pope, the bishop and the prostitutes

  • Gaetano Arena Università degli Studi di Catania

Abstract

Public lupanaria would be documented with certainty only in late medieval European cities, while in the Roman Imperial period and Late Antiquity would not have existed brothels subordinate to the State control.

The analysis of a letter sent by Pope Honorius I (625-638) to Peter, bishop of Syracuse, however, allows us to trace the beginnings of the existence prostibula publica in the Sicilian city, destined to play a political and religious leading role in the dense network of administrative changes and doctrinal conflicts that characterized the Byzantine Empire during the reigns of Heraclius (610-641) and Constans II (641-668).

Published
2021-08-08
Section
Saggi