Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World (Wisconsin Studies in Classics)

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Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World explores the implications of sex-for-pay across a broad span of time, from ancient Mesopotamia to the early Christian period. In earlier period, despite the fact that they were socially marginal, prostitutes connected with almost each and every aspect of day by day life. They sat in brothels and walked the streets; they paid taxes and set up dedications in religious sanctuaries; they seemed as characters – once in a while admirable, once in a while despicable – on the comic stage and in the law courts; they lived lavishly, consorting with famous poets and politicians; and they participated in in a different way all-male banquets and drinking parties, where they aroused jealousy among their anxious lovers. The chapters in this volume examine all kinds of genres and sources, from legal and non secular tracts to the genres of lyric poetry, love elegy, and comic drama to the graffiti scrawled on the walls of ancient Pompeii. These essays reflect the variety and vitality of the debates engendered by the last three decades of research by confronting the ambiguous terms for prostitution in ancient languages, the difficulty of distinguishing the prostitute from the woman who is merely promiscuous or adulterous, the question of whether sacred or temple prostitution in truth existed in the ancient Near East and Greece, and the political and social implications of literary representations of prostitutes and courtesans.

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