I passed by the brothel as though past the house of a beloved. – Franz Kafka
Today is Valentine’s Day, the modern version of the Roman Lupercalia (as explained in my column of one year ago today). Because the festival was dedicated in part to Lupa (who, as I explained in “Larentalia”, may have actually been a courtesan rather than a wolf), it’s appropriate that I use it to present yet another small peek inside the world of Roman harlots, especially in light of a recent discovery which I’ll mention in a bit. By providing a window into the minds of prohibitionists, however, this discovery actually tells us a great deal more about the deeply sick modern view of sex than it does about the healthy Roman one.
Longtime readers have probably noticed that I mention the Romans quite often, and in fact even have a “Rome” post tag with more entries than the tags for a number of modern places. The reason for this is simple: though people often refer to “ancient Rome” in order to distinguish it from the modern city, there was nothing “ancient” about Imperial Rome; in many ways, it was the first modern civilization. Historians have long considered the Battle of Actium (31 BCE), at which the forces of Octavian defeated those of Mark Anthony, the dividing line between the ancient and modern worlds. And that isn’t just because of its convenient proximity to the beginning of the Common Era; in fact, it might be argued that if not for the world created by the Romans, the Christian religion could never have developed enough to inspire a calendar (built, of course, on the Roman one reformed by Julius Caesar). The entire Western world was shaped by the Romans; we owe most of our holidays, many of our legal traditions and political structures, a good fraction of our titles and offices, the names and locations of many of our places and the languages spoken by 1/6 of the world’s population to them.
Unfortunately, one of the ways in which we have not followed in their footsteps is in our collective treatment of whores. The Romans respected the institution of harlotry; a number of goddesses were worshipped with acts of prostitution, and Roman society recognized a bewildering variety of different types of hookers. Even the very word “prostitute” derives from a Roman term for an unregisted sex worker; registered ones, especially those who worked in brothels, formed an important part of the Roman economy. But since modern “authorities” have a far less reasonable and practical attitude toward sex in general and sex work in particular, they decline to learn from the sensible Roman example and some even do the opposite by trying to rewrite history to reflect not the modern reality, but rather modern mythology. This January 4th article from The Guardian (first called to my attention by regular reader Aspasia) is an example:
[A recently-discovered Roman coin] made from bronze and smaller than a ten pence piece…depicts a man and a woman engaged in an intimate act. Experts believe it is the first example of its kind to be found in Britain. It lay preserved in mud for almost 2,000 years until it was unearthed by an amateur archaeologist with a metal detector. On the reverse of the token is the numeral XIIII, which historians say could indicate that the holder handed over 14 small Roman coins called asses to buy it. This would have been the equivalent of one day’s pay for a labourer in the first century AD. The holder would then have taken the token to one of the many Londinium brothels and handed it to a sex slave in exchange for the act depicted on the coin…
…The token has been donated to the Museum of London, where it will be on display for the next three months. Curator Caroline McDonald said: “This is the only one of its kind ever to be found in Great Britain. When we realised it was a saucy picture, we had a bit of a giggle but there’s also a sad story behind it because these prostitutes were slaves. It has resonance with modern-day London because people are still being sold into the sex trade.” The object, dated to around the first century AD, was protected from corrosion by the mud. Similar tokens have been found elsewhere in the Roman Empire, but this is the first time one has been unearthed in the UK. Some historians believe the Romans invented prostitution in the modern sense. It played a significant part in the empire’s economy – with sex workers required to register with the local authorities and even pay tax.
First of all, I find Caroline McDonald’s deliberate lying more disgusting than the mud in which this coin was found. Anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of Roman society knows that the majority of Roman prostitutes were not slaves; in fact, many were of the upper and middle classes and as I’ve previously explained, the great majority were independent practitioners who plied their trade either in licensed lupanars or in various unlicensed venues, including temples and bakeries. But this weed in Clio’s garden isn’t concerned about that; like other neofeminists, the truth to her is a tool to be distorted in whatever way is necessary to promote her agenda…which is clearly a prohibitionist one. Ironically, a recent study of London prostitutes demonstrates that McDonald’s statement has more truth in it than she intended; like their sisters in Roman Londinium, most of them aren’t slaves, either. Her duplicity is clearly revealed in the text: 14 asses was a day laborer’s pay, which is far more than slave-prostitutes have ever cost at any time in history. Consider Solon’s one-obol brothel slaves or the 50¢ “cribs” in Storyville for comparison; most bottom-end hookers have always cost roughly 2 hours’ pay, which in 1st century Rome would’ve been about 2 asses rather than 14. If this was indeed a brothel token, it purchased the services of a proseda, not a slave.
It’s not at all certain it was a brothel token, though; it may have been a gaming token or something else, as explained by Professor Mary Beard of Cambridge:
The object in question is…what archaeologists term a “spintria”. This is a Latin word for male prostitute…but it is an entirely modern practice to apply it to these little objects; we haven’t got the foggiest clue what the Romans called them…or (despite what you read) what they used them for…The favourite idea circulating about this recent discovery is that it was part of the highly developed Roman brothel economy…as there is no evidence…at all, no-one could actually disprove that. But remember that there is no Roman mention of such things, none have been found in any place that has been identified as a “brothel”…and just think of the kind of infrastructure of the ancient “brothel industry” that this kind of internal currency would imply…So what is a more likely explanation?
…Almost certainly these were tokens whose main function was the numeral, and the sex scene on the back was “decoration”…More likely, if you ask me (and as the curator at the Museum of London concedes it might be so), is that it is a gaming token, for one of the many Roman board games…whose rules and customs were anyway shot through with sex (the best throw of the Roman dice was called a “Venus throw”). This belonged, in other words, on a board in a Roman bar, not in a brothel.
