The Sexual History of London (3 page)

The Romans brought with them their outrageous attitude towards sex. The most pleasure-loving society on earth, this was also the cruellest: a culture in which human beings were pitted against wild animals in public circuses in the name of sport, and men possessed the power of life or death over their slaves, and even their own wives. A recurring theme of this book will be the link between voracious sexual appetite and immense power, and the extraordinary inability of the ruling class to adhere to the strict moral guidelines which they issue to their subjects.

We have only to look at the sex lives of the Roman emperors to gain some insight into the colossal double standards that operated. One reason for this, of course, was the Roman belief that their rulers were ‘divine' and as such given total dispensation from any moral constraint. Like the gods above, they were entitled to do as they wished. As the Victorian historian of prostitution William Sanger commented, it was difficult to discover a single character in the long list of Roman rulers who was not ‘stained by the grossest habits'.
¹⁹
These are but a few examples: Julius Caesar, ‘the bald adulterer', was also known as ‘husband of all men's wives', as it was commonly accepted that any man in the empire would step aside and allow himself to be cuckolded. Augustus, who introduced legislation to enforce marriage and fidelity among his subjects, was a well-known adulterer who, as an older man, sent out his friends to procure women for him, having them stripped and inspected like slave girls. As for the Emperor Tiberius, according to the historian Suetonius, one of his retirement activities on the isle of Capri consisted of training up small boys, referred to as his ‘little fishes', to swim between his thighs and nibble on his ‘secret parts like unweaned babes being put to the nipple of a breaste…'
²⁰

The emperor Caligula (12
BC
–
AD
41), who succeeded Tiberius, committed incest with his sisters, set up a brothel in the imperial palace, and most famously attempted to make his favourite horse, Incitatus, a member of the Senate. The nature of Caligula's relationship with the horse has not been recorded.

Lest we be lulled into a false sense of security and think it was only the men who behaved badly, let us take a look at some of the Roman Empire's most notorious women: according to Seneca (4
BC
–
AD
65), Augustus' daughter Julia had dozens of lovers. Julia roamed the streets at night looking for sex, and finding it in the Forum, the very place where her hypocritical father had laid down his laws against adultery. Meanwhile, the Empress Messalina, wife of Claudius (immortalized by Robert Graves in
I, Claudius
), was the most ill-famed woman in the imperial family, selling herself in the public street like a professional whore. Still unsatisfied when the brothels closed for the night, she had to be thrown out. Messalina's most famous exploit was to hire a prostitute famous for her stamina and challenge her to a sex contest, to see who could accommodate the greatest number of men in a single night. Messalina won.
²¹

Understandably, given role models such as these, sexual excess was socially acceptable. Inevitably, brothels played an essential part in public life. Young Romans were encouraged to take their pleasure with prostitutes rather than seduce and violate other men's wives and daughters, a sentiment that originated in Ancient Greece when the statesman and philosopher Solon established the first state-run brothels, or
pornai
, in Athens in 600
BC
, using the revenue to finance military campaigns. Cato the Elder (234–149
BC
) regarded brothels as an essential public service. ‘Blessed be they who are virtuous, who when they feel their virile members swollen with lust, visit a brothel rather than grind at some husband's private mill!'
²²
Encountering a young acquaintance leaving a brothel in Rome one afternoon, Cato greeted him with the words, ‘well done, my boy!', although when he saw the youth leaving the brothel again later that same day, he did add, ‘when I said “well done!” I didn't mean that you should make the whorehouse your home!'
²³

Freedom of sexual expression was, of course, available only to men. While brothels were regarded as a healthy outlet for the male appetite, a formidable double standard dictated that patrician wives and daughters must be paragons of chastity, beyond reproach. The age of marriage was twelve years old for a girl, affairs were forbidden (though they inevitably occurred as frequently as in any other culture) and widows were not permitted to remarry.

