Bryn Mawr Classical Review Faraone, Laura K. ISBN Reviewed by Anise K. Strong, Northwestern University anise-strong northwestern.
The study of prostitution in antiquity has gained great momentum in the last decade, and this book examines the surviving ancient data in a variety of genres and from an impressive number of theoretical perspectives. Its major flaw is one of timing. The conference that spawned this collection was in the spring of , and much research, including by the authors of the articles themselves, has contributed to and altered our understanding of ancient prostitution in the last four years.
In such a rapidly burgeoning subgenre, it is a pity that several of the articles have been superseded or rendered less useful by more recent work. Nevertheless, this book would make a fine addition to the shelf of any scholar interested in ancient gender and sexuality or for an advanced undergraduate course focused on such issues. It includes three major sections, on sacred prostitution, legal and moral discourses on prostitution, and a somewhat eclectic grouping of papers related to the idea of the prostitute as comic character.
The first section, on "Prostitution and the Sacred," consists of four articles. Each of them largely focuses on debunking the formerly popular concept of "sacred prostitution. If Babylonian sacred prostitution remains such a commonly accepted myth in the modern imagination, it deserves a lengthier rebuttal. Roth does not, for instance, fully discuss the ramifications of the word "istaritu.
Phyllis Bird's chapter on Israel discusses the use of the idea of the prostitute as a symbol in the Hebrew Bible. Prostitutes and adulteresses appear in the Bible more as representations of a "promiscuous" Israel seeking after foreign customs and religions than as actual sex workers.