But though Professor Beard is still woefully ignorant of the sex trade (she also states “most sex for money in the ancient world — like now –happened at street corners, under bridges, after closing time at the bar…“) and pays lip service to trafficking mythology, she has enough respect for both the Romans and the truth to give her honest opinion rather than vomiting out politically-correct filth intended to advance the cause of suppressing modern prostibulae of all types.
Very interesting piece Maggie. Thanks for your insights and for sharing a bit of unfiltered history for us. Happy Valentines Day of course.
Thank you, David!
yes……i read this story a while back and wondered if there had been some “history revision” going on. I want to read more of ancient cutures and there views os sex.
Maggie … question …
There were a lot of slaves that were brought to Rome during it’s many wars and a lot of those slaves were female.
Would not an owner of such a female be allowed, lawfully, to prostitute her and profit from her wages? For that matter – forget the female part, they would have been lawfully able to pimp the male slaves as well.
I see this a lot on portrayals of Roman life in popular TV and Movies and, I think this is the source of this woman’s information.
It does make sense – sort of. If it’s not the case – what would have kept Romans from exploiting slaves in this manner?
Just wondering if you can address that – since you are much more studied on this than I am.
There were indeed brothels in which the whores were slaves, but they catered to the low-end market and their prices were therefore low. Brothels which catered to middle-class men rented their rooms to meretrices (licensed prostitutes) who operated independently. Take a look at my column on the subject and you’ll see that slave-prostitutes were a very narrow segment of the Roman market.
Would these brothels renting to meretrices be similar to the “love hotels” of Japan? Ostensibly, these are rented by the hour to couples, often married couples, who just need a touch of privacy for their lovemaking.
But of course everybody knows (and just doesn’t talk about) that they are often rented by the hour to couples of which one is paying and the other is being paid. That is, to prostitutes and their clients.
These Roman brothels may have been similar, with a mix of clients ranging from married couples wanting to get away from the kids for a while to youngsters wanting to avoid parents to pay-for-play business transactions.
Or maybe they weren’t, I don’t know. But it seems unlikely that such a market would be ignored.
I’m not really sure if they rented to couples as well, but I suppose they wouldn’t have turned good money away. I’m also unsure about whether the ladies were charged by the transaction or by the night; what I’ve read seems to indicate it was usually the latter, but I reckon some cheaper ones might’ve done it the other way.
“which historians say could indicate that the holder handed over 14 small Roman coins called asses to buy it.”
Wow, 14 asses for a piece of one. Even in Rome, inflation sucks.
😉
I used to have a history textbook which included some samples of Pompeii graffiti, including a prostitute advertising services for two asses, which definitely supports your statement about the relative prices.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Maggie!
For Caroline McDonald’s further enlightenment, prostitutes in today’s UK also “even pay tax.”
I’m constantly astonished by the number of people who think whores don’t pay taxes. Even in countries where it’s illegal such as the US, a woman who clearly has income but pays no taxes attracts unwelcome attention; perhaps subsistence-level workers don’t, but every escort I know pays taxes just like any other self-employed person.
PS Maggie. If your fellow sex workers in Australia are interested. Here is a documentary done a while ago that PROVES that the Australian Tax Office does not legally or lawfully exist. I have actually seen a letter from the deputy commissioner for taxation, stamp, letterhead, signature and all, that says words to the effect.
“Despite the fact that the Australian Tax Office does not legally exist the courts have found many times over that Australian Citizens and Australian Residents have an obligation to pay their income taxes.”
Now…if that is not a criminal cartel I do not know what is.
Further, most people can not spot the deception of what an “Australian Citizen” or “resident” is. It is THEIR UCC legal entity and it DOES have an obligation to pay income taxes as and when it can. But since it is THEIR legal entity and NOT YOU then YOU have no obligation to pay THEIR income taxes. THEY DO.
If a human being does not know the difference between a “juristic person” which is what the criminals in the guvment mean when they say “person” and a human being…..when I have told as many people as I can….well, they should just pay their income taxes as a lesson in how expensive it is to be ignorant.
http://www.crimesagainstfathers.com/australia/Forums2/tabid/369/forumid/212/threadid/1021/scope/posts/Default.aspx
Interesting…
Once upon a time ago I did watch a documentary with Professor Beard guiding us through Pompeii and the faces of horror she made whilst showing the brothels – needless to say, the audience was not left in any doubt as to what she thought of prostitution. She also threw in the magic word patriarchy.
I think her attitude definitely shows in her writing, but at least she doesn’t feel compelled to lie as McDonald did.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I remember seeing a clay lamp with a relief on it of two people having sex. I wonder if they thought that was only used in a brothel by a trafficked slave girl? Considering how common sexual themes were in ancient Roman art, that might just have been an ordinary coin or token.
I’m with Maggie, I paid taxes too. Not doing so invites a kind of trouble you do not want.
Not too long ago, I heard about an archeological find in Egypt. They dug up the remains of an ancient library. The finds are slowly being conserved and translated at Oxford. And what subject matter have they found the most, thus far? Sex. Yes, sex stories. Seems the ancient world loved it’s porn, too.
The ancient Egyptians were very much into sex and drugs. Archeologists are still trying to figure out how they rolled their rocks.
{rimshot}
Until the fall of the imperial system, prostitution and brothels were a normal part of city life in China. Brothels were not just a place for sex, but were the equivalent of the modern dance club, where people (men) went for drinks and entertainment.
The Mandarin word for prostitute “Ji” implied craft (skill), a performer, as well as a sex worker. They were expected to be able to sing, play drinking games, recite poetry and generally be the life of the party.
The top rank of prostitutes often did not even offer sex, much like the Japanese Geisha. Many were famous poets.
While never high in social status unless they had a powerful patron, prostitutes were rarely persecuted, and moved openly in society.