This dissertation examines the often surprising role of the slave characters of Greek Old Comedy in sexual humor, building on work I began in my Classical Quarterly article "An Aristophanic Slave: Peace ". The slave characters of New and Roman comedy have long been the subject of productive scholarly interest; slave characters in Old Comedy, by contrast, have received relatively little attention the sole extensive study being Stefanis Yet a closer look at the ancestors of the later, more familiar comic slaves offers new perspectives on Greek attitudes toward sex and social status, as well as what an Athenian audience expected from and enjoyed in Old Comedy. Moreover, my arguments about how to read several passages involving slave characters, if accepted, will have larger implications for our interpretation of individual plays.

Prostitution was a common aspect of ancient Greece. It was far from being clandestine; cities did not condemn brothels , but rather only instituted regulations on them. In Athens , the legendary lawmaker Solon is credited with having created state brothels with regulated prices. Prostitution involved both sexes differently; women of all ages and young men were prostitutes, for a predominantly male clientele. Simultaneously, extramarital relations with a free woman were severely dealt with.

This article tells you everything you need to know about selling sex in the classical world. Erotic art from a brothel in Pompeii , via Pompeii. Although prostitution has long been a taboo subject, and is only recently beginning to emerge into open conversation, sex has always been for sale in human societies. It is a hugely complex issue , with a wide range of social, personal, political and even economic repercussions. Could looking at the sexual practices of the ancient Greeks and Romans help to open our eyes to new perspectives on prostitution?

This paper looks at sex and slavery within the context of sexual violence more broadly. While there has been recent scholarly interest in sexual violence, there is a tendency to view such violence as a single category, without attention as to how sexual violence might differ for different groups. In order to examine the question of such violence more fully, I explore and compare the construction of sexual violence in the case of domestic slaves in relation to free citizen women, and also sex slaves in classical Athens. Until recently, scholars have focused on the issue of consent in sexual relations, arguing that consent was not a concern and thus not a focus of lawsuits Omitowoju