This most un-Roman of all the Worlds came into being in the last half century of the Republic and outlived it by barely a generation. It was a world of floating artifice, a fiction constructed by the elegiac love poets that ran headlong into Augustus' program to rescue the mores maiorum (customs of the ancestors) and restore traditional Roman dignitas. This world was populated by un-Roman personalities: the young poet lover, his girlfriends — married women and prostitutes both —, absent elderly husbands, indulgent fathers, and conniving slaves. Its concerns were the pursuit and attainment of pleasure, for which love and the beloved were symbols. Women acted autonomously, choosing to marry sine manu, without passing into the legal and financial control of their husbands, which gave them greater personal freedom. The leading spokesmen for this world were male poets — Gallus, Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, Horace, and Ovid — with the bright exception of Sulpicia. Although women and passion were at the center of this world, they were viewed through the eyes, words, and appetites of the male author. The new woman stepped lightly in her flimsy, transparent garments from one lover to another, enslaving them and leaving them with no regrets and no consequences. At last, setting as examples his own daughter Julia and the brazen Professor of Love Ovid himself, Augustus lowered the curtain on this world through legislation and exile, silencing its public expression if not its wantonness. See Greene (1998), James (2003), Pandey, Wyke (2002) in the Bibliography and Images of Flirtation below.

Text-Commentaries	Additional Readings
Publius Ovidius Naso, Amores III.2: Circus pick-up	See the Latin reader The Worlds of Roman Women for the following texts:
Gaius Valerius Catullus, Carmina 70: She says, he says	Sextus Propertius, Elegiae 2.23.12-20: choosing a partner
Sextus Propertius, Elegiae III.23: Love tablets	P. Ovidius Naso, Ars Amatoria 1.135-162: hunting in the Circus
Cornelius Tacitus, Annales II.85.1-4: Vistilia	P. Ovidius Naso, Ars Amatoria 3 (excerpts): how to get a man
Gaius Valerius Catullus, Carmina 27: Postumia	Q. Horatius Flaccus, Carmina 3.9: Lydia and her lover
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Carmina I.23: Chloe	Sulpicia, Elegidia 1-6: she sings of love
Quintus Horatius Flaccus,Carmina I.5: Pyrrha
Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Epigrammata 89: Amica	See De Feminis Romanis at Diotima for the following Latin text:
Titus Maccius Plautus, Mostellaria I.3: Philematium and Scapha	Sulpicia, Opera omnia 1-6
Gaius Valerius Catullus, Carmina 3: Passer is dead
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Carmina I.22: Lalage
P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses 7.10, C. Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 7.9: Medea

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IMAGES of FLIRTATION

Music lesson: a young woman holds a cithara, seated on a couch beside a garlanded poet (?) while a woman stands by solemnly observing them. Pompeii, 1st century CE. London, British Museum.
Reluctant girl sits at a distance from an eager, garlanded young man on a (nuptial?) couch. Greek, Myrina (tomb 100; Atelier of Nicostratos), 150-100 BCE. Paris, Louvre Museum.
Woman reclines beside a seated man on a lectus exchanging passionate looks as one maid looks on and another pours a wine amphora. From a Roman villa at Centocelle near Rome, 2nd century CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Lovers kissing, one of a series of frescoes from the caupona of Salvius (see Fresco inscriptions in World of Work). Pompeii, 1st century CE.
Lovers boating along the banks of the Nile (mosaic fragment). Praeneste. Late Hellenistic. Berlin, Altes Museum.
Eros depicted as a winged female, clings to the back of a woman (statuette in painted terracotta). Left view, Right view. Centuripe, South Italy. 200-100 BCE. London, British Museum.
Leda with the swan, a mosaic from a Roman house in Paphos, Cyprus, late 2nd century CE. London, British Museum.
Amores mix perfume in a large bowl on a wall fresco. A Cupid holds out an alabastron containing perfume to Psyche, sitting and sniffing the perfume on her arm. Roman, 50-75 CE. Los Angeles, Getty Villa.
Cupid embracing Psyche, a painted terracotta bust. Centuripe, South Italy. 200-100 BCE. London, British Museum.
Dido and Aeneas as lovers; detail of the Low Ham mosaic. 4th century CE. Taunton, Somerset County Museum.
Cupid kissing Psyche, a marble statue. From an original of 2nd century BCE. Rome, Capitoline Museums, Palazzo Nuovo.
Lover's ring in gold with with nicolo intaglio; inscribed TE AMO PARUM (I love you too little). Roman, 3rd century CE (found in France). London, British Museum.
Bacchic scene of abandon on a cameo. Hellenistic Greek or early imperial Roman, first century BCE-CE. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Venus & Mars depicted on a painted terracotta antefix. The bare-shouldered goddess of love lifts her veil to the helmeted god of war. Rome, Augustan period (late 1 BCE-early 1CE). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Courtesan reclines on a couch with a garlanded male who lifts her robe and is about to kiss her. Painted terracotta mold figurine from Greek Asia Minor, Myrina, late 2-1 century BCE. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Standing Lovers embrace, facing forward. Painted terracotta mold statuette from Myrina. Roman. 25 BCE-CE. Paris, Louvre.

THE WORLD OF FLIRTATION

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IMAGES of FLIRTATION