Most prostitutes were female slaves or freedwomen. The balance of voluntary to forced prostitution can only be guessed at. Privately held slaves were considered property under Roman law, so it was legal for an owner to employ them as prostitutes.
In most circumstances, slave prostitutes could be freely and indiscriminately bought, used and sold. Some were slaves of slave pimps.
Sexual services were routinely offered by the slave attendants in Roman baths (thermae) where both male and female patrons were serviced by both male and female attendants
Sometimes, however, the seller of a female slave attached a ne serva prostituatur clause to the ownership papers to prevent her being forcefully prostituted once sold; if the new owner or any owner thereafter used her as a prostitute she would be freed. This may have been an attempt to conserve what honor was possible for the slave herself, or to remove any possibility of dishonour from the vendor, who might otherwise be thought to have played the part of a pimp, and contravened one of the most fundamental of Roman norms.
Under Hadrian, slaves were protected from being sold to pimps or gladiator schools “unless for good reason”. Septimius Severus made protection of slaves from forced prostitution a duty of the urban praetor
Seems like it was common enough that there clauses and later laws about it. ~200 years if you want to say Septimius Severus put an end to it.
People did regularly torture their slaves, even if you’re not considering the act of slavery itself torture. Do you have a reason to suggest that they did not?
I think the point of the meme was that people think Romans were “enlightened” with respect to slavery when in actuality they were not.
Suggesting that the bottom portion of the meme is wrong, that sexual slavery was not common despite contemporaneous accounts, and that the slaves were not tortured seems to prove the point of the meme. I don’t think the meme is suggesting that the majority of slaves were sex slaves, just that the Romans were brutal and depraved with relation to their slaves just like basically all other people were.
I’ve never gotten an impression that the general public has any particular notion of the Romans being “enlightened” with respect to slavery. Most people seem to know only that there were slaves, but have no idea how large the slave population was. People today are eager, almost desperate, to scold somebody for being horrible, but they don’t think beyond that point. To me the more significant thing by far is the sheer volume of slavery, and that Roman society was only able to exist because of it.
They seem to torture them just because. In pretty much any minority ruled states the majority were/are just generally abused. See South Africa, the US, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India (castes), etc etc.
They also do a lot of labor. There is more to their existence than the worst of abuses. Looking at slavery and minority rules is abhorrent from a humanitarian perspective, but there is more to daily life than the worst of the worst.
Yet, the worst of the worst happened with enough frequency and banality. That’s really all the meme states. Being a slave has always been slavery no matter who the masters are.
The lower one is just as wrong. With a large part of population being slaves, prostitution is not a typical slave job.
Doesn’t mean it was all sunshine and roses, but minority ruled states tend to not torture the majority population for their own benefit.
From Wikipedia:
Seems like it was common enough that there clauses and later laws about it. ~200 years if you want to say Septimius Severus put an end to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_ancient_Rome
People did regularly torture their slaves, even if you’re not considering the act of slavery itself torture. Do you have a reason to suggest that they did not?
Square Rectangle, rectangle square.
Not all slaves were abused in that way but most workers in said jobs were slaves or freed people.
I think the point of the meme was that people think Romans were “enlightened” with respect to slavery when in actuality they were not.
Suggesting that the bottom portion of the meme is wrong, that sexual slavery was not common despite contemporaneous accounts, and that the slaves were not tortured seems to prove the point of the meme. I don’t think the meme is suggesting that the majority of slaves were sex slaves, just that the Romans were brutal and depraved with relation to their slaves just like basically all other people were.
I’ve never gotten an impression that the general public has any particular notion of the Romans being “enlightened” with respect to slavery. Most people seem to know only that there were slaves, but have no idea how large the slave population was. People today are eager, almost desperate, to scold somebody for being horrible, but they don’t think beyond that point. To me the more significant thing by far is the sheer volume of slavery, and that Roman society was only able to exist because of it.
Calling it the reality of roman slavery implies this is the expected treatment, as opposed to a reality of roman slavery.
They seem to torture them just because. In pretty much any minority ruled states the majority were/are just generally abused. See South Africa, the US, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India (castes), etc etc.
They also do a lot of labor. There is more to their existence than the worst of abuses. Looking at slavery and minority rules is abhorrent from a humanitarian perspective, but there is more to daily life than the worst of the worst.
Yet, the worst of the worst happened with enough frequency and banality. That’s really all the meme states. Being a slave has always been slavery no matter who the masters are.
The meme implies that “the reality” of Roman slavery involved branding and amputation, when neither are reliably attested to.