Every society and every period has dealt with sex work and sex workers in different ways: Ancient Rome viewed sex as part of the rich tapestry of urban life, and prostitution was legal and licensed. However, despite the existence of brothels and prostitution being widely accepted, prostitutes themselves were often shunned. Attitudes towards sex work were complex and fraught with societal and cultural tensions: prostitutes themselves were often slaves or former slaves, at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Who exactly were prostitutes, or meretrices as they were known in Rome? Could sex work ever liberate women from societal norms and expectations?
And what role did sex and brothels play in Ancient Roman society? As with almost all women selling sex throughout history, there was a hierarchy within prostitution.
Meretrices were registered female prostitutes for whom selling sex was a profession, whereas unregistered or casual prostitutes fell into the broader category of prostibulae. A meretrix had to pay imperial tax one of the only reasons women would find themselves taxed in ancient Rome , but were denied many civic rights as infamia infamous people : freeborn Roman men, for example, could not marry meretrices.
Some meretrices were almost like courtesans: they were witty, educated and beautiful, and some made huge amounts of money from wealthy patrons and clients. Not all prostitutes were slaves, although many were freedwomen emancipated slaves. Given slaves were viewed as property under Roman law, slaves who worked as prostitutes were almost always forced into it by their masters and would have gained no financial benefit.
