The Misunderstood Meretrix: Luxuria, Negotium, and Amicitia in Roman Comedy

Abstract

This dissertation considers the characterization of the meretrix in Roman comedy and instances where the plays invite the audience to reexamine the negative stereotypes that are often leveled against her. These negative stereotypes include assertations that she is greedy, self-serving, faithless, and desirous of luxury. However, upon closer inspection, these qualities are revealed to either be wrongly attributed to the meretrix or a necessity of her profession. Her preoccupation with profit, need to take on multiple clients, and participation in luxury are requirements of her occupation. She must act in this way to acquire the resources she needs to survive. My chapters connect the inconsistency between the meretrix’s reputation and her actions to the contemporary situation at Rome through the topics of luxury, business, and amicitia. While other scholarship has shown an interest in the meretrix and bias, her role as a worker has been seen in isolation from professionals in both the plays and in Roman life. By examining how the behavior of the meretrix is tied to financial hardships and social anxieties present at Rome in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE, we can better see how she serves as a way for the plays to explore issues concerning members of the lower classes more broadly, and not sex laborers alone. My first chapter covers the necessary literary and historical context, including the place of Greek originals, essential differences between Menander’s pallakai and meretrices in Roman comedy, hunger and financial hardship, and key elements of the contemporary historical context. My second chapter argues that the meretrix must engage in luxury and dress extravagantly to attract her clients and succeed in business. However, adulescentes’ use of luxury is for their pleasure alone. These plays highlight the way that adulescentes’ desire for extravagance often endangers their entire household and the misplaced blame that meretrices receive as a result of this damage. In this chapter, I also discuss how sumptuary legislation, including the lex Oppia, lex Orchia, and lex Fannia serve as useful historical comparanda for Plautus and Terence’s representation of the meretrix. They help demonstrate Rome’s wider interest in issues of luxury and control. My third and fourth chapters investigate the two strategies of gaining resources available to meretrices in Roman comedy: business and amicitia. Plautus’ plays tend to depict meretrices highlighting their role as businesswomen to gain the compensation for their services. This is most clearly seen through metaphors comparing sex labor to other occupations usually performed by men, especially in the Asinaria and Truculentus. Through these comparisons, the playwright portrays the meretrix as part of a larger group of wageworkers and questions what separates stigmatized and idealized work. Terence’s plays, namely the Hecyra and Eunuchus, show meretrices pursuing amicitia instead of a purely business relationship based on monetary exchange. However, even when they attain amicitia by helping the citizen household, it remains unclear if they will truly benefit from it. These plays ask if amicitia can help more marginalized members of society or if they will serve their patrons without recompense. By reckoning with inconsistencies in the representation of the meretrix in Roman comedy, we can see how the playwrights use her to address larger questions of amicitia, luxury, and class-dependent attitudes to work and money.