Pregnancy. In Roman literature and culture, having children, especially a son, was a sign that the gods had blessed the marriage. In reality, getting pregnant was not always so easy. Part of the difficulty of conceiving came from a misunderstanding about the menstrual cycle and periods of fertility. Some women wore amulets, used potions, and prayed to various goddesses for children. Likewise, some women did not want to have children and therefore used a variety of means to prevent pregnancy, ranging from wearing talismans, to using concoctions that they inserted before or after intercourse, to instrumental or medical abortions or mistaken techniques such as riding horses or jumping up and down vigorously when they discovered, to their dismay, that they were pregnant. Men may have used slaves or prostitutes to satisfy their sexual desires in an effort to limit the number of...