Deipnosophistae

But as for Lais of Hyccara—(and Hyccara is a city in Sicily, from which place she came to Corinth, having been made a prisoner of war, as Polemo relates in the sixth book of his History, addressed to Timæus: and Aristippus was one of her lovers, and so was Demosthenes the orator, and Diogenes the Cynic: and it was also said that the Venus, which is at Corinth, and is called Melænis, appeared to her in a dream, intimating to her by such an appearance that she would be courted by many lovers of great wealth;)—Lais, I say, is mentioned by Hyperides, in the second of his speeches against Aristagoras. And Apelles the painter, having seen

Lais while she was still a maiden, drawing water at the fountain Pirene, and marvelling at her beauty, took her with him on one occasion to a banquet of his friends. And when his companions laughed at him because he had brought a maiden with him to the party, instead of a courtesan he said —

Do not wonder, for I will show you that she is quite beautiful enough for future enjoyment within three years.

And a prediction of this sort was made by Socrates also, respecting Theodote the Athenian, as Xenophon tells us in his Memorabilia, for he used to say—

That she was very beautiful, and had a bosom finely shaped beyond all description. And let us,

said he,

go and see the woman; for people cannot judge of beauty by hearsay.

But Lais was so beautiful, that painters used to come to her to copy her bosom and her breasts. And Lais was a rival of Phryne, and had an immense number of lovers, never caring whether they were rich or poor, and never treating them with any insolence.

And Aristippus every year used to spend whole days with her in Aegina, at the festival of Neptune. And once, being reproached by his servant, who said to him—

You give her such large sums of money, but she admits Diogenes the Cynic for nothing;

he answered,

I give Lais a great deal, that I myself may enjoy her, and not that no one else may.

And when Diogenes said, "Since you, O Aristippus, cohabit with a common prostitute, either, therefore, become a Cynic yourself, as I am, or else abandon her;" Aristippus answered him—

Does it appear to you, O Diogenes, an absurd thing to live in a house where other men have lived before you.?

Not at all,

said he.

Well, then, does it appear to you absurd to sail in a ship in which other men have sailed before you

By no means,

said he.

Well, then,

replied Aristippus,

it is not a bit more absurd to be in love with a woman with whom many men have been in love already.

And Nymphodorus the Syracusan, in his treatise o the People who have been admired and eminent in Sicily, says that Lais was a native of Hyccara, which he describe as a strong fortress in Sicily. But Strattis, in his play entitled The Macedonians or Pausanias, says that she was a Corinthian, in the following lines—

1. A. Where do these damsels come from, and who are they
2. B. At present they are come from Megara,
3. But they by birth are all Corinthians:
4. This one is Lais, Who is so well known.

And Timæus, in the thirteenth book of his History, says she came from Hyccara, (using the word in the plural number;) as Polemo has stated, where he says that she was murdered by some women in Thessaly, because she was beloved by a Thessalian of the name of Pausanias; and that she was beaten to death, out of envy and jealousy, by wooden footstools in the temple of Venus; and that from this circumstance that temple is called the temple of the impious Venus; and that her tomb is shown on the banks of the Peneus, having on it an emblem of a stone water-ewer, and this inscription—

1. This is the tomb of Lais, to whose beauty,
2. Equal to that of heavenly goddesses,
3. The glorious and unconquer'd Greece did bow;
4. Love was her father, Corinth was her home,
5. Now in the rich Thessalian plain she lies;—

so that those men talk nonsense who say that she was buried in Corinth, near the Craneum.

And did not Aristotle the Stagirite have a son named Nicomachus by a courtesan named Herpyllis? and did he not live with her till his death? as Hermippus informs us in the first book of his History of Aristotle, saying that great care was taken of her in the philosopher's will. And did not our admirable Plato love Archaianassa, a courtesan of Colophon? so that he even composed this song in her honour:—

1. My mistress is the fair Archaianassa
2. From Colophon, a damsel in whom Love
3. Sits on her very wrinkles irresistible.
4. Wretched are those, whom in the flower of youth,
5. When first she came across the sea, she met;
6. They must have been entirely consumed.

