Pretty Woman, Pretty Bad Treatment: The Views of Prostitution in Uruk, Assyria, and Rome
Although prostitution was a common practice in many ancient civilizations, it can also be one of the most controversial topics from a modern standpoint. Prostitution was a common practice in both Ancient Rome and Ancient Mesopotamia. The treatment of prostitutes and prostitution differs vastly in both Rome and Mesopotamia, based on societal rules and values. As a society, Ancient Mesopotamia collectively treated prostitutes with respect, but views of prostitution varied greatly from area to area, which can be demonstrated by Uruk and Assyria. While Rome, during the height of the empire, collectively treated prostitution and prostitutes poorly.
Uruk was a very important and innovative ancient city in Sumer. One of Uruk’s claims to fame is The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh follows the story of Gilgamesh, a cruel king who must learn how to better himself. Along the way, Gilgamesh is helped in his heroic journey by his friend Enkidu. Enkidu was a wild beast, who was then transformed into a man to serve as Gilgamesh’s equal. Shamhat was enlisted to help civilize Enkidu and her role as described in the epic is “a cultic prostitute from Uruk, whose task was to entice Enkidu into the ways of man.” Enkidu and Shamhat spend a total of two weeks having sex, and Shamhat also teaches him about how unjust Gilgamesh is, as well as to eat and drink. After Enkidu’s time with this positive depiction of a prostitute, he becomes civilized and acquires “reason and wide understanding.” This demonstrates that the people of Uruk believe that sex and prostitutes are a positive influence and essential to society. Shamhat is chosen to civilize Enkidu because no one can resist her in part sexually, but also because she is an eloquent woman. This is shown when she tells Enkidu of how horrible Gilgamesh is, and her speech to Enkidu inspires him to help Gilgamesh. Part of what makes Shamhat helpful and powerful is that she is a prostitute, but she’s also seen as a kind and honorable person. Shamhat is important to the story because without her Enkidu would never have been civilized, he would have never gone to Uruk, and never have been able to change Gilgamesh and make him into a better person. Shamhat is one of the critical links in a chain of events that made Gilgamesh a better leader and person. Uruk’s views on sex and women are overall positive. However, not all areas of Mesopotamia shared the same perspective. Assyria, a city-state in Mesopotamia, had negative views of prostitutes, women, and sex. This is demonstrated by a set of Assyrian laws which greatly contrasted with Uruk’s outlook.
The Middle Assyrian Laws are a set of laws with some in regards to women. According to Middle Assyrian Law, developed between 1450 and 1250 BCE, women must cover their heads in public unless they are a prostitute or slave girl. This law was put into place in order to differentiate “respectable women” from “unrespectable” women. Gerda Lerner (1920-2013) was a historian and writer who focused on the history of women. She is credited as a pioneer in the field of women’s history. Lerner’s 1986 explanation of the law is “Domestic women, sexually serving one man and under his protection, are here designated as ‘respectable’ by being veiled; women not under one man’s protection and sexual control are designated as ‘public women,’ hence unveiled.” Since prostitutes are not in a monogamous relationship, they are considered public property, on display for men to see. Meanwhile, women who are not prostitutes are essentially considered private property and therefore covered when in public. Both prostitutes and slave girls were not allowed to be veiled and if either was seen veiled the punishments were very cruel. A prostitute would be flogged fifty times and have pitch poured on her, while a slave girl would be stripped of her clothes and have her ears cut off.
In Middle Assyrian Law 40, there is a ranking of women, which follows: 1. Married woman or her unmarried daughter, 2. Married concubine, 3. Unmarried temple prostitute, harlot and the slave woman. This division of women by society causes women to further divide themselves from each other. Respectable women are encouraged to not associate with unrespectable women. This simultaneously creates a class divide as most “respectable” women are upper class and “unrespectable” women are from lower classes.
Further proof of Assyria’s poor treatment of prostitutes can be shown from their poor treatment of women in general. This is demonstrated by a legal code regarding the status of women from the reign of King Tiglathpileser I (1115-1077 BC). For an idea of the treatment of women, here is a quote regarding what happened in the case of rape: “If a man forcibly seizes and rapes a maiden who is residing in her father’s house... the father of the maiden shall take the wife of the rapist of the maiden and give her over to be raped; he shall not return her to her husband, he shall take her (for himself).” In this law if a man raped a woman who is in her father’s home then the father of the woman raped gets to take the rapist’s wife, rape her, and keep her, possibly as a wife. The victim of rape would also then be married to the rapist. This law does not resolve any conflict. Instead of punishing the rapist, his wife is punished by being raped, and in the end the original victim of rape is married to her rapist. All this does is create a cycle of rape, making it seem like an acceptable thing to do, and instead of helping or uplifting a victim, another victim is created. This law regarding women does not put them at the forefront of the issue. It instead makes men the forefront of the issue. If a woman is raped, her virginity is taken away meaning that her value is also taken away. The woman’s value and virginity all reflects on the family, especially her father, and because of this he is then allowed to take away the perpetrator’s honor. The decision to rape women comes from some men’s revolting sexual desires. These desires are then encouraged when the father is allowed to also rape a woman. As mentioned above Assyria had certain punishments for prostitutes. In addition to those punishments, husbands in Assyria were allowed to abuse their wife with no consequence. This abuse included whipping, plucking out a wife’s hair, hitting, and mutilation. The conclusion that can be drawn from this, is that if society finds it acceptable to treat everyday women like this, then their treatment of prostitutes would be just as cruel, if not worse.
