The Sexual History of London (2 page)

Southwark, Londinium,
AD
80

Bruised, half-naked and in chains, the slave girls shivered on the docks, beneath the lashing rain and grey skies of Albion. Garments in rags, hair in rats' tails, they faced a future of pain, exploitation and early death. Two thousand years before such matters were the stuff of international concern and television documentaries, these young women were London's first sex slaves, brought in to service the Roman military in low-grade brothels or
lupanaria
.

This chapter tells how these women were brought to London to work in such horrific conditions, and why there were other women, also working in the sex trade, who were empowered and in control. We will also take a look at the age-old connection between sex and power, as demonstrated by the excesses of the Roman emperors, and why the flourishing underworld of brothels and bath houses disappeared along with the Roman rulers.

The wretched human freight which fetched up on our shores was corralled in a ‘Romeland' or dockyard at Queenhithe, across the River Thames from Bankside. In this compound the unfortunate creatures were prepared for auction like cattle in a market, paraded before an audience of brothel keepers who were positively encouraged to handle the merchandise before purchase, and examine and fondle every part of their bodies.
¹
Despite the depredations of a rough voyage, these were some of the most beautiful women in the world, sold into slavery from every part of the Roman Empire. Flame-haired Gauls with porcelain skin; ebony princesses seized in North Africa; sultry Sicilians ripped from the lemon groves; proud Jewish girls from the recently defeated Palestine, the cloudless skies and Mediterranean heat of their native country now only a distant memory.

The Roman troops that these pitiful women would service had been in the country since
AD
43, when the Emperor Claudius had dispatched three legions of the Army of the Rhine and a contingent of the Praetorian Guard to seize the dark and murky island of Britannia for the greater glory of the Roman Empire.
²
Although the Britons had a reputation for being war-mad savages, this was not a particularly bloody campaign. King Cymbeline, who died in
AD
43, had welcomed Roman traders and craftsmen to Britain, and there had been plenty of traffic in the opposite direction, with British noblemen enjoying the delights of Rome, and, somewhat less fortunately, British slaves exported to the Eternal City. Many members of the aristocracy, in debt to Roman usurers, saw the so-called invasion as the only way to fulfil their financial obligations.
³

The Roman army, led by General Aulus Plautius, marched up from the coast until it arrived at a wide, estuarial river: the Tamesis, or Thames.
⁴
It was here, while waiting for a standoff with the Britons, that the Roman engineers built pontoon bridges across the river, and it was here that they established their bridgehead, consisting of a small military settlement in the form of a fort, with an earthwork guarding the entrance to the bridge.

The Roman settlement on the Tamesis was of considerable size, consisting of a cohort (one tenth of a legion) constituting between 600 and 1000 men, along with their support systems and camp-followers, who provided food and sex, making the total establishment around 2000 people.
⁵
Camp-followers led a rough and ready life, almost as unhappy as that of the slaves, following their men from one campaign to another but without the benefit of legal recognition, since Roman soldiers were not permitted to marry until the second century
AD
.

Scene from a Roman brothel or
lupanar.

It was here, at the bridgehead, that the brothels, or
lupanaria
, were constructed, an essential resource providing release from sexual tension. For any soldier enquiring ‘
quo loco recta via ad lupanar, amicus?
' (‘which way to the
lupanaria
, mate?')
⁶
a signpost at the turn-off from the highway would have indicated the way: however illiterate the soldiers and sailors disembarking from the warships nearby, there was one international symbol for a brothel: the palm of a hand.
Lupanaria
derives from
lupa
, the she-wolf who suckled the infants Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome. According to Livy, the she-wolf was a symbol for the famous whore Acca Laurentia; whores were associated with she-wolves on the grounds that they advertised their services with high-pitched, wolf-like cries and gave their bodies to all comers.
⁷
Lupa
was also suggestive in another sense: with the she-wolf's propensity to lick her cubs came the implication that
lupae
were proficient in oral sex.

Open for business twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week, these brothels were primitive, functional places, with a no-frills approach to sexual satisfaction. Built of timber, with thatched roofs and brightly painted plaster interiors, they stood on clay foundations. Inside, the houses were divided into cells, each with its narrow wooden bunk and straw mattress. There were no refreshments, entertainments or preliminaries. Each man took his pleasure quickly, making way for the next. Eventually, these flimsy constructions were replaced with brick tenements, but they were rudimentary places, catering for the lowest common denominator, ‘the poor bloody infantry'. The women themselves had no rights: they were the absolute property of their
leno
(pimp) or
lena
(madam); they received no payment for their services and were treated with utter contempt; they had no more value than a fish. The name,
puta,
or ‘common whore', derives from
puteus,
a well or a tank. Every single one of them faced the ultimate humiliation of a life on her back, submitting to whatever sexual indignity was forced upon her.
⁸
It was a fate reflected upon by the dramatist Plautus. In his play
Pseudolus,
a jealous lover threatens his two mistresses that if they are found to be unfaithful, they will be carried away to a brothel and worked so hard they will die of exhaustion.
⁹
Under these conditions, it was scarcely surprising that the majority of women were claimed by death before the age of thirty.
¹⁰

The
lupanaria
attracted other forms of vice. The land beyond the fort consisted of a dank, marshy strip, known as the
pomerium
, or no-man's land, deliberately left clear so that approaching enemies could be spotted from a distance. As the years passed, this region, which went by the name of Southwark, etablished itself as a den of iniquity. Taverns opened, where barmaids and waitresses competed for business with the unhappy denizens of the
lupanaria
. These girls were known as
assellae
because they traded their sexual services in return for the
as,
the smallest denomination of coin, as befitted their lowly nature.
¹¹
As well as the sex industry, every other immoral activity moved in: gaming houses, cockpits and bear-baiting rings sprang up, attracting low-life of every description: thieves, cut-purses, con artists, runaway slaves and fugitives from justice, safe from prosecution outside the city limits. In its capacity as a
pomerium
, Southwark tolerated illegal or restricted activities. It was the Las Vegas of Londinium.

