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Harem Girls

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Zungur said:
That is just a fantasy. Harem is, as willowfall did write the word for the part of the house where women lived. Romans did not have any harems.
Romans married someone of apropriate family to produce offspring, divorces were common and not frowned about. Each household thet could afford it (wich was almost all) owned slaves. They were kept primarily kept for economic, not sexual purposes. They were workers, servants, sectretaries, teachers. Often old people, who stayed at the same household for all their life. The slaves of a houshold were called 'familia'. Business men, such as building contractors owned larger numbers of trained and untrained slaves as a work force. So did the big farms (latifundiae) in the countryside or production sites for anything you can think of.
Now, naturally in a rich household, owning - amongst others - some attractive women, these might be used for the pleasure of the owners, whenever they felt like it.
This was something 'normal' but nothing you spoke of. In the time of the Republic and Early Empire it would have been considered very bad taste to do so in public, just as naturally you visited a lupanar (brothel) from time to time, but this was nothing to be discussed.
During the late Republic and Early Empire some equestri or even freed-men came to considerable wealth. Those 'nouveaux-riches' were frowned upon and considered to be of bad taste and worse behaviour. As such they were a matter of jokes and comedies. Using slaves for sexual purposes and even offering them to visitor was one of the topics of these comedies to show how primitive and uncultivated these people were, underlining how uncommon and scandalous such behaviour was considered to be.

In real slavery sexual abuse always (maybe with the exception to modern days trafficking of women) always was a resulting peripheral issue, while the main purpose was economic.
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After all, enslaving your legal wife should be the easiest and the most effective.
 
Zungur said:
Nothing in the find you mention suggests that any of the children died from other than normal causes. So: still Roman propaganda.
An interesting fact is that everything about burials of other cultures, whether in Archaeology or Anthropology, that is different from the observers culture tends to be interpreted in a negative way, while each and every culture assumes that only their own treatment of the dead is tha one and only loving/respectful/correct way. That's why we have so many records of 'cannibals', none of which stands a critical analysis.
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Another historical myth is people died young in the pre-modern era. Yes infant\child mortality rate was massive by our standards and so lowered the AVERAGE age but the trick was making it past 12 or so. Once you had done that you could live a very long time.

As to whether or not it is (was) Roman propaganda I would disagree that there is conclusive evidence one way or the other for several reasons (1) Unless there was violence involved in killing the child before the body\living person was tossed in the well death by drowning leaves no marks on a skeleton; (2) There are known Punic cemeteries with remains in them including children so the ones in the well were NOT part of a normal funerary process (no adult skeletons have ever been found); (3) Despite the destruction of Carthage itself in 146 BC the "Carthaginians" were not wiped out and were a literate people yet there is no documentary evidence (yeah or nay) to refute\support the Roman claim which is at best suspicious (either way); (4) We know animal sacrifice existed in most cultures in the time period is it really that big a step from an animal to a human?

So that answer to the question is 'We don't know' (the best answer any scientist can make).

As too conclusions we make about other cultures which no longer exist to explain what we are seeing we are back to bias by the observers. They see what they want to see. The 2 best examples are Egypt and the Mayans.

Because early Egyptologists believed the Bible was a literal historical document they constantly tried to line up what they were seeing on the ground with the Bible it at it wasn't making sense. 2 minutes after they tossed the Bible out as a reference guide things started to come together.

Many early references by archeologists\anthropologists where referring to the Mayans as a peaceful people in touch with their natural environment. Today of course after much further study we know those 2 statements are about as far from the truth as you can get.

In both cases the 'scientists' were interpreting what they were seeing based on their emotions as to what they WANTED to see. And of course history is full of the reverse happening, 'scientists' ignoring positive aspects of cultures, in order to emotionally justify the conquest or 'civilizing' of a less technologically advanced people.

kisses

willowfall
 
Zungur said:
Any good school should teach you not to believe, but to think.
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I 100% agree but it is not in the interest of those in power to have those they wish to (or have) power over to THINK because then you might start to question what you are told to do and believe.

And that unfortunately also includes educators. I once asked a very intelligent friend of mine (who has both Pharmaceutical and Law degrees) how tough law school was. He laughed and said "Any one can graduate Law school it only teaches you fear of God ........ and that every professor thinks he is God."

kisses

willowfall
 
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She taught herself long ago to let go of her old life, the one she could never get back, as a way to cope with the reality of her new one. But even all these years later, she does occasionally wonder idly what her old self, in that cold coastal village a world away from here, would think of what she became. She wonders this in the exquisite luxury of an emir's harem, fully nude and quite sure she would feel itchy & awkward if she were to put on any clothing, confined & uncomfortable if she had to wear anything on her feet. She wonders this in the language of this once foreign land, which she speaks in, thinks in, dreams in, exclusively, even composing poems in it to her master's delight. She wonders this not long after her morning visit to her master's bed - a man who owns her, body and soul, as his property - where simply through the flick of her tongue and the motion of her hips, she made his chambers echo with his moans of ecstasy - and hers. Because her master's pleasure truly is her own.

Yes, her old self would be very surprised to learn that she would, eventually, love being a slave....
 
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