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
60. But Apollodorus, in his book on Courtesans, says that there were
two women named Phryne, one of whom was nicknamed Clausigelos,[46]
and the other Saperdium. But Herodicus, in the sixth book of his
Essay on People mentioned by the Comic Poets, says that the one who is
mentioned by the orators was called Sestos, because she sifted
(ἀποσήθω) and stripped bare all her lovers; and that the other was the
native of Thespiæ. But Phryne was exceedingly rich, and she offered to
build a wall round Thebes, if the Thebans would inscribe on the wall,
"Alexander destroyed this wall, but Phryne the courtesan restored it;"
as Callistratus states in his treatise on Courtesans. And Timocles the
comic poet, in his Neæra, has mentioned her riches (the passage has
been already cited); and so has Amphis, in his Curis. And Gryllion
was a parasite of Phryne's, though he was one of the judges of the
Areopagus; as also Satyrus, the Olynthian actor, was a parasite of
Pamphila. But Aristogiton, in his book against Phryne, says that her
proper name was Mnesarete; and I am aware that Diodorus Periegetes says
that the oration against her which is ascribed to Euthias, is really
the work of Anaximenes. But Posidippus the comic poet, in his Ephesian
Women, speaks in the following manner concerning her:—
Before our time, the Thespian Phryne was
Far the most famous of all courtesans;
And even though you're later than her age,
Still you have heard of the trial which she stood.
She was accused on a capital charge
Before the Heliæa, being said
To have corrupted all the citizens;
But she besought the judges separately
With tears, and so just saved herself from judgment.
61. And I would have you all to know that Democles, the orator, became
the father of Demeas, by a female flute-player who was a courtesan; and
once when he, Demeas, was giving himself airs in the tribune, Hyperides
stopped his mouth, saying, "Will not you be silent, young man? why,
you make more puffing than your mother did." And also Bion of the
Borysthenes, the philosopher, was the son of a Lacedæmonian courtesan
named Olympia; as Nicias the Nicæan informs us in his treatise called
the Successions of the Philosophers. And Sophocles the tragedian,
when he was an old man, was a lover of Theoris the courtesan; and
accordingly, supplicating the favour and assistance of Venus, he says—
[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]
Hear me now praying, goddess, nurse of youths,
And grant that this my love may scorn young men,
And their most feeble fancies and embraces;
And rather cling to grey-headed old men,
Whose minds are vigorous, though their limbs be weak.
And these verses are some of those which are at times attributed to
Homer. But he mentions Theoris by name, speaking thus in one of his
plain choruses:—
For dear to me Theoris is.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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