I decided to try and write something a little different from what I usually write and because I find Roman history fascinating decided to write a first person femdom roman historical story.
I choose the mid 70 AD's because it was a time of change but one where the empire was quite stable and also before Vesuvius erupted and the information we get from Pompeii. I also wanted to make it reasonably authentic and make my hero and the other characters Roman and not English circa 1980 living in Rome as much as I possibly could.
For instance while not overtly racist (but they were very anti-semitic particularly at this time as the first major war against the Jews had just finished) everything to do with about being a Roman was to do with status and class. Slaves were at the bottom even though a slave could be a lot richer than a poor freeman. Many slaves were freed and become freedman but still owed their former masters many duties and indeed as the top of society (the senators) were not meant to engage in businesses worked for their old masters. Above slaves and freedman were the free born citizens (plebs )(many of whom were descended from slaves because virtually uniquely in Rome all ex slaves and their children became citizens) who got the free grain but could be very poor as most work was done by slaves and freedmen. The free born were divided into different classes with the top two being the equites and then the senators at the very top.
Therefore my hero is proud to be a free born citizen and looks down on freedmen and slaves and sees himself as the equal to all free Roman's even senators because in the 1st century the idea of all Romans being equal was still talked about as if it was true. Roman society was also completely sexist and women had no votes or voice but also did not pay taxes. A woman was under the control of her father for her whole life (not her husband) but by the 70's many of the strict restrictions on women had disappeared and many women run their own businesses and if rich managed their own lands.
Roman attitudes to sex were that a man could do anything he wanted to an inferior but that a men did the penetrating and was on top (or from behind) however while women were meant to be chaste this was pre Christian and it was expected that a woman not getting regular sexual pleasure would become ill. What this meant we do not really know however we know that prostitution was extremely common and visiting a prostitute was considered a normal thing for a man to do. As for women we do not know but certainly they would have expected to have got regular sexual satisfaction.
Therefore it seems logical to assume that a group of men existed who gave women sexual satisfaction. These men would have not been slaves or freedmen as they would be to lower born but Rome would have been full of young poor men such as my hero able to fulfil such a role.
Other things such as the fact that girls married at thirteen and men at thirty meant large age differences in marriages and as all high class marriages were arranged by the parents no real love between partners. Therefore if a woman survived childbirth and many did not they faced a long unsatisfactory marriage particularly as by 75 political divorce was not as common as during the republic and this would surely have encouraged the development of men working to pleasure women.
Several other things will be confusing to modern readers such as the fact that Roman years were named after people (the consuls) and not by some logical system. Also most Roman males were named the same as their fathers making working out who is who from our limited sources very difficult and worse freedmen took their masters name so the son of a senator and the son of a slave could have the same name. This to a modern reader is very confusing but presumably the Romans knew who was who from the context. As for women well they usually only had one or two names and those were just the family name feminised (i.e. the Julian's produced Julia's) and the history of the imperial family has numerous Julia, Antonia, Dominita's etc causing even more confusion and making identification of women even more problematic.
I have also used some Latin words giving the first time I use them their nearest English translation because these are words that do not have a direct English translation (i.e. moderatrix = woman in control).
Anyway I hope you enjoy my attempts and if you know your Roman history let me off any obvious errors I have let slip though. Chapter one has no sex in it but sets the scene so feel free to start at Chapter 2.
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Chapter 1
Greetings I wish to record for history an account of my life and of my relationships with the powerful women of Rome. If I were to publish this account in my own life I would still be killed even though the events I record happened many years ago but still many of the families I served are still powerful therefore I have placed this account in the crypt under my church during the year of Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus III and P. Dasumius Rusticus (119 AD) where soon my body will lay while my soul meets my lord knowing that if the almightily God wishes people will read it and learn of the corruption of the women of Rome.
I will start my story not with my birth or even with my learning of the one true faith but when I was a young man of just eighteen and living in Rome during the year Titus Flavius Vespasianus VI and Titus Flavius Vespasianus IV (75 AD).
My name then was Gaius Fonteius Britannicus Flavus and that name tells you all you need to know. I was of British stock as both my parents were British but I myself was born in Rome. I was not born as a slave but as the child of freedman and as so was a full citizen of Rome.