Part 4 (2/2)
It was the duty of the aedile to arrest, punish, and drive out of the city all loose prost.i.tutes who were not inscribed on his book. This regulation was practically a dead letter. At no time in the history of the empire did there cease to be a large and well-known cla.s.s of prost.i.tutes who were not recorded. They were distinguished from the registered prost.i.tutes (_meretrices_) by the name of _prostibulae_.[81] They paid no tax to the state, while their registered rivals contributed largely to the munic.i.p.al treasury; and, if they ran greater risks, and incurred more nominal infamy than the latter, they more frequently contrived to rise from their unhappy condition.
We have no means of judging of the number of prost.i.tutes exercising their calling at Rome, Capua, and the other Italian cities during the first years of the Christian era. During Trajan's reign the police were enabled to count thirty-two thousand in Rome alone, but this number obviously fell short of the truth. One is appalled at the great variety of cla.s.ses into which the _prostibulae_, or unregistered prost.i.tutes were divided. Such were the _Delicatae_, corresponding to the kept-women, or French _lorettes_, whose charms enabled them to exact large sums from their visitors;[82] the _Famosae_, who belonged to respectable families, and took to evil courses through l.u.s.t or avarice;[83] the _Doris_, who were remarkable for their beauty of form, and disdained the use of clothing;[84] the _Lupae_, or she-wolves, who haunted the groves and commons, and were distinguished by a particular cry in imitation of a wolf;[85] the _aelicariae_, or bakers' girls, who sold small cakes for sacrifice to Venus and Priapus, in the form of the male and female organs of generation;[86] the _Bustuariae_, whose home was the burial-ground, and who occasionally officiated as mourners at funerals;[87] the _Copae_, servant-girls at inns and taverns, who were invariably prost.i.tutes;[88]
the _Noctiluae_, or night-walkers; the _Blitidae_, a very low cla.s.s of women, who derived the name from _blitum_, a cheap and unwholesome beverage drunk in the lowest holes;[89] the _Diobolares_, wretched outcasts, whose price was two oboli (say two cents);[90] the _Forariae_, country girls who lurked about country roads; the _Gallinae_, who were thieves as well as prost.i.tutes; the _Quadrantariae_, seemingly the lowest cla.s.s of all, whose fee was less than any copper coin now current.[91] In contradistinction to these, the _meretrices_ a.s.sumed an air of respectability, and were often called _bonae meretrices_.[92]
Another and a distinct cla.s.s of prost.i.tutes were the female dancers, who were eagerly sought after, and more numerous than at Athens. They were Ionians, Lesbians, Syrians, Egyptians, Nubians (negresses), Indians, but the most famous were Spaniards. Their dances were of the same character as those of the Greek flute-players; the erotic poets of Rome have not shrunk from celebrating the astonis.h.i.+ng depravity of their performances.[93]
Horace faintly deplored the progress which the Ionic dances--_Ionice motus_--were making even among the Roman virgins.[94] These prost.i.tutes carried on their calling in defiance of law. If detected, they were liable to be whipped and driven out of the city;[95] but as their customers belonged to the wealthier cla.s.ses, they rarely suffered the penalty of their conduct.
Apart, again, from all these was the large cla.s.s of persons who traded in prost.i.tutes. The proper name for these wretches was _Leno_ (bawd), which was of both s.e.xes, though usually represented on the stage as a beardless man with shaven head. Under this name quite a number of varieties were included, such as the _Lupanarii_, or keepers of regular houses of ill fame; the _Adductores_ and _Perductores_, pimps; _Conciliatrices_ and _Ancillulae_, women who negotiated immoral transactions, and others. Then, as almost every baker, tavern-keeper, bath-house-keeper, barber, and perfumer combined the _lenocinium_, or trade in prost.i.tutes, with his other calling, their various names, _tonsor_, _unguentarius_, _balnearius_, &c., became synonymous with _leno_. This miserable cla.s.s was regarded with the greatest loathing at Rome.[96]
This hasty cla.s.sification of the Roman prost.i.tutes would be incomplete without some notice, however brief, of male prost.i.tutes. Fortunately, the progress of good morals has divested this repulsive theme of its importance; the object of this work can be obtained without entering into details on a branch of the subject which in this country is not likely to require fresh legislative notice. But the reader would form an imperfect idea of the state of morals at Rome were he left in ignorance of the fact that the number of male prost.i.tutes was probably full as large as that of females; that, as in Greece, the degrading phenomenon involved very little disgrace; that all the Roman authors allude to it as a matter of course; that the leading men of the empire were known to be addicted to such habits; that the aedile abstained from interference, save where a Roman youth suffered violence; and that, to judge from the language of the writers of the first, second, and third centuries of the Christian era, the Romans, like some Asiatic races, appeared to give the preference to unnatural l.u.s.ts.[97]
HOUSES OF PROSt.i.tUTION.
