Prostitute
Often cited as “the world’s oldest profession”, it goes without saying that prostitution pre-dates the world of antiquity. From the powerful female courtesans of fourth century Athens to the poor, starving workers that hung about on the street corners of first century Rome, prostitution was endemic in the ancient world. And issues of bodily hygiene aside, the job brought with both some of the same problems it does today as well as a number of different ones.
Apart from the perpetual prostitute-related problem of having to sleep with pretty much any paying man who walked through the door, prostitutes in the ancient world faced another more existential threat: death. It’s often said that contraception was practically unheard of in the ancient world. The reality, however, is much more sinister. Prostitutes or slaves were themselves contraception; sexual vessels for men to use (so they claimed) to protect their wives from the grave threat of childbearing.
It’s worth stressing that the Romans had a much different idea of marriage than we have today. Rather than love, their marriages were based on politics, pragmatism, and property-inheritance (unlike in the Christian world, divorces were easily obtainable should issues arise in any of these spheres). In fact love would have been disastrous for marriages because it would mean frequent sexual intercourse which greatly increased the chances of death for the wife.
It’s for this reason that we have a famous anecdote from antiquity in which the upstanding, conservative Roman Cato the Elder praises a young aristocrat he saw leaving a brothel. He commends the young man for sleeping with prostitutes rather than involving himself with other men’s wives. The implication here is that adultery is the great social evil; the reality is that the potentially lethal consequences said adultery could bring posed the greatest threat to the stability of the Roman state.
So what was prostitution like in antiquity? Aesthetically, increasing Greek contact with the Near Eastern world brought with it a number of developments. Eastern spices transformed female scents and soaps, while eastern cultures also contributed a better and more durable make-up: the eye shadow. In the Roman world, prostitutes were identifiable by their colourful dress, over-the-top hairstyles, and heavy-set makeup. Sexually, fortunately for those plying their trade in the Roman world, the Romans weren’t big into oral sex. Unfortunately for those of the Hellenistic world, however, the Greeks seemed to have few qualms.
