A Greek man's male friends served this purpose.

Ancient Rome followed the patterns in male-female roles as set by the Greeks for most of their history. Like the Greeks, love was generally not an element of most male/female relationships and prostitution was a major industry. For the Romans, the natural order of things was that men were better suited to labor outside the home while women were considered better equipped for handling matters within the home. Unlike Greek women, however, who were relegated to operating in the background even with the home, Roman women were afforded a much larger role in the home but were still not allowed to participate in affairs that occurred in public. In both Greek society and Roman society it must be remembered that they were societies in which under-population was a concern and not over-population as it is today. As a result, the primary function...
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