The wretched young women left shivering on the docks of Queenhithe at the start of this chapter were forced into a life of sexual slavery; they possessed no autonomy. But some women made a conscious decision to enter the oldest profession. And, in Londinium, prostitution was controlled with as much zealous bureaucracy as every other aspect of Roman life. A woman who wished to become a prostitute (rather than being forced into it) had to go before a public official known as the
aedile
, who was responsible for public health and sanitation. Londinium's
aedile
was based at the Cripplegate Fort, or near the crossroads now known as Addle Street and Wood Street.
²⁴
The aspiring whore then had to complete an application stating her name, date of birth, status and the name under which she wished to trade. Status was considered significant as, at one stage, extremely high-born women were seeking permission to become prostitutes, and the role of the
aedile
was to dissuade them.

However, if a woman persisted, she was granted a licence, or
Licentia Stupro
(licence to carry out a shameful practice), which set out her charges. If she worked in a brothel, this list would be displayed outside her cubicle, like a menu. Being licensed also ensured that she got paid. If the client refused to pay, she was legally entitled to sue him.
²⁵
In return for the professional protection afforded by licensing, the prostitute was required to pay a fee, the
Lenonium Vectigal
, originally introduced by Caligula. One paragraph of this law stated that the prostitute must pay a portion of her daily earnings to the state. The tax was adjusted annually, via a census of the prostitutes. This law applied to male prostitutes as well and provided a massive income to the government, distributed according to the current emperor's ethical scruples or political needs.
²⁶

Thus prostitution in Roman London was a business like any other. We know this from the existence of
spintriae
, or brothel tokens, which clearly indicated the services a whore was willing to provide, on a sliding scale of prices. Like the pornographic artwork recovered from the ruins of Pompeii,
spintriae
were for many years locked away in museums for fear of offending delicate sensibilities, and only went on public display towards the end of the twentieth century. But they provide a fascinating guide to the generous selection of sexual positions on offer. Fellatio, for instance, was cheaper than vaginal intercourse, while the deeply penetrative positions, such as ‘doggy style' (sex from behind) were more expensive as they put the prostitute at greater risk of vaginal soreness, meaning that she could service fewer clients.
²⁷

Another legal requirement was that prostitutes undergo regular inspection for venereal disease or
morbus indecens aie cunnientis –
otherwise known as ‘the filthy disease of the cunt'. This occupational hazard of the prostitute and the military man, which has blighted the history of sexuality ever since, first appeared in Rome in 183
BC
when General Manlius' troops returned victorious from Asia Minor, accompanied by thousands of Syrian girls, who were sold at the slave market and launched an epidemic of venereal disease, characterized by a sore known as the
ulcus turpe
, or ‘shameful ulcer', which was probably a form of syphilis. As a result, the army introduced draconian rules in 150
BC
about frequent bathing and washing the genitals.
²⁸
But these measures were insufficient to prevent the spread of the disease. The historian Pliny the Elder (
AD
23–79), anxious to exonerate the Romans from the spread of the disease, blamed it on the ‘dirty Egyptians'. The euphemism
ficus
, or ‘figs', was used to describe the nodules characteristic of syphilis, as in a poem by Martial, dating from
AD
100, where a young man asks Priapus whether a girl is playing hard to get because she is ‘full of figs'. The condition is mentioned by Ovid and Catullus, and over 200 years later, another writer, D. Magus Ansonius, describes a wretched citizen unsuccessfully trying to get rid of the putrid ulcers on his penis by repeated washing.
²⁹

The registered prostitute faced other legal requirements. For instance, she was permitted to wear the
toga
, the sleeveless tunic worn by Roman men but not the
stola
, the long elegant tunic worn by Roman matrons. She was expected to wear a distinctive floral fabric which distinguished her from ‘respectable' women and she was not permitted to wear purple, the colour associated with
imperium
, or power. But these regulations were frequently broken, and many prostitutes defiantly dressed in diaphanous silk gowns which ‘seemed invented to exhibit more conspicuously what they were intended to hide'
³⁰
and lightened their hair with henna or lemon juice.