Assyrian women were valued for their purity and treated as second class citizens. If women undermined or ignored social expectations and standards there were brutal consequences. Some wealthy or royal women were valued, and allowed to do things like buy property, but when they were valued it was for how they could benefit male society. This is shown during the Neo-Assyrian Period (883-608 BC) where the queen was a very important figure, but valued primarily for her fertility and her ability to reproduce a future king. If women could not benefit society’s male dominated wants and needs they would be ostracized. This is shown through the treatment of prostitutes and women. Even women who were given rights had stipulations they had to follow. There isn’t a justifiable reason for the consequences that women faced in Assyrian society, but they functioned as social regulations that forced women to mold to whatever male dominated society wanted them to be.
Rome had similar views on women and prostitutes to Assyria. The ideal Roman woman’s role was that “She kept up her household; she made wool.” Roman women could be valued depending on their social class and marriage status, in other words they were valued whenever society and men decided they should be. Women were treated very differently than their male counterparts in issues like adultery and marriage. The valued characteristics of a Roman wife and woman were “wifely obedience, domesticity, chastity, and fidelity.” It was considered shameful for a woman to have an affair or be open about their sexuality, but for a man it was seen as normal. If a wife was caught having an affair, her husband would divorce her and she would lose custody of their children. The laws on divorce regarding women were also different from men. A woman could file for divorce, but could not cite adultery as the reason. However, later laws allowed women to file for divorce with much less stigma and keep their dowry, but still lose custody of their children; this was the case until the reign of Augustus began.
Augustus felt there was a strong moral decline in Rome and began to tighten Rome’s laws on divorce. Under Augustus the government passed the Lex Julia and Lex Papia Poppaea laws, these laws were designed to curb adultery and divorce by making regulations on both tighter. Couples who filed for divorce or committed adultery were taken to court and punished, while couples who stayed married were rewarded. Augustus did this to in part increase the population of Rome, specifically among the upper class, as they were the ones who were commonly getting divorced and committing adultery. Rome’s values of chastity and marriage explain why they had poor views of prostitution and prostitutes. Prostitutes are not in a monogamous relationship, meaning they were going against Rome’s societal values. Although Rome collectively treated prostitutes and prostitution poorly, prostitution was still heavily prevalent and political leaders like Mark Antony and Brutus used prostitutes, but it was seen as acceptable because their prostitutes were high class and labeled as a companions.
Rome had class rankings for prostitutes: higher class prostitutes were respected, served at dinner parties, and were celebrated, and compared to goddesses at celebrations. Lower class prostitutes were usually slaves and labeled as “infames.” Infames were seen as shameful and were allowed to be beaten and mutilated, and their perpetrators were not held accountable for these crimes. The Roman empire, specifically under Augustus ostracized prostitutes, so they could better control the society and the way people thought. Ostracization of prostitutes can be shown by how the title of infame was kept with prostitutes for life, even if they were no longer working as a prostitute. Further demonstration of prostitutes being ostracized by society, includes them having a different status, different clothes, and the laws that Augustus put in place. Because prostitutes were open about their sexuality and having sex with multiple partners they were considered to be acting like men and were either given men’s clothes to wear or were put into a different style of toga. This connects to how in Assyria female prostitutes and slaves were unveiled. The first step of ostracizing a group of people is to have them be different in some way from the rest, and in these cases that difference was to not be dressed like the rest of the women in society. A group is typically ostracized when they are already different, for instance prostitutes are open about having sex, where as the valued characteristic of women is purity. Society will then take the different groups and find ways to make them even more different, and preach that those differences are shameful and wrong.
Both Assyria and Rome treated women and prostitutes poorly, but Assyria was open about their disdain, while Rome tried harder to mask it. Another similarity between Assyria and Rome’s treatment of women is their shared value of purity and virginity. One of the few ways for women to be respected within those societies was to be pure. Purity was what made women valuable in society’s eyes. This contrasts with Uruk, because although Shamhat’s sexuality is important it isn’t the only thing that makes her valued. Shamhat is valued because she is kind and honorable, which is demonstrated by her belief that Gilgamesh’s actions are wrong, and that she is willing to help civilize Enkidu in the first place. She is also intelligent because she knew how to speak to Enkidu to get him to help Gilgamesh. Uruk showed that women and prostitutes can be more than their sexuality, and although their sexuality is impactful, it isn’t the only thing about them that is.
