Gnathaena, daughter of the panderess Sinope, was one of the most keen-witted and clever of Athenian hetaerae. She was noted for her happy play on words. She also devised a set of rules for the conduct of dinners and banquets, which lovers had to observe when they visited her or her daughter, Gnathaenion. In this she imitated the most cultured hosts of Athens, and exhibited a regard for social forms which throws a commendable light on the deportment of the more cultivated hetaerae. Gnathaenion, the daughter, was for some time the favorite of the comic poet Diphilus, and he had many a brilliant passage of repartee with the mother on the occasion of his visits to the daughter. Melitta was another famous hetaerae, beloved for her beautiful figure and voice as well as for her pleasing conversation and sprightliness. As each of her lovers said, "the fair Melitta was his madness," she was also called Mania. She was one of the many favorites of Demetrius the Besieger. More celebrated, however, than Melitta as a favorite of Demetrius was the beautiful Lamia, the most renowned flute player of antiquity. She was the daughter of a prominent Athenian citizen, by name Cleanor, and, choosing to follow the independent life of a hetaerae, she made her native city the first scene of her exploits. From here she journeyed to Alexandria, where by her art and her beauty she speedily won recognition at the court of Ptolemy. Accompanying Ptolemy Soter in his naval war against Antigonus and Demetrius, she fell a prisoner into the hands of the latter. Although her youth and beauty were already on the wane, she succeeded in captivating Demetrius, who was much younger than herself, so that, as Plutarch states, he appeared to be actually her lover, while with other women he was only the object of love. Lamia ruled him completely and led him into many excesses. Thus he once compelled the Athenians to collect for him at short notice two hundred and fifty talents, and when it was finally brought to him he sent it straightway to Lamia and her companions, "for pin money," Lamia herself on one occasion exacted from the citizens an enormous sum of money to prepare a magnificent banquet for Demetrius. This banquet, because of the exorbitant expenses which it occasioned, was so extraordinarily notorious that Lycurgus of Samos wrote a book about it. On this account, a comic poet characterized Lamia as the true _Helepolis_, or city destroyer, the name of one of the most famous engines of war of Demetrius. Demetrius remained passionately enamored of her, even after her beauty had faded. As a means of flattering Demetrius, the Athenians erected altars to her, made propitiatory offerings, and celebrated her festival. The Thebans went so far as to erect a temple in her honor, and worshipped her as Aphrodite Lamia.