“Once, when Menander the poet had failed with one of his plays, and came to her house, Glycera brought him some milk, and recommended him to drink it. But he said he would rather not, for there was some γραῦς in it, that word signifying either an old woman or the scum on milk. But she replied, ‘Blow it away, and take what there is beneath.’” There is a second anecdote, which deserves attention, apart from any merit of its own, because it illustrates the very ancient symbolism of the seal or signet, which survived down to modern times:-- “A lover of hers once sent his seal to Lais the Corinthian, and desired her to come to him. But she said, ‘I cannot come; it is only clay!’” A certain dramatic interest centres in the famous Phryne, whose adventure in a court of justice is so well known. There is a story that her contemporary, the courtesan Gnathæna aforesaid, once twitted her with her dulness, insinuating that her wit ought to be sharpened on a whetstone; but assuredly the two subjoined bits are quite as good as anything that is cited of Gnathæna herself:-- “Once, when a slave, who had been flogged, was giving himself airs as a young man towards her, and saying that he had been often entangled, she pretended to look vexed; and when he asked her the reason, ‘I am jealous of you,’ said she, ‘because you have been so often smitten.’” “A very covetous lover of hers was coaxing her, and saying to her, ‘You are the Venus of Praxiteles.’ ‘And you,’ said she, playing on the double meaning of the sculptor’s name, ‘are the Cupid of Phidias.’” Turning from the fair sex to that which claims no such distinction, we do not find ourselves face to face with any improvement in quality. The following is quoted by Athenæus from Xenophon:-- “Philip the jester, having knocked at the door, told the boy who answered, to tell the guests who he was, and that he was desirous to be admitted; and he said that he came provided with everything which could qualify him for supping at other people’s expense.” Take another, the pith of which resides in the twofold circumstance that Lysimachus had two prime favourites, Bithys and Paris, and that the performers on the comic stage had, as a rule, short names:-- “Demetrius Poliorcetes was a man very eager for anything which could make him laugh, as Phylarchus tells us in the sixth book of his History. And he it was who said, that the palace of Lysimachus was in no respect different from a comic theatre, for that there was no one there bigger than a dissyllable.” So Athenæus; but the particular citation goes rather to prove that Demetrius endeavoured to provoke mirth in others, and that if he succeeded in this instance, the risible organs of his friends must have been almost painfully sensitive. Thus much it appeared almost indispensable to furnish by way of warranty for what had been said just before in disparagement of the ancient school of humour.