Having examined the laws which governed prost.i.tution at Rome, and the cla.s.ses into which prost.i.tutes were divided, it is now requisite to glance at the establishments in which prost.i.tution was carried on.
M. Dufour and others have followed Publius Victor and s.e.xtus Rufus in supposing that during the Augustine age there were forty-six first-cla.s.s houses of ill fame at Rome, and a much larger number of establishments where prost.i.tution was carried on without the supervision of the aedile. As it is now generally admitted that the works bearing the name of Publius Victor and s.e.xtus Rufus are forgeries of comparatively recent date, the statement loses all claim to credit, and we are left without statistical information as to the number of houses of prost.i.tution at Rome.[98]
Registered prost.i.tutes were to be found in the establishments called Lupanaria. These differed from the Greek Dicteria in being of various cla.s.ses, from the well-provided house of the Peace ward to the filthy dens of the Esquiline and Suburran wards; and farther, in the wide range of prices exacted by the keepers of the various houses. It is inferred from the results of the excavations at Pompeii, and some meagre hints thrown out by Latin authors, that the lupanaria at Rome were small in size. The most prosperous were built like good Roman houses, with a square court-yard, sometimes with a fountain playing in the middle. Upon this yard opened the cells of the prost.i.tutes. In smaller establishments the cells opened upon a hall or porch, which seemingly was used as a reception-room. The cells were dark closets, illuminated at night by a small bronze lamp. Sometimes they contained a bed, but as often a few cus.h.i.+ons, or a mere mat, with a dirty counterpane, const.i.tuted their whole furniture. Over the door of each cell hung a tablet, with the name of the prost.i.tute who occupied it, and the price she set on her favors; on the other side with the word _occupata_. When a prost.i.tute received a visitor in her cell, she turned the tablet round to warn intruders that she was engaged.[99] Over the door of the house a suggestive image was either painted, or represented in stone or marble: one of these signs may be seen to this day in Pompeii. Within, similar indecent sculptures abounded.
Bronze ornaments of this style hung round the necks of the courtesans; the lamps were in the same shape, and so were a variety of other utensils. The walls were covered with appropriate frescoes. In the best-ordered establishments, it is understood that scenes from the mythology were the usual subjects of these artistic decorations; but we have evidence enough at Pompeii to show that gross indecency, not poetical effect, was the main object sought by painters in these works.
Regular houses of prost.i.tution, _lupanaria_, were of two kinds: establishments owned and managed by a bawd, who supplied the cells with slaves or hired prost.i.tutes, and establishments where the bawd merely let his cells to prost.i.tutes for a given sum. In the former case the bawd was the princ.i.p.al, in the latter the women. There is reason to suppose that the former were the more respectable. Petronius alludes to a house where so much was paid for the use of a cell, and the sum was an _as_, less than two cents.[100] Messalina evidently betook herself to one of these establishments, which, for clearness' sake, we may call a.s.signation houses; and as it appears she was paid in copper (_aera poposcit_), it is safe to infer that the house was of slender respectability.
The best houses were abundantly supplied with servants and luxuries. A swarm of pimps and runners sought custom for them in every part of the city. Women--_ancillae ornatrices_--were in readiness to repair with skill the ravages which amorous conflicts caused in the toilets of the prost.i.tutes. Boys--_bacariones_--attended at the door of the cell with water for ablution. Servants, who bore the inconsistent t.i.tle of _aquarii_, were ready to supply wine and other refreshments to customers.
