The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
51. And Lysias, in his oration against Lais, if, indeed, the speech is
a genuine one, mentions these circumstances—"Philyra abandoned the
trade of a harlot when she was still quite young; and so did Scione,
and Hippaphesis, and Theoclea, and Psamathe, and Lagisca, and Anthea."
But perhaps, instead of Anthea, we ought to read Antea. For I do not
find any mention made by any one of a harlot named Anthea. But there is
a whole play named after Antea, by either Eunicus or Philyllius. And
the author of the oration against Neæra, whoever he was, also mentions
her. But in the oration against Philonides, who was being prosecuted
for an assault, Lysias, if at least it is a genuine speech of his,
mentions also a courtesan called Nais. And in his speech against Medon,
for perjury, he mentions one by the name of Anticyra; but this was only
a nickname given to a woman, whose real name was Hoia, as Antiphanes
informs us in his treatise on Courtesans, where he says that she was
called Anticyra,[44] because she was in the habit of drinking with
men who were crazy and mad; or else because she was at one time the
mistress of Nicostratus the physician, and he, when he died, left her a
great quantity of hellebore, and nothing else. Lycurgus, also, in his
oration against Leocrates, mentions a courtesan named Irenis, as being
the mistress of Leocrates. And Hyperides mentions Nico in his oration
against Patrocles. And we have already mentioned that she used to be
nicknamed the Goat, because she had ruined Thallus the innkeeper. And
that the goats are very fond of the young shoots of the olive (θάλλοι),
on which account the animal is never allowed to approach the Acropolis,
and is also never sacrificed to Minerva, is a fact which we shall
dilate upon hereafter. But Sophocles, in his play called The Shepherds,
mentions that this animal does browse upon the young shoots, speaking
as follows—
For early in the morning, ere a man
Of all the folks about the stable saw me,
As I was bringing to the goat a thallus
Fresh pluck'd, I saw the army marching on
By the projecting headland.
[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]
Alexis also mentions Nannium, in his Tarentines, thus—
But Nannium is mad for love of Bacchus,—
jesting upon her as addicted to intoxication. And Menander, in his
false Hercules, says—
Did he not try to wheedle Nannium?
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