The incomparable history of Phryne, as transmitted to us from the Athenæum, gives some idea of the nature of this veneration. It is not true that Hyperides stripped her naked to soften the Areopagos, and because her crime was great: she had committed murder. The orator tore off the top of her tunic and revealed only her breasts. And he supplicated the judges: “Do not put to death the priestess and the inspired of Aphrodite.”--In distinction from the other courtesans who went out in transparent cyclas through which all the details of their bodies appeared, Phryne wore a costume which enveloped even her hair in a great folded vestment of which the statuettes of Tanagra have preserved the grace. No one, unless it were her lovers, had ever seen her arms and her shoulders, and she never appeared in the pool of the public baths. But one day an extraordinary thing occurred. It was the day of the festival of Eleusis; twenty thousand people had come from all parts of Greece and were assembled on the sea-shore when Phryne advanced to the waves: she removed her garment, she unfastened her cincture, she removed even her under tunic, “she unrolled her hair and entered the sea.” And in that throng stood Praxiteles who, after this living goddess, designed the Aphrodite of Knidos; and Apelles who, from her, revealed his Anadyomene. Admirable people, to whom naked Beauty could appear without exciting laughter or false shame! I would that this history were that of Bilitis, for, in translating her songs, I have learned to love the friend of Mnasidika. Without doubt her life was also wonderful. I regret only that she is not spoken of oftener by ancient authors, and that those whose works have survived, give us so few tokens of her person. Philodemos, who pillaged her twice, does not even mention her name. In default of better anecdotes, I beg that you will be contented with the details which she herself has given us about her life as a courtesan. That she was a courtesan is undeniable; and even her last songs prove that, if she had the virtues of her vocation, she had also its worst weaknesses. But I would know only her virtues. She was pious and skillful. She remained faithful to the temple so long as Aphrodite consented to prolong the youth of her purest adorer. “The day when she ceased to be loved, she ceased to write,” she has said. Nevertheless it is difficult to admit that the songs of Pamphylia could have been written at the epoch when the events took place. How could a little shepherdess of the mountains learn to scan verses according to the difficult rhythms of the Æolic delivery? It is more reasonable to believe that, become old, Bilitis found pleasure in singing for herself the remembrances of her childhood. We know nothing of this last period of her life. We know not even at what age she died.