the door of the individual rooms, and none for a door. In other words, the brothel does not seem to have been a place of socializing, entertainment, or the like, followed by sex. In all likelihood the brothel was poorly lit and dirty – but then, that would be the condition of most places where ordinary people congregated.

The
Satyricon
contains a vignette about such a brothel. Encolpius has lost track of his lover, Ascyltos. Searching for him, he asks an old woman selling vegetables on the street, ‘Do you know where I live?’ The clever hag says she does, and takes him … to a brothel.

I noticed some men and naked women walking cautiously about among placards of price. Too late, too late I realized that I had been taken into a whorehouse … I began to run through the brothel to another part, when just at the entrance Ascyltos met me … I hailed him with a laugh, and asked him what he was doing in such an unpleasant spot. He mopped himself with his hands and said, ‘If you only knew what has happened to me.’ ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, on the point of fainting, ‘I was wandering all over the town without finding where I had left my lodgings, when a respectable person came up to me and very kindly offered to direct me. He took me round a number of dark turnings and brought me out here, and then began to offer me money and solicit me. A whore demanded a fiver for a cubby, and he was already pawing me. The worst would have happened if I had not been stronger than he.’ (
Satyricon
7)

So here two different people took the opportunity to direct strangers to a whorehouse, presumably for a tip from the house; the house had resident prostitutes, but also rented rooms ‘by the hour’ for customers who, like Ascyltos’ masher, brought their own entertainment. It is interesting to note that once he realized it was a whorehouse, Encolpius covered his head – a traditional motion when one entered such a place.

Some prostitutes operated not in a brothel, but out of a dwelling. In Plautus’
Comedy of Asses
a higher-class whore has her own place. To it she can admit whom she pleases. There is a placard which she can hang out stating ‘engaged.’ She has erotic paintings up to excite her caller. She has entertainment facilities so she can throw a party, if she wishes to have more than one potential customer. Although such cannot have been the norm, it is useful to recall ‘high-end’ work. Opinion varies, but we may see an ordinary prostitute in real life working from a dwelling in the House of the Vettii at Pompeii. Here there is a back room off the kitchen decorated with explicit erotic art in a style reminiscent of the paintings in the known brothel, the Lupanar, in that city. At the entrance of the house is a graffito which states, ‘Eutychis, a Greek lass with sweet ways, 2 asses’ (
CIL
4.4592).

Taverns and eateries were regular venues for whores – a room or two at the back or upstairs served the purpose. The distinction, universally shared, was that an innkeeper might be a reputable person, while a barmaid was nothing but a prostitute serving food and drink. Literature regularly assimilates barmaids to whores, and Roman legal texts concur:

 We say that it is not only the woman who openly sells herself in a brothel who earns a living (from her body); so, too, if (as is usual) she does not spare her modesty in an inn or tavern, or other such place. And moreover we understand that ‘openly’ means that such a woman takes on men randomly, without discrimination, and so supports herself as a prostitute, unlike a woman who commits adultery or fornication, or even a woman who has sex with one or two men for money, who do not seem to make money openly with their bodies. Octavenus nevertheless most correctly states that even the woman who gives herself openly for free ought to be counted among the prostitutes … We moreover call the women ‘madams’ who offer women for hire, even if they carry on this commerce under another name. If anyone running a tavern has women for hire (and many are accustomed to have female prostitutes under the guise of having tavern maids), then she also is properly called a ‘madam.’ (Ulpian,
On the Edict,
in
Digest
23.2.43. pr. 1–3 and 7–9)

And so, as in every age, bar girls attracted men:

Successus the weaver loves the bar girl named Heredis – who certainly doesn’t give a damn for HIM. But a rival scribbles on a wall that she should have pity on him. Come on! You’re just spiteful because she broke off with you. Don’t think you can better a more handsome guy – an ugly guy can’t best a pretty one. (
CIL
4.8259)

28. A prostitute serves an individual. A woman in a pose typical of Venus and meant to show off her figure entertains a customer while a servant looks on, ready to assist as needed.

But another graffito from Pompeii perhaps illustrates that the difference between innkeeper and maid was not honored: ‘I fucked the innkeeper’ appears on a wall (
CIL
4.8442,
Futui coponam).
There were, however, presumably some establishments that were not disreputable. The bar owner Haynchis, for example, runs a beer shop with the active assistance of his daughter, whom it would be nice to think maintained her honor while doing so (Rowlandson, no. 209).

There is a marvelous description of paid sex in a public house in the Christian story of ‘St. Mary the Whore.’ Although brought up carefully, Mary was seduced by a treacherous monk. In shame, she fled her hometown and became a prostitute in a bar. Her uncle, a very holy man named Abraham, looked for her and after two years finally found her. He disguised himself and went to the town.

So then, arrived at the town, he stepped aside into the tavern and with anxious eyes he sat looking around him, glancing this way and that in hopes of seeing her. The hours went by, and still no chance of seeing her appeared; finally he spoke jestingly to the innkeeper. ‘They tell me, friend,’ he said, ‘that you have here a very fine girl; if it is agreeable to you, I would like very much to have a look at her.’ The innkeeper …replied that it was indeed just as he had heard – she was an extremely pretty girl. And indeed Mary had a beautiful body, almost more than nature had any need of. Abraham asked her name, and was told that it was Mary. Then Abraham merrily said, ‘Come now, bring her in and show her to me and let me have a fine supper for her this day, for I have heard the praises of her on all hands.’ So they called her. And when she came in and the good old man saw her in her whore’s garb, his whole body practically dissolved in grief. But he hid the bitterness of his soul … and so they sat and drank their wine. The old man began to jest with her. The girl rose and put her arms around his neck, beguiling him with kisses. … The old man spoke to her genially. ‘Now, now!’ he said. ‘Here am I come to make merry …’ So then the old man produced a gold piece he had brought with him and gave it to the innkeeper. ‘Now, friend,’ he said, ‘make us a good supper, so that I can make merry with the girl; for I have come a long journey for love of her.’ When they had feasted, the girl began to urge him to come to her room to have sex with her. ‘Let us go,’ he said. Coming in, he saw a lofty bed prepared, and straightaway sat down gaily upon it … So then the girl said to him, as he sat on the bed, ‘Come, sir, let me slip off your shoes.’ ‘Lock the door carefully,’ he said, ‘and then take them off.’ … ‘Come close to me, Mary,’ said the old man. And when she was beside him on the bed he took her firmly by the hand as if to kiss her, then taking the hat from his head and his voice breaking into weeping, ‘Mary, my daughter,’ he said, ‘don’t you know me?’ … Laying her head at his feet, she wept all night … When dawn had come, Abraham said to her, ‘Rise up, daughter, and let us go home.’ And answering him, she said, ‘I have a little gold here, and some clothes, what would you have me do with them?’ And Abraham answered, ‘Leave all those things here …’ (Ephraem, Deacon of Edessa/Waddell)