Lol....actually female companionship was quite ah...reasonable. If you think in cold and pragmatic terms,
wine-making was a fairly complicated process as was some food preparation. Female companionship was
ah...homegrown by nature especially given the needs of clients of ladies of the evening...also given that no emotional ties were concerned and it was a quite legal enterprise and there were so, so many poverty stricken women in the ancient world. So your total bill including "entertainment" would probably be one in which the "entertainment" was the least expensive. Sadly true, I think.
But entrepenures being what they have been for way more than 2000 years, you could get "filet mingon" "prime rib" or, if on a
budget, "ribeye" , or even "beef tips" if you get my metaphor.
Exactly like with modern ladies of the night, you get the
act and little else.
Ancient and modern writings are rife with the mention of swords, swords, swords, and helmets, armour, and all the
military trappings we are familiar with. In reality, the
average family that hoped to have his/her son enlist in other than auxilaries, would have to come up with the kit for a calvaryman or a first-line
roman soldier. It's been likened to a modern soldier having to come up with the cost of an
F-16 in order to be one of the elite.
The great majority of the peasant class quite possibly
had never seen an
aureus or
celtic equivalent and never would during a normal lifespan. He/she may have seen silver in the marketplace or similar, but would never in his/her wildest dreams think of owning one. Hence the attraction for joining the army even as an auxilary and possibly looting and pillaging and gaining ownership of one or more.