Bacchis, the mistress of the orator Hyperides, illustrates the character of the Athenian kept woman from another point of view. She was extremely beautiful, and gifted with a sweet disposition. One of her early admirers had presented her with a necklace of enormous value. The first ladies of Athens, and even foreign women of rank, coveted the precious trinket in vain. She was in the height of her fame and charms when she heard the orator Hyperides plead. Smitten on the spot, she became his mistress, and observed a fidelity toward him which was neither usual with her class, nor reciprocated by her lover. On one occasion, a rival announced that the price of her complaisance would be the possession of the necklace of Bacchis. The lover had the meanness to ask for it, and Bacchis gave it without a word. Again: when all Athens knew that she was the mistress of Hyperides, an officious friend came to tell her that her lover was at that moment making love to another woman. Bacchis received the announcement tranquilly. "What do you intend to do?" asked her visitor, with impetuosity. "To wait for him," was the meek answer. She died very young, and her lover partially atoned for his ill treatment by pronouncing a splendid oration over her remains. Very few passages in Greek literature are marked by such eloquent tenderness and genuine feeling as this fragment of Hyperides.[56] Gnathena, and her heir and successor, Gnathenion, were famous in their day as wits; the biography of the first was written in verse by the poet Machon.[57] She began life as the mistress of the comic poet Dyphiles, but soon abandoned him to keep a sort of _table d'hôte_ for the wit and fashion of Athens. The "best society" gathered around her board, and at the close of the meal she sold herself by auction. Athenæus has chronicled a number of her witty and sarcastic sayings, adding that the grace of her elocution imparted a singular charm to every thing she said. Her protegée, Gnathenion, grew up in time to receive the mantle which age was wresting from the shoulders of Gnathena. An anecdote is preserved which throws some light upon the profits of the calling of hetairæ. At the temple of Venus, Gnathena and her protegée met an old Persian satrap, richly clothed in purple, who was struck with the beauty of the latter, and demanded her price. Gnathena answered, a thousand drachmas (about two hundred dollars). The satrap exclaimed at such extortion, and offered five hundred, observing that he would return again. "At your age," maliciously retorted Gnathena, "once is too much," and turned on her heel. In her old age it appears that Gnathena was reduced to the disgraceful calling which the Greeks termed _hippopornos_.[58] But the fame of these hetairæ is eclipsed by that of the only two kept women who can rank with Aspasia--Lais and Phryne.