And did not Pericles the Olympian (as Clearchus tells us in the first book of his treatise on Amatory Matters) throw all Greece into confusion on account of Aspasia, not the younger one, but that one who associated with the wise Socrates; and that, too, though he was a man who had acquired such a vast reputation for wisdom and political sagacity? But, indeed, Pericles was always a man much addicted to amorous indulgences; and he cohabited even with his own son's wife, as Stesimbrotus the Thasian informs us; and Stesimbrotus was a contemporary of his, and had seen him, as he tells us in his book entitled a Treatise on Themistocles, and Thucydides, and Pericles. And Antisthenes, the pupil of Socrates, tells us that Pericles, being in love with Aspasia, used to kiss her twice every day, once when he entered her house, and once when he left it. And when she was impeached for impiety, he himself spoke in her behalf, and shed more tears for her sake than he did when his own property and his own life were imperilled. Moreover, when Cimon had had an incestuous intrigue with Elpinice, his sister, who was afterwards given in marriage to Callias, and when he was banished, Pericles contrived his recal, exacting the favours of Elpinice as his recompense.

And Pythænetus, in the third book of his History of Aegina, says that Periander fell violently in love with Melissa, the daughter of Procles of Epidaurus, when he had seen her clothed in the Peloponnesian fashion (for she had on no cloak, but a single tunic only, and was acting as cupbearer to the young men,) and he married her. And Tigris of Leucadia was the mistress of Pyrrhus king of Epirus, who was the third in descent from the Pyrrhus who invaded Italy; but Olympias, the young man's mother, took her off by poison.

And Ulpian, as if he had got some unexpected gain, while Myrtilus was still speaking, said:—Do we say ὁ τίγρις in the masculine gender? for I know that Philemon says this in his play called Neæra:—

1. A. Just as Seleucus sent the tiger (τὴν τίγριν) here,
2. Which we have seen, so we in turn ought now
3. To send Seleucus back a beast from here.
4. B. Let's send him a trigeranum;[*](This probably means a large crane.) for that's
5. An animal not known much in those parts.

And Myrtilus said to him:—Since you interrupted us when we were making out a catalogue of women, not like the lists of Sosicrates the Phanagorite, or like the catalogue of women of Nilænetus the Samian or Abderitan (whichever was really his native country), I, digressing a little, will turn to your question, my old Phœnix. Learn, then, that Alexis, in his

Pyraunus, has said τὸν τίγριν, using the word in the mas- culine gender; and these are his words:

1. Come, open quick the door; I have been here,
2. Though all unseen, walking some time,—a statue,
3. A millstone, and a seahorse, and a wall,
4. The tiger (ὁ τίγρις) of Seleucus.

And I might quote other evidences of the fact, but I postpone them for the present, while I finish my catalogue, as far as it comprehends the beautiful women.

For Clearchus speaks thus concerning Epaminondas:

Epaminondas the Theban behaved with more dignity than these men did; but still there was a want of dignity in the way in which he was induced to waver in his sentiments in his association with women, as any one will admit who considers his conduct with the wife of Lacon.

But Hyperides the orator, having driven his son Glaucippus out of his house, received into it that most extravagant courtesan Myrrhina, and kept her in the city; and he also kept Aristagora in the Piræus, and Phila at Eleusis, whom he bought for a very large sum, and then emancipated; and after that he made her his housekeeper, as Idomeneus relates. But, in his oration in defence of Phryne, Hyperides confesses that he is in love with the woman; and yet, before he had got cured of that love, he introduced the above-mentioned Myrrhina into his house.

Now Phryne was a native of Thespiæ; and being prosecuted by Euthias on a capital charge, she was acquitted: on which account Euthias was so indignant that he never instituted any prosecution afterwards, as Hermippus tells us. But Hyperides, when pleading Phryne's cause, as he did not succeed at all, but it was plain that the judges were about to condemn her, brought her forth into the middle of the court, and, tearing open her tunic and displaying her naked bosom, employed all the end of his speech, with the highest oratorical art, to excite the pity of her judges by the sight of her beauty, and inspired the judges with a superstitious fear, so that they were so moved by pity as not to be able to stand the idea of condemning to death

a prophetess and priestess of Venus.

And when she was acquitted, a decree was drawn up in the following form:

That hereafter no orator should endeavour to excite pity on behalf of any

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one, and that no man or woman, when impeached, shall have his or her case decided on while present.

