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Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Edited by CHRISTOPHER A. FARAONE AND LAURA K. MCCLURE. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. Pp. 496. $65.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper).
Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World consists of fourteen essays with a summarizing introduction by Laura McClure.
The first essay, "Marriage, Divorce, and the Prostitute in Ancient Mesopotamia," by Martha Roth (21-39), begins with a discussion of "sacred prostitution" in Babylon, which Herodotus famously cited as fact. Roth dismisses Herodotus, quoting Tikva Frymer-Kensky ("there is no evidence that any [temple -associated women] performed sexual acts as part of their sacred duties"), with, however, two exceptions: the entu, whose role was not specified but who "played a role in the sacred marriage ritual between the king and the goddess Inanna" in the late third millennium BCE, and the qadistu, a prostitute and "temple dedicatee."1 But Roth prefers to discuss those independent women who were not under the control of a husband or father. Many of these women were discussed in wisdom literature, moral saws, and law codes.
In her essay, "Prostitution in the Social World and Religious Rhetoric of Ancient Israel" (40-58), Phyllis Bird analyzes the qedesah, "consecrated woman," and the zonah, "professional 'fornicator.'" The zonah is another "independent woman" with "no husband or sexual obligation to another male. . . . Strictly speaking her activity is not illicit - and neither is her role" (42). The prostitute in literature, however, stands for corruption: priests were not permitted to marry prostitutes, prostitutes were accused of stealing one's life, and both Jerusalem and Israel were likened to prostitutes, where everything was for sale. Bird also addresses the issue of male prostitution. She quotes Deuteronomy 23:18: "You [masculine singular] shall not bring the hire of a prostitute [etnan zonah] or the wages of a dog [mechir keleb] into the house of the LORD [in payment] for any vow." Scholarly consensus holds that "dog" meant the male prostitute. But Bird interprets the passage to imply that it is not prostitution that is forbidden but the use of income from prostitution as payment for a religious vow. Here we skirt again the issue of sacred prostitution.
The primary aim of Catherine Keesling's essay, "Heavenly Bodies: Monuments to Prostitutes in Greek Sanctuaries"...