Go to page. Prostitution in ancient Rome was common. Demand for such services was huge and therefore the growth of prostitution should not surprise.
Rome, as a originator of law which still remains one of the pillars of our civilization, was also trying to regulate the issue of sexual services. Roman authors did not give detailed information on the subject of prostitution. Existing sources depict various characters, which mostly means some marginal notes in the texts. It includes both historical and literary works. Many of those notes are difficult to interpret these days as they were differently understood by the scholars. The most important authors are Catullus , Ovid , Martial and Petronius.
Works concerning Roman law are also valid sources of knowledge on the subject , as some of them study prostitution extensively. So in the pandects we can find a comprehensive and detailed definition of prostitution. Equally important sources are epigrams, especially Pompeian graffiti. At the end of texts written on papyrus mainly in the Egyptian texts there are many statements about the economic extent of prostitution, mostly in writings from the 3rd and 2nd century BCE.
Literary sources are related mainly to Rome. Further statements concern Roman prostitution during the late Republic and the Empire up to the advent of Christianity , during the reign of Constantine the Great in the late antiquity.
But the matter of prostitution did not end then, even though many Christian writers were against it. A woman slave was beyond any laws concerning infidelity: her partner could not fault her for it, moreover, it did not matter who was her lover β her master or someone else. Despite that, prostitution flourished in ancient Rome and in many different places: prostitutes solicited in houses, taverns, on the street, under the arcades, in front of their doors or even on the cementers. They lured their clients in the most sophisticated ways, eg.
