The hetaera (female-companion) must be distinguished from the πόρνη (harlot), though both were under similar conditions as to police surveillance. The hetaera was also strictly speaking a slave-woman, usually stolen as a child or otherwise obtained by procuresses, or bought by older hetaerae. They were educated[151] in all that was understood by the Ancients under the name “Music”, that over and above their charms of person, they might especially captivate their lovers by their intellectual cultivation, who bought them to give them their freedom,—and then more often than not were presently abandoned by them. The great nursery of hetaerae was above all places Corinth, from which centre they travelled through all parts of Greece, as e.g. did Neaera, and frequently acquired enormous riches. The better class of them were everywhere held in high esteem; and many a hetaera, grown weary of her condition, gave her hand to a husband, in order to close her life as an honest wife[152], or else retired so as at any rate to lead a blameless existence[153]. Frequently indeed they were also “Dames de Maison”, and often kept a considerable number of girls under the title of hand-maids. This was the case with Nicareta, just mentioned, at Corinth, as well as with the famous Aspasia at Athens, the latter of whom flooded all Hellas with her protegées[154]. Such as were held in less respect often put themselves under the protection of their more renowned sisters, or else carried on the calling on their own account, and this especially when they were not so well educated, not “musical” (πεζαι ἑταιραι—prose lady-companions)[155], at Athens going to settle at the Peiraeus to entice the merchants who arrived in the port, whilst the more choice merely showed themselves there[156]. They often followed the troops on service in crowds, accompanying for instance the general Chares[157] and Pericles to Samos, where they made so large an income that they even built a temple of Ἀφροδίτη ἐν Καλάμοις (Aphrodité at Calami,—the Reeds)[158]. For the remaining details as to the life of the hetaerae the classical Treatise of Friedrich Jacobs[159] should be consulted.
Even these regular “filles de joie” at first existed almost exclusively for foreigners, who often squandered prodigious sums in their arms; the Athenians at any rate up to the time of Themistocles did not go with them[160]. But the example proved too strong to resist. Little by little the younger men acquired a taste for the freer society of the highly educated and luxuriously bedecked[161] courtesans, who on their side were possessed of tact enough to subordinate the purely sensual to the intellectual, in order to captivate the Greek sense of beauty. Even older men might easily be seen at their feet, for the Greek ladies had but too little aptitude for stepping beyond the household sphere[162]. And so it was no longer matter for surprise when Chares took with him on his expedition, as stated above, a large number of hetaerae. The Athenian youth was already in the habit of killing time in their society[163]; and the important rôle they played in the time of Pericles needs to be no further insisted on. The Greek however never descended to the lowest level of shameless, brutal, coarseness. Before he threw himself into the arms of the foreign Wanton, he first raised her to some equality with himself; and of the handmaid and slave made a friendly companion or hetaera!
The account here given applies particularly only to Athens, for our efforts to discover anything more precise as to brothels and courtesans in the remaining States and Cities of Greece have not so far been crowned with success.
§ 11.
With the Roman, who could spare hardly a thought to any other feeling than his pride, love played but an insignificant rôle in his existence. Even the deference he showed towards marriage and the married woman was not really so much the outcome of a pure morality as of the interest that the State must of necessity feel in the nursing-mothers of each succeeding generation; in fact it can scarcely be regarded as much more than a mere measure of policy. When a Censor like Metellus in a public Speech intended to encourage matrimony could say[164]: Si sine uxore possemus, Quirites, esse, omnes ea molestia careremus: sed quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode, nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuae potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum. (If we could live without a wife, Quirites, we should all be free from such inconvenience; but since nature has arranged it in this wise that neither with women in any real comfort, nor without them at all, can existence be carried on, we ought to think of our life-long well-being rather than of a momentary gratification),—and when even the strict Cato declared[165]: In adulterio uxorem tuam si deprehendisses, sine iudicio impune necares: illa te, si adulterares, digito non auderet contingere, neque ius est. (If you should have detected your wife in adultery, you might kill her without trial and be scatheless; but she, if you were the adulterer, would not dare to lay a finger upon you, nor is it lawful she should),—it can hardly surprise us to find a complete lack of the ideal or intellectual element in the relations of the sexes. These never really rose among the Romans much above the level of the bestial; and harlots are found already in evidence at the very threshold of Roman history[166], whilst association with them far from ever being a subject of blame, is rather represented as being a custom sanctified by immemorial usage that had never been forbidden[167].
In spite of this however, and of the fact that the Etruscans[168], at a time when Rome was hardly more than coming into existence, already led a life that was worse than licentious, while Messapians, Samnites and Locrians, as has been shown, habitually gave up their daughters to prostitution,—in spite of all this I say, the sexual excesses of the Romans were for the first 500 years on the whole insignificant. Their way of life as warriors and husbandmen hardly suffered them to sink into indolent sloth, the beginning of all vicious living, whilst the law of the XII Tables, “coelibes prohibeto” (be it forbidden to remain bachelors)[169] forced men in the vigour of their powers to satisfy the impulse of nature in the arms of the lawful wife. But more and more did the Romans come into contact with foreign Peoples, and began to adopt more and more their customs and vices. In the year 513 A.U.C. (B.C. 240) the Floralia were introduced, which even granting they cannot have had the origin that Lactantius[170] assigns them, yet by the very nature of the celebrations were an outrage on all good morals. Yet so universally popular were they that Cato could win no greater concession to his indignant zeal against them than that their closing scenes should be delayed until he had retired[171].