And, like Las Vegas, Southwark was a centre of sexual activity, where the popular sex gods Isis, Apollo and Hermes were worshipped in magnificent temples and celebrated in wild, wine-fuelled processions culminating in frenzied public orgies. During the mid twentieth century, archaeologists discovered the remains of a substantial Roman temple to the south of Southwark Cathedral, with stone foundations and tessellated floors. A jug inscribed with the legend ‘LONDINI AD FANUM ISIDIS' (‘In London, at the Temple of Isis') had been found nearby in 1912. This pottery jug would have been used during acts of worship and on the specific ‘days of drinking' when devotees performed their religious duties at the temple,
¹²
including carrying the gigantic model phalluses in the procession. Isis, the principal goddess of Egypt, was a women's deity; the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, she was a fertility goddess, the universal mother and the queen of the dead. She took the form of a beautiful dark-haired woman in a tight-fitting dress, and women were her most constant devotees, from empresses to the lowest
puta.
The Temples of Isis were also well known as ‘houses of assignation', where women conducting secret affairs could rendezvous with their lovers or ask the advice of the priestesses on all aspects of love, and where bored wives could pick up a willing toyboy.

There was also a temple to Harpocrates, a bringer of good luck, renowned for his sexual prowess and usually depicted as a man with a penis two or three times taller than the rest of him. Harpocrates' picture was often to be found on the walls and ceilings of Roman brothels, to welcome the client and spur him on to maximum prowess. Figures with one vast penis, or multiple penises, were popular among the Romans. There were lamps consisting of male figures, with the oil or wick held in the erect penis; this item was designed to protect lovers from the evil demons lurking in the dark, and help them redouble their efforts in their amorous pursuits. Penises with wings were another popular conceit; and there were even phalluses engraved on the handles of workmen's tools.
¹³

Hermes was the women's favourite male god and ‘Herms', or fertility figures, were a common sight in the streets of early Londinium. These statues, sited at major intersections, consisted of upright squared pillars, six foot high, with a bust of Hermes on top and a large, erect penis, complete with testicles, on one side of the pillar. Passing women would touch or even fondle the stone penis, praying for the god's intervention to make them more desirable, to arouse passion in a lover or to help them become pregnant.
¹⁴

The annual procession devoted to Hermes consisted of priests and laymen carrying massive phalluses, followed by young girls carrying baskets of fruit and flowers while chanting a hymn to Priapus, the god of fertility. According to the Roman poet Catullus, women hung garlands on the god's enormous penis to indicate how many lovers they had entertained the previous night. Quite often, the garlands of a single woman were sufficient to cover the penis from root to tip.
¹⁵
In Bacchanalian scenes, crowds of drunken women danced naked, followed by scores of enthusiastic young men, events coming to an inevitable conclusion when they copulated in full public view while enthusiastic spectators cheered them on.

Another popular god in Londinium was Attys, usually portrayed with his tunic pulled up to expose his enormous penis and testicles and a pendulous belly, indicating that he was not only a god of lechery but of gluttony too.
¹⁶
Meanwhile, according to Juvenal, the all-female devotees of the goddess Bona Dea became so crazed with lust that they were prepared to rape any passing male or even drag donkeys from their stables, although Juvenal also claims that the occasions included ‘more than a suggestion of Lesbian practices'.
¹⁷

Meanwhile, on the north bank of the Thames, Londinium was emerging. The wealthy economic migrants flooded in: governors, civil servants, administrators, merchants and professionals from all corners of the Roman Empire, bringing with them their retinue of family, servants, slaves. By
AD
61, just as it was about to be burned to the ground by the vengeful Queen Boudicca, Londinium had become the epitome of Roman civilization, described by Tacitus as ‘a place not signified by the name of colonia but crowded with merchants and provisions'.
¹⁸

Londinium recovered from Boudicca's onslaught and rose again, like a phoenix from its own ashes. Three hundred years later the city was awarded the accolade
Augusta
(the Worshipful). With its palaces and temples, baths and theatres, shops, offices and villas, Londinium had become a byword for civic pride within the empire. These outstanding municipal achievements could only be matched, of course, by an equally magnificent sex industry, celebrated for the number and quality of its
lupanaria
and
thermiae
(bath houses, frequented by both men and women). Then there were the numerous
meretrices
(prostitutes, from
merere
, to earn), and
prostibulae –
the independent prostitutes who worked for themselves instead of handing their earnings over to a pimp or a madam. While the most wretched girls worked in the soul-destroying conditions already described in the military brothels, the high-class bordellos offered the greatest luxury, refreshment and entertainment. All tastes were catered for here: willing partners, male as well as female, were on hand to provide every form of sexual pleasure.