Like the other trades of Londinium, the brothels flourished magnificently. With the garrisons full to overflowing with military men, trade was brisk in the
lupanaria
, while the brothels were always busy. These marble palaces witnessed scenes of depravity not just inside but outside too. To the edification of passers-by, prostitutes and their clients copulated freely underneath the arches, or
fornices
, an activity subsequently described as ‘fornication'. Debased by the Teutons to
vokken
, this was the origin of the modern ‘fucking'.
³¹

Whores were everywhere, hanging around the race courses to tempt the lucky punters or console the losers; they were on hand at the circuses, to provide additional excitement, and there to add to the spectacle at the public games. Public gardens were popular, too, with the whores lying in wait for their punters, and frolicking among the statues and temples.
³²
Even grocery stores were not immune, with the girls soliciting in the butchers', and bakers' shops offering space for prostitutes to ply their trade ‘round the back', after tempting their clients with saucy
colyphia
, little bread rolls shaped like penises (from
colyphium
, the gladiators' term for penis).
³³

There has long been an association between sex and death, and some women, known as
bustuariae
, even worked the cemeteries which lined the roads out of Londinium, using gravestones to advertise their services. A prostitute would chalk up her speciality and prices on a particular tombstone, enabling prospective clients to liaise with her in the graveyard after sunset. The tomb operated as her bed and, when not engaged with a client, she doubled at burials as a professional mourner.
³⁴

Alongside the experienced prostitutes, another type of woman was exploited in the form of the virgin. Whenever a pimp acquired a fresh virgin (usually a slave girl), he would leave a laurel wreath on the front door, together with a lamp and a posted description of the young girl's attributes. She was then put up for auction, and the ‘lucky man' was crowned with the laurel wreath when he succeeded in taking her virginity.
³⁵

But it was in the bath houses that the most scandalous behaviour took place. Bath houses, or
thermiae
, were magnificent establishments, more like our modern spas or expensive leisure clubs. Although they were designed for getting clean, many other activities legitimate and otherwise took place in these awesome buildings. Intended for social, if not sexual, intercourse, they featured art galleries, gift shops, reading rooms and restaurants, and also served as hotels, offering a bed for the night to travellers and guests.

Women were charged more than men to enter the bath houses, since it was assumed that they could easily earn back the entrance fee from eager clients. A number of leather ‘bikinis', dating from the first century
AD
and now on display at the Museum of London, may well have been the uniform of the local prostitutes.
³⁶
Whores and their clients soon infiltrated the bath houses, to such an extent that special areas were incorporated into the design to accommodate them, with private spaces for massage and ‘extras' provided by skilled
fellatrices –
male as well as female. This was indeed the birth of the massage parlour.
³⁷
Inevitably, such establishments attracted less salubrious neighbours. Outside the baths sprang up the
pervigiles popinae
, or all-night bars, which became the focus for antisocial behaviour culminating in street fights, stabbings and even murders. This must have been the scene witnessed by regulars at the Roman baths excavated at Cheapside and Huggin Hill, near Queenhithe, the latter dating from the second century
AD
and constructed from the best Purbeck marble, imported from Dorset, and fed by a natural spring.

The walls of the baths featured graffiti, similar to those found in Pompeii, and the baths, like the brothels, catered for all tastes. Plutarch mentions that the
palaestrae
, or exercise yards, of the bath houses were much frequented by homosexuals.
³⁸
The bath houses were, like today's private leisure clubs, the province of the rich. The poor simply could not afford the fees, in the form of ‘oil money', the cleansing procedure performed by the
sordidus unctor
, or attendant, which had to be undergone before one was admitted to the water. This process consisted of having olive oil rubbed all over one's body, which was then scraped off with a blunt blade, removing the oil and the dirt from the skin. Although in one instance Emperor Septimus Severus issued instructions in Rome that oil money was to be distributed free to the citizens, and it is possible that a similar system operated in Londinium to bribe the British populace into taking a bath.