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Prostitutes in the Portico of Pompey?: A Reconsideration
- Transactions of the American Philological Association
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 139, Number 1, Spring 2009
- pp. 123-145
- 10.1353/apa.0.0025
- Article
- Additional Information
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Tatian's Oration to the Greeks purports to find prostitutes in the Theater and Portico of Pompey in Rome. I examine this supposition in light of his entire Oration, other sources that mention the decorative program, and reactions to the program within Augustan buildings in Rome. I argue that the "prostitutes" are instead a group of women poets and comedic and tragic heroines, and I place them within the other females in the Portico, including Muses and Conquered Nations, to interpret the decorative program within its Late Republican mileu, and to demonstrate a strong response in the public decorative programs of Augustus.