And not a few of the lupinaria kept a cas.h.i.+er, called _villicus_, whose business it was to discuss bargains with visitors, and to receive the money before turning the tablet.
Under many public and some of the best private houses at Rome were arches, the tops of which were only a few feet above the level of the street.
These arches, dark and deserted, became a refuge for prost.i.tutes. Their name, _fornices_, at last became synonymous with _lupanar_, and we have borrowed from it our generic word fornication.[101] There is reason to believe that there were several score of arches of this character, and used for this purpose, under the great circus and other theatres at Rome,[102] besides those under dwelling-houses and stores. The want of fresh air was severely felt in these vile abodes. Frequent allusions to the stench exhaled from the mouth of a fornix are made in the Roman authors.[103]
Establishments of a lower character still were the _pergulae_, in which the girls occupied a balcony above the street; the _stabula_, where no cells were used, and promiscuous intercourse took place openly;[104] the _turturilla_, or pigeon-houses;[105] the _casauria_, or suburb houses of the very lowest stamp.
The clearest picture of a Roman house of ill fame is that given in the famous pa.s.sage of Juvenal, which may be allowed to remain in the original.
The female, it need hardly be added, was Messalina:
”Dormire virum quum senserat uxor, Ausa Palatino tegetem praeferre cubili, Sumere nocturnas meretrix Augusta cucullos, Linquebat comite ancilla non amplius una, Sed _nigrum flavo crinem abscondente galero_, Intravit calidum veteri centone lupanar, Et _cellam vacuam_ atque suam. Tune nuda capillis Const.i.tit auratis, t.i.tulum ment.i.ta Lyciscae, _Ostendit que tuum_, generose Britannice, ventrem.
Excepit blanda intrantes, atque _aera poposcit_, Et resupina jacens multorum absorbuit ictus.
_Mox lenone suas jam dimittente puellas_, Tristris abit, et quod potuit, tamen ultima cellam Clausit, adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine v.u.l.v.ae, Et la.s.sata viris necdum satiata recessit; Obscurrisque genis turpis fumoque lucernae Foeda lupanaris tulit ad pulvinar adorem.”[106]
The pa.s.sages in italics contain useful information; we shall allude to some of them hereafter. Meanwhile, it is evident from the line _mox lenone_, etc., that, at a certain hour of the night, the keepers of houses of ill fame were in the habit of closing their establishments and sending their girls home. The law required them to close at daybreak, but probably a much earlier hour may have suited their interest.
Allusion has already been made to the fornices under the circus. It is well understood that prost.i.tutes were great frequenters of the spectacles, and that in the arched fornices underneath the seats and the stage they were always ready to satisfy the pa.s.sions which the comedies and pantomimes only too frequently aroused.[107] This was one formidable rival to the regular lupinaria.
The baths were another. In the early Roman baths, darkness, or, at best, a faint twilight reigned; and, besides, not only were the s.e.xes separated, but old and young men were not allowed to bathe together.[108] But after Sylla's wars, though there were separate _sudaria_ and _tepidaria_ for the s.e.xes, they could meet freely in the corridors and chambers, and any immorality short of actual prost.i.tution could take place.[109] Men and women, girls and boys, mixed together in a state of perfect nudity, and in such close proximity that contact could hardly be avoided. Such an a.s.semblage would obviously be a place of resort for dealers in prost.i.tutes in search of merchandise. At a later period, cells were attached to the bath-houses, and young men and women kept on the premises, partly as bath attendants and partly as prost.i.tutes. After the bath, the bathers, male and female, were rubbed down, kneaded, and anointed by these attendants.
It would appear that women submitted to have this indecent service performed for them by men, and that health was not always the object sought, even by the Roman matrons.[110] Several emperors endeavored to remedy these frightful immoralities. Hadrian forbade the intermixture of men and women in the public baths.[111] Similar enactments were made by Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus; but Heliogabalus is said to have delighted in uniting the s.e.xes, even in the wash-room. As early as the Augustan era, however, the baths were regarded as little better than houses of prost.i.tution under a respectable name.[112]
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