"'Tis not for nothing that where'er we go We find a temple of hetaerae there, But nowhere one to any wedded wife," sings one of the poets of the Anthology. The characteristic traits of these reigning queens of the demi-monde were in almost all cases the same. The principal attributes of their characters were selfishness and greed. With all their outward good nature and apparent warmth of disposition, they were at all times "marble-hearted," cold, incapable of any noble emotion, and impervious to the stirrings of true love. There are a few exceptional cases of self-sacrificing devotion, as of Leaena, and of Timandra, who stood by Alcibiades in all his misfortune, but their exceeding rarity proves the rule. A few were of good character and were faithful to the relations which they had formed; many were merely fair and frail; while most of them descended to the lowest depths of corruption and depravity. While the deportment of those hetaerae who cultivated every womanly charm presents much that is attractive, yet their manner of life has been aptly compared to baskets of noxious weeds and garbage, covered over with roses. Extravagance, debauchery, and dissolute habits were sure to work out in time the attendant ills of wretchedness, destitution, and penury. Realizing that for them there was possible no such thing as true love and domestic happiness, they became rapacious and vindictive, cynical and ill-tempered. Nothing could be mare fearful than the pictures which the comic poets and satirists draw of some of these women; Anaxilas, for example, thus describes them as a class: "The man whoe'er has loved a courtesan, Will say that no more lawless, worthless race Can anywhere be found: for what ferocious, Unsociable she-dragon, what Chimaera, Though it breathe fire from its mouth, what Charybdis, What three-headed Scylla, dog o' the sea, Or hydra, sphynx, or raging lioness, Or viper, or winged harpy (greedy race), Could go beyond those most accursed harlots? There is no monster greater. They alone Surpass all other evils put together." Their outward behavior and manner were characterized by great elegance. One comic poet remarks that they took their food most delicately and not like the citizen-women, who "stuffed their cheeks and tore off the meat." Their speech, however, was unrestrained, and they delighted in indelicate witticisms and _doubles entendres_. Machon made a collection of the witty remarks of the most celebrated hetaerae, in his book of anecdotes. In Athenaeus we also have specimens of their witticisms. Sinope of AEgina was particularly famous for her coarse wit, and had many clever encounters with the brilliant men of her day. To preserve or to enhance their natural beauty, the hetaerae were given to the use of cosmetics. Eubulus, in a fragment, thus represents a citizen-woman reviling the much-hated class: