As prostitutas Plautinas

Abstract

This work tries to investigate the characteristics of the figure of the prostitute in Latin literature, specifically in the works of the comediographer Titus Maccius Plautus, to understand the poet’s view of these characters and their role in Roman society. We know that the poet wrote many works that were very successful, mainly because in his comedies the poet portrayed the daily life of stereotyped characters, types that caused laughter to the Roman public. Perhaps Plautus’ objective was to criticize Roman society through of the comic in his works, among the characters that appear too much, we have the figure of the prostitute. In this work we limit to analyse only the works: Cistellaria, Casina, Rudens and Truculentus, in these comedies we seek to show the social condition of prostitute slaves in Rome, characterized by often being women of free birth, kidnapped in childhood, sold as slaves and turned into prostitutes. We chose just a few prostitutes for analysis, among them: Selenium, Casina, Palaestra, Phronesium and Astaphium. The behaviour of each was analysed by categories: (1) Free-born prostitutes; (2) The prostitutes without the handkerchief; and (3) The cunning prostitutes.