Vistilia was an ancient Roman woman who registered herself as a prostitute, possibly to avoid charges of adultery.[1][2][3] She was nonetheless prosecuted for immorality in approximately the year 19 CE, during the reign of Tiberius.[4][5][6]
Tacitus describes Vistilia as a noble Roman woman who denounced herself as a prostitute to the aediles who regulated prostitution.[6][7] Roman lawmakers wanted to keep prostitution legal while also punishing prostitutes by publicly shaming them; thus, sex workers were legally required to publicly register themselves in this way.[3][8] Additionally, those registered as prostitutes lost many of their rights.[1]
Current scholarly consensus, however, holds that Vistilia was not actually a sex worker.[1][9][10] Instead, many scholars suggest that she registered herself as a prostitute in order to take advantage of a legal loophole in Roman law, to avoid prosecution for adultery.[11][12] The lex Julia de adulteris (established by Augustus) exempted those registered as prostitutes from being prosecuted for adultery.[11][1]Suetonius described this practice of registering as a prostitute despite not being one, in order to avoid prosecution, though he did not mention Vistilia specifically.[9]
Vistilia was nonetheless tried by the Roman Senate.[13] Her husband, Titidius Labeo, when asked why he had not tried to enforce the statutory penalty, stated the consultation period (which was sixty days) had not yet expired.[14] The senate decided to prosecute only Vistilia (under Roman law, husbands who did not immediately punish adulterous wives could be tried as pimps).[15] Vistilia was found guilty, and was deported to the Greek island of Seriphos.[1] Subsequently, in 19 CE, the Roman Senate passed a law that no Roman woman whose father or grandfather was of equestrian status or higher could register as a prostitute.[2][13]