Brothels were common place within antiquity and were often placed between houses of respected Roman families.
Far from being perceived as taboo, brothels were one of the most common gathering places for Roman men. It was seen as antisocial for men not to engage in activities with prostitutes.
There are two ways archaeologists know whether a building discovered is a brothel or not.
The first is by signage — with names and prices on one side and “occupata” (“occupied” in Latin) on the reverse. Or obvious inscriptions like “cellae meretriciae” (prostitute’s cot) which marked out the purpose of the location.
The other way is the discovery of the mass graves of children.
In Roman Antiquity children were not considered real people until they were at least two. Fathers were legally allowed to kill their children without legal repercussion.
This made infanticide rabid in the ancient world. The presence of fetal and newborn skeletons in mass graves give archaeologists an indication that what they’re excavating could very well be a brothel.
There was no ethical dilemma in the ancient world with these situations because children had been fully dehumanized in antiquity. They “looked human” but were “non complere personas” (not fully persons yet), as one ancient writer put it.
Infanticidal practices were considered acceptable, justifiable, and necessary due to the lack of contraception and the adult who was (unlike children of course) a “full person” and therefore within their rights to do as they pleased.
The concept of intrinsic human value — that you have dignity, worth, and purpose by nature of simply being human — is foreign to the vast majority of human history.
It has only recently been broadly accepted, and only due to the Judea-Christian ethic, that the value of the human being no matter what size, stage, situation, race, gender, etc., etc., came into fruition as a societal norm.
I’m seeing a lot of very relevant conversations that both sadden and worry me. Worry me about the state of how we view human worth, dignity, and value - concepts which only have a leg to stand on via historical biblical grounding. As a historian I spend a lot of my time reading the writings of ancient pagans and sometimes their arguments justifying their dehumanizations and sacrifices (literal sacrifices in many cases) don’t sound nearly as ancient as they ought to be.
The ancients had no qualms with child sacrifice because they had utterly dehumanized babies. Another reminder that societal assumptions do not equate with truth, morality, or justice.
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Relevant sources:
Harris, W. V. “Child-Exposure in the Roman Empire.” The Journal of Roman Studies 84 (1994): 1–22.
Shaw, Brent D., Raising and Killing Children: Two Roman Myths, Fourth Series, Vol. 54, Fasc. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp. 31-77, Brill.
H. Bennett, "The Exposure of Infants in Ancient Rome" The Classical Journal, Vol. 18, No. 6 (Mar., 1923), pp. 341-351 (11 pages) John Hopkins University Press.
Crook, John, Patria Potestas. Vol. 17, No. 1 (May, 1967), pp. 113-122 (10 pages), Cambridge University Press.
Boswell, John Eastburn. ìExpositio and Oblatio: The Abandonment of Children and the Ancient and Medieval Family,î American Historical Review 89 (1984): 10-33.
Dixon, Suzanne. The Roman Family. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Golden, Mark ìDemography, The Exposure of Girls at Athens,î Phoenix 35 (1981): 316-331.
Golden, Mark ìDemography, Did the Ancients Care When Their Children Died? Greece & Rome 35 (1988): 152-163.
Rawson, Beryl, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxford University., Press, 2003.
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