Prostitute
Meretriz is the Roman name used today as a synonym for prostitute. Getting closer to the etymology of the word, prostitute is the woman who, without love, marries a man for economic or social interest.
The change in meaning of the word whore has its origin during the Roman Empire itself. The true brothel prostitute was initially called Quastuosa. And they were these, and not the prostitutes, those dedicated to prostitution.
Along with these there were priestesses from different temples and various names who had sex for religious vocation (like the original bacchantes) or as a means of subsistence for their cult, providing their sexual services in exchange for money and masking the transaction under some religious rite (one of those temples was precisely for the worshipers of the Egyptian goddess Isis).
And it is precisely the single women without the vocation of prostitutes, but who temporarily engage in prostitution, who were originally called whores. This distinction appears clearly in the legal texts of Pompeii. It could be said, adapting to today, that the prostitute was a kind of "amateur" prostitute where there was no necessarily an economic transaction.
Precisely the amateur character of the prostitute allowed over time the opening of brothels that offered themselves as false prostitutes as a synonym for non-professionals, contributing to the confusion of the word.
In addition, the whore had an attractive character and, at least in theory, they were not forced into prostitution as a form of slavery or some other cause beyond their control. Precisely, the first whores were ordinary women who wanted to learn about sex or were attracted to it and entered temples to initiate themselves.
There are also texts that narrate stories about men who enter their young wives into temples dedicated to sex as a course so that, as temporary whores, they learn how to properly satisfy their future husband. The story tells of women who preferred to join the order, where a simple life awaits them without difficulties, rather than continue with their husbands.
The Roman empresses were not spared from being harlots either; like Theodora or Messalina. In the case of Messalina, she is she who periodically entered the temple / brothel under the pseudonym Lycisca.
The arrival of Christianity and its new sexual morality ended up putting both modalities of women in the same bag.
List of famous harlots
- Kallixeina, thessalonian courtesan of Alexander the Great.
- Theodora, Roman Empress of the East.
- Mesalina, Roman Empress, under the pseudonym Lycisca.
- Clodia, lover of Catulo, under the pseudonym of Lesbia.