CLAS 208 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Meretrix, Tibullus, Elegy
24 Feb 2016
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In public, matrona expected to be fully robed from head to feet. Wife in charge of keeping track of things in the house. >slaves, food coming in, tasks being done, etc. Needed to be registered with magistrate (aedile) but legal. Needed to pay a tax (=first client of the day) They roamed the streets or were found in brothels. Evidence in 3cbc = 35 brothels in rome (open after 3pm) Cynthia (propertius) = not a meretrix (free, married woman) Marital love = at best, convenient, but not required. Roman marriages based on favourable alignments and need for children. Romantic marriages = modern notion, though it does happen in some ancient novels (still later, Erotic love = known, but could override main purpose of roman family. >boys = pederasty accepted, but not tolerated, ends when boy starts becoming a man, then he could find his own boy. >very little evidence of women participating in extramarital relationships.