The enormous wealth the Romans had won as booty in their continual Wars of spoliation, could not be hoarded unused, it must be enjoyed; and how enjoyed, the warriors knew already. The younger members of the Equestrian and Patrician orders went on travels, and learned in the arms of Greek and Asiatic wantons how to lavish their money secundum artem. Then on their return to Rome finding the native Scorta (common harlots) no longer to their taste, they brought home with them their freed-woman “Amica” (Mistress), who was a fair match for the Greek hetaera in greed, if not in refinement. It was not long before the old-fashioned Roman matron succumbed in the struggle with her for supremacy, and by dint of her only too successful endeavours to outdo the foreign courtesan in recherché vice and effrontery, became but the more despicable in the eyes of the proud Roman. She had indeed learned to be a mother, but not to love. At the same time the Roman himself, surrounded as he thus was by no softening influences, ceased not only to be a citizen of the state, but even to be a man at all; and the Ruler of the World sank at last to such a depth of exaggerated viciousness that it became his glory and boast to be without a rival in its enormity.
The conclusion then is indisputable that only subsequently to the Wars in Asia was Roman morality undermined[172]. At the same time it is impossible from the information given above to assign any definite point of time at which brothels and public women came into vogue at Rome, or at any rate when their existence as such was officially recognized by those in charge of the police supervision of the city. With the regulations and arrangements however we are more precisely acquainted. The brothels, lupanaria[173], fornicas[174], were situated chiefly in the Second District (Secunda Regio) of the city[175], the Coelimontana, particularly in the Subura (Suburbana) that bordered the town-walls, lying in the Carinae,—the valley between the Coelian and Esquiline Hills. In the same district was the Macellum magnum, or Great Market, for all sorts of provisions[176] along the banks of the Tiber, as well as the Cookshops, Stalls or Shops (Tabernae)—of the Barbers, even of the Public Executioner[177], and the Castra peregrina, (Foreign Camp), barracks for foreign troops quartered in Rome under the Emperors as a garrison,—all circumstances that occasioned a great concourse of men[178]. To the North the Subura marched with the “Isis and Serapis”,—the Third District (Tertia Regio), where was situated the temple of Isis with its gardens and groves. The regular brothels are pictured to us as being in the highest degree uncleanly and dirty[179], so that their frequenters carried away the smell with them. They possessed a definite number of “chambers”, Cellae[180], and above the door of each of these was inscribed the name of the girl, that which she had adopted on her first admission[181], and the price of her embraces[182]. In each “chamber” was to be found a bed (pavimentum, cubiculum, pulvinar,—pavement, sleeping-place, couch), which was spread with a particular kind of coverlet, lodix, lodicula, (blanket, little blanket)[183], and a lamp, lucerna[184].
As for the brothel-keeper, the Romans seem to have had no special word to express this; they use in fact leno in this signification, though the word properly means the Procurer who merely offers his house for the purpose, but does not keep women, giving them board and wage. Perhaps this arose from the fact that in earlier times no regular brothels existed in Rome; the women merely hired a lodging, and the owner of the house had nothing at all to do with their business, whilst the match-maker or pandar confined his efforts to procuring girls for his patrons and letting out his “chambers” for a fixed charge merces cellae (hire of the chamber)[185], paid by each visitor. Only when the business became more profitable, did Lenones or Lenae (Procurers, Procuresses), for women also carried on Lenocinium (procuration), actually keep girls, whom they bought, as slaves[186]. The Leno had his Villicus puellarum (Superintendent of the Maids), who assigned name and price, provided the girls with clothes[187], and kept a list of them and what they earned[188]. In fact such of the women as were bond-servants were obliged,—and this applied equally to those that were not slaves,—to deliver up not merely the As for the hire of the chamber, but the whole fee as well, according to the amount fixed by the brothel-keeper (Leno)[189], though much underhand trickery of various sorts occurred in connection with this regulation[190].
The brothels were not allowed to be opened before the ninth hour (four o’clock in the afternoon), so as not to draw young men away from their duties[191]. The girls either stood (Prostibula—women who stand in front)[192] or sat (Proseda—women who sit in front)[193] before the “chambers” or Lupanaria (brothels), to call the passers-by to them. Did a lover make his appearance, then the door of the “chamber” was carefully fastened[194], and “occupata” (engaged) written over the door[195], an unoccupied “chamber” being called nuda (naked)[196]. Towards morning the “chambers” were opened, and the Leno (brothel-keeper) let the girls go[197]. It would seem to follow from this that these either did not live in the brothel-keeper’s house at all, or that the “chambers” were situated somewhere else, away from head-quarters. From a passage in Juvenal[198] it has, perhaps wrongly, been concluded that these “chambers” were at the Circus Maximus. Such places are at any rate mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus as existing at the Portico above the shops[199]; and without doubt several passages are to be found in Latin authors to prove that the women plied their trade even after the close of the Representations[200], and we know that besides the regular Ludi Circenses (Games of the Circus) other performances of a similar kind were held in the Circus.