Theodosius Ends Two Abuses at Rome

During his short stay in Italy, the emperor Theodosius did the city of Rome the greatest good, both by what he granted and by what he abolished. His gifts were very generous, and he did away with two most shameful abuses that existed in the city. [a]

The first was this. In ancient Rome, in former times, buildings of enormous size had been put up in which bread was made to be distributed to the people. Those in charge of these buildings, who were called Mancipes in Latin, in the course of time turned them into dens of thieves. The bakehouses in these buildings were placed underneath, and beside each one they built taverns where they kept prostitutes. By this means they trapped many of those who went there either for refreshment or to satisfy their lusts, for by a kind of mechanical device they dropped them from the tavern into the bakehouse below. This was done chiefly to strangers. Those kidnapped in this way were forced to work in the bakehouses, and many of them were shut up there until old age, never allowed to go out, so that their friends supposed they were dead. It happened that one of the emperor Theodosius’s soldiers fell into this trap. When he was shut up in the bakehouse and kept from going out, he drew a dagger he was wearing and killed those who stood in his way, and the rest, terrified, let him escape. When the emperor learned what had happened, he punished the Mancipes and ordered these haunts of lawless and depraved people to be torn down. This was one of the disgraceful evils of which the emperor cleansed the imperial city.

The other was of this kind. When a woman was caught in adultery, they punished her not in a way that would correct her, but rather in a way that made her offense worse. They shut her up in a cramped brothel and forced her to prostitute herself in a most disgusting way, ringing little bells at the time of the unclean act so that those passing by would know what was going on inside. No doubt this was meant to brand the crime with greater disgrace in the eyes of the public. As soon as the emperor learned of this indecent custom, he would in no way tolerate it. He ordered the Sistra, as these places of punishment by prostitution were called, to be torn down, and he laid down other laws for the punishment of adulteresses. So the emperor Theodosius freed the city from two of its most disgraceful abuses. And when he had arranged all other affairs to his satisfaction, he left the emperor Valentinian at Rome and returned with his son Honorius to Constantinople, entering that city on the tenth of November, in the consulship of Tatian and Symmachus.