But Phryne was a really beautiful woman, even in those parts of her person which were not generally seen: on which account it was not easy to see her naked; for she used to wear a tunic which covered her whole person, and she never used the public baths. But on the solemn assembly of the Eleusinian festival, and on the feast of the Posidonia, then she laid aside her garments in the sight of all the assembled Greeks, and having undone her hair, she went to bathe in the sea; and it was from her that Apelles took his picture of the Venus Anadyomene; and Praxiteles the statuary, who was a lover of hers, modelled the Cnidian Venus from her body; and on the pedestal of his statue of Cupid, which is placed below the stage in the theatre, he wrote the following inscription:—

1. Praxiteles has devoted earnest care
2. To representing all the love he felt,
3. Drawing his model from his inmost heart:
4. I gave myself to Phryne for her wages,
5. And now I no more charms employ, nor arrows,
6. Save those of earnest glances at my love.

And he gave Phryne the choice of his statues, whether she chose to take the Cupid, or the Satyrus which is in the street called the Tripods; and she, having chosen the Cupid, consecrated it in the temple at Thespiæ. And the people of her neighbourhood, having had a statue made of Phryne herself, of solid gold, consecrated it in the temple of Delphi, having had it placed on a pillar of Pentelican marble; and the statue was made by Praxiteles. And when Crates the Cynic saw it, he called it

a votive offering of the profligacy of Greece.

And this statue stood in the middle between that of Archidamus, king of the Lacedæmonians, and that of Philip the son of Amyntas; and it bore this inscription—

Phryne of Thespiæ, the daughter of Epicles,

as we are told by Alcetas, in the second book of his treatise on the Offerings at Delphi.

But Apollodorus, in his book on Courtesans, says that there were two women named Phryne, one of whom was nicknamed Clausigelos,[*](From κλαίω, to weep, and γέλως, laughter.) 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:—

1. Before our time, the Thespian Phryne was
2. Far the most famous of all courtesans;
3. And even though you're later than her age,
4. Still you have heard of the trial which she stood.
5. She was accused on a capital charge
6. Before the Heliæa, being said
7. To have corrupted all the citizens;
8. But she besought the judges separately
9. With tears, and so just saved herself from judgment.

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 stepped 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 Laced$emonian 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—

1. Hear me now praying, goddess, nurse of youths,
2. And grant that this my love may scorn young men,
3. And their most feeble fancies and embraces;
4. And rather cling to grey-headed old men,
5. Whose minds are vigorous, though their limbs be weak.

And these verses are some of those which are at time attributed to Homer. But he mentions Theoris by name, speaking thus in one of his plain choruses:—

1. For dear to me Theoris is.

And towards the end of his life, as Hegesander says, he was a lover of the courtesan Archippa, and he left her the heiress of all his property; but as Archippa cohabited with Sophocles, though he was very old, Smicrines, her former lover, being asked by some one what Archippa was doing, said very wittily,

Why, like the owls, she is sitting on the tombs.

But Isocrates also, the most modest of all the orators, had a mistress named Metanira, who was very beautiful, as Lysias relates in his Letters. But Demosthenes, in his oration against Neæra, says that Metanira was the mistress of Lysias. And Lysias also was desperately in love with Lagis the courtesan, whose panegyric Cephalus the orator wrote, just as Alcidamas the Elæan, the pupil of Gorgias, himself wrote a panegyric on the courtesan Nais. And, in his oration against Philonides, who was under prosecution for an assault, (if, at least, the oration be a genuine one,) Lysias says that Nais was the mistress of Philonides, writing as follows:—

There is then a woman who is a courtesan, Nais by name, whose keeper is Archias; but your friend Philonides states himself to be in love with her.

Aristophanes also mentions her in his Gerytades, and perhaps also in his Plutus, where he says—

1. Is it not owing to you the greedy Lais
2. Does love Philonides

For perhaps here we ought to read Nais, and not Lais. But Hermippus, in his Essay on Isocrates, says that Isocrates, when he was advancing in years, took the courtesan Lagisca to his house, and had a daughter by her. And Strattis speaks of her in these lines:—

1. And while she still was in her bed, I saw
2. Isocrates' concubine, Lagisca,
3. Playing her tricks; and with her the flute-maker.

And Lysias, in his speech against Lais, (if, at least, the oration be a genuine one,) mentions her, giving a list of other courtesans also, in the following words:—"Philyra indeed abandoned the trade of a courtesan while she was still young; and Scione, and Hippaphesis, and Theoclea, and Psamathe, and Lagisca, and Anthea, and Aristoclea, all abandoned it also at an early age."

But it is reported that Demosthenes the orator had children by a courtesan; at all events he himself, in his speech about gold, introduced his children before the court, in order to obtain pity by their means, without their mother; although it was customary to bring forward the wives of those who were on their trial; however, he did this for shame's sake, hoping to avoid calumny. But this orator was exceedingly addicted to amorous indulgences, as Idomeneus tells us. Accordingly, being in love with a youth named Aristarchus, he once, when he was intoxicated, insulted Nicodemus on his account, and struck out his eyes. He is related also to have been very extravagant in his table, and his followers, and in women. Therefore, his secretary once said,

But what can any one say of Demosthenes? For everything that he has thought of for a whole year, is all thrown into confusion by one woman in one night.

Accordingly, he is said to have received into his house a youth named Cnosion, although he had a wife; and she, being indignant at this, went herself and slept with Cnosion.

And Demetrius the king, the last of all Alexander's successors, had a mistress named Myrrhina, a Samian courtesan; and in every respect but the crown, he made her his partner in the kingdom, as Nicolaus of Damascus tells us. And Ptolemy the son of Ptolemy Philadelphus the king, who was governor of the garrison in Ephesus, had a mistress named Irene. And she, when plots were laid against Ptolemy by the Thracians at Ephesus, and when he fled to the temple of Diana, fled with him: and when the conspirators had murdered him, Irene seizing hold of the bars of the doors of the temple, sprinkled the altar with his blood till they slew her also. And Sophron the governor of Ephesus had a mistress, Danae, the daughter of Leontium the Epicurean, who was also a courtesan herself. And by her means he was saved when a plot was laid against him by Laodice, and Laodice was thrown

down a precipice, as Phylarchus relates in his twelfth book in these words: “Danae was a chosen companion of Laodice, and was trusted by her with all her secrets; and, being the daughter of that Leontium who had studied with Epicurus the natural philosopher, and having been herself formerly the mistress of Sophron, she, perceiving that Laodice was laying a plot to murder Sophron, revealed the plot to Sophron by a sign. And he, understanding the sign, and pretending to agree to what she was saying to him, asked two days to deliberate on what he should do. And, when she had agreed to that, he fled away by night to Ephesus. But Laodice, when she learnt what had been done by Danae, threw her down a precipice, discarding all recollection of their former friendship. And they say that Danae, when she perceived the danger which was impending over her, was interrogated by Laodice, and refused to give her any answer; but, when she was dragged to the precipice, then she said, that

many people justly despise the Deity, and they may justify themselves by my case, who having saved a man who was to me as my husband, am requited in this manner by the Deity. But Laodice, who murdered her husband, is thought worthy of such honour.

The same Phylarchus also speaks of Mysta, in his fourteenth book, in these terms:

Mysta was the mistress of Seleucus the king, and when Seleucus was defeated by the Galatæ, and was with difficulty able to save himself by flight, she put off the robes of a queen which she had been accustomed to wear, and assumed the garment of an ordinary servant; and being taken prisoner, was carried away with the rest of the captives. And being sold in the same manner as her handmaidens, she came to Rhodes; and there, when she had revealed who she was, she was sent back with great honour to Seleucus by the Rhodians.

But Demetrius Phalereus being in love with Lampito, a courtesan of Samos, was pleased when he himself was addressed as Lampito, as Diyllus tells us; and he also had himself called Charitoblepharos.[*](That is, With beautiful Eyelids; from χάρις, grace, and βλέφαρον, an eyelid.) And Nicarete the courtesan was the mistress of Stephanus the orator; and Metanira was the mistress of Lysias the sophist; and these

women were the slaves of Casius the Elean, with many other such, as Antea, Stratola, Aristoclea, Phila, Isthmias, and Neæra. But Neæra was the mistress of Stratoclides, and also of Xenoclides the poet, and of Hipparchus the actor, and of Phrynion the Pæanian, who was the son of Demon and the nephew of Demochares. And Phrynichus. and Stephanus the orator used to have Neæra in turn, each a day, since their friends had so arbitrated the matter for them; and the daughter of Neæra, whose name was Strymbela, and who was afterwards called Phano, Stephanus gave (as if she had been his own daughter) in marriage to Phrastor of Aegialea; as Demosthenes tells us in his oration against Neæra. And he also speaks in the following manner about Sinope the courtesan:

And you punished Archias the hierophant, when he was convicted before the regular tribunals of behaving with impiety, and offering sacrifices which were contrary to the laws of the nation. And he was accused also of other things, and among them of having sacrificed a victim on the festival of Ceres, which was offered by Sinope the courtesan, on the altar which is in the court of the temple at Eleusis, though it is against the law to sacrifice any victims on that day; and though, too, it was no part of his duty to sacrifice at all, but it belonged to the priestess to do so.

Plangon the Milesian was also a celebrated courtesan; and she, as she was most wonderfully beautiful, was beloved by a young man of Colophon, who had a mistress already whose name was Bacchis. Accordingly, when this young man began to address his solicitations to Plangon, she, having heard of. the beauty of Bacchis, and wishing to make the young man abandon his love for her, when she was unable to effect that, she required as the price of her favours the necklace of Bacchis, which was very celebrated. And he, as he was exceedingly in love, entreated Bacchis not to see him totally overwhelmed with despair; and Bacchis, seeing the excited state of the young man, gave him the necklace. And Plangon, when she saw the freedom from jealousy which was exhibited by Bacchis, sent her back the necklace, but kept the young man: and ever after Plangon and Bacchis were friends, loving the young man in common; and the Ionians being amazed at this, as Menetor tells us in his treatise concerning Offerings, gave Plangon the name

of Pasiphila.[*](The universal Friend.) And Archilochus mentions her in the, following lines:—

1. As a fig-tree planted on a lofty rock
2. Feeds many crows and jackdaws, so Pasiphila's
3. A willing entertainer of all strangers.

That Menander the poet was a lover of Glycera, is notorious to everybody; but still he was not well pleased with her. For when Philemon was in love with a courtesan, and in one of his plays called her

Excellent,

Menander, in one of his plays, said, in contradiction to this, that there was no courtesan who was good.

And Harpalus the Macedonian, who robbed Alexander of vast sums of money and then fled to Athens, being in love with Pythionica, spent an immense deal of money on her; and she was a courtesan. And when she died he erected a monument to her which cost him many talents. And as he was carrying her out to burial, as Posidonius tells us in the twenty-second book of his History, he had the body accompanied with a band of the most eminent artists of all kinds, and with all sorts of musical instruments and songs. And Dicæarchus, in his Essay on the Descent to the Cave of Trophonius, says,—

And that same sort of thing may happen to any one who goes to the city of the Athenians, and who proceeds by the road leading from Eleusis, which is called the Sacred Road; for, if he stops at that point from which he first gets a sight of Athens, and of the temple, and of the citadel, he will see a tomb built by the wayside, of such a size that there is none other near which can be compared with it for magnitude. And at first, as would be natural, he would pronounce it to be the tomb, beyond all question, of Miltiades, or Cimon, or Pericles, or of some other of the great men of Athens. And above all, he would feel sure that it had been erected by the city at the public expense; or at all events by some public decree; and then, again, when he heard it was the tomb of Pythionica the courtesan, what must be his feelings?

And Theopompus also, in his letter to Alexander, speaking reproachfully of the profligacy of Harpalus, says,—

But just consider and listen to the truth, as you may hear from the people of Babylon, as to the manner in which he treated Pythionica when she was dead; who was originally the slave of

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Bacchis, the female flute-player. And Bacchis herself had been the slave of Sinope the Thracian, who brought her establishment of harlots from Aegina to Athens; so that she was not only trebly a slave, but also trebly a harlot. He, however, erected two monuments to her at an expense exceeding two hundred talents. And every one marvelled that no one of all those who died in Cilicia, in defence of your dominions and of the freedom of the Greeks, had had any tomb adorned for them either by him or by any other of the governors of the state; but that a tomb should be erected to Pythionica the courtesan, both in Athens and in Babylon; and they have now stood a long time. For a man who ventured to call himself a friend to you, has dared to consecrate a temple and a