Many societies set standards and laws for women to follow, the problem with this happens when these laws and standards are put into place by men for women. Within the society women then perpetuate these on to each other and believe in it themselves, further exacerbating the problem. Until there is a change in leadership and ways of thinking this will continue to happen in societies. This is the case in both Rome and Assyria, where in each society, men would create rules and standards for women to follow, label them as “society’s standards” and then wouldn’t follow the rules they set in place themselves. Men made these laws to benefit their own selfish interests by limiting women. When a woman doesn’t follow the rules there are legal and moral consequences, but when a man breaks these rules there are no consequences because it is seen as normal and acceptable. This shows that those rules should never be set into society in the first place.
Annotated Bibliography
Ackerman, Neil. "The female prostitute in ancient Rome: An Identity." The Post Hole 46 (2016): 8-14.
This is a research paper by a scholar that has been published online. This research paper covers the treatment of women and prostitutes by Roman society and how it connects to others in the Roman empire. It also discusses how the treatment and perception of prostitutes is largely based on and decided by men. I find this source really interesting, and it was helpful because I could make connections with another source on prostitution in ancient Mesopotamia. This source discusses how Roman prostitutes wore different clothing to distinguish themselves from regular women, which connects to Assyria, where prostitutes did not wear veils and common women did.
Bain, Robert. “Women, Fundamentalism, and Terror: Echoes of Ancient Assyria.” Heinrich Bӧll Stiftung. Beirut. Middle East. 9 February 2017. https://lb.boell.org/en/2017/02/09/women-fundamentalism-and-terror-echoes-ancient-assyria. [website with primary quotes]
This article compares the treatment of Assyrian women to the treatment of women by ISIS. The source explores how in both societies most women are treated very poorly, except royal or wealthy women. This article was helpful for my research paper because it gave me an understanding of the treatment of women in Assyria and a modern day comparison. It was also helpful because it is about Assyria (a specific area of Mesopotamia) that I may want to narrow in on more in further research.
Budin, Stephanie. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. [print accessed as an ebook]
This book explores how sacred prostitution did not exist in the Near or Middle East. The author defines sacred prostitution as, “The sale of a person’s body for sexual purposes where some portion (if not all) of the money or goods recieved for this transaction belongs to a deity” (p. 3). Although there are prostitution practices that involve deities and rituals, they do not correspond to the author’s definition and largely misinterpret documents regarding prostitution. This source was used to gain a better understanding of prostitution practices and different areas of Mesopotamia to explore.
George, Andrew, trans. The Epic of Gilgamesh. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 2020. [print & primary]
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a primary source story from ancient Mesopotamia. The story is based on a real king, Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is a cruel leader and is not fulfilling his proper duties as a king, to help the gods make an equal for him, Enkidu. When first created, Enkidu is a wild animal in order to “civilize” him he spends time with Shamhat, a prostitute. Shamhat plays a large role in the story because without her Enkidu could have never helped Gilgamesh. This is helpful to my paper because it shows prostitution in a positive and important light.
Hallett, Judith P. “THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN ROMAN ELEGY: COUNTER-CULTURAL FEMINISM.” Arethusa 6, no. 1 (1973): 103–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26307466.
Lerner, Gerda. “The Origin of Prostitution in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Signs 11, no. 2 (1986): 236–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174047. [primary]
This article was originally published in the magazine Signs. Gerda Lerner is a historian and writer who specializes in women’s studies. This source discusses sacred and temple prostitution in Uruk and compares it to laws on prostituition from Assyaria another region of Mesopotamia. This source is helpful because it shows the cultural differences between Assyria and Uruk even though they are in the same area. This source was also helpful because Assyaria’s laws on prostution, in some aspects, are similar to Rome’s and then, both are different compared to other area’s laws like Babylonia or Uruk. It also features primary source quotes from the Middle Assyrian Laws.
McClure, Laura K., and Christopher A. Faraone. Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. muse.jhu.edu/book/8711. [print & primary]
McGinn A., Thomas. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. New York, United States: Oxford University Press, 1998. [print & primary, accessed as a ebook]
Nardo, Don. Women of Ancient Rome. (Michigan, United States: Lucent Books The Gale Group Inc. 2003). [print with primary source quotes]
Stol, M. “Women in Mesopotamia.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38, no. 2 (1995): 123–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632512. [print accessed online]
*A stone carving depiction of Shamhat and Enkidu from The Epic of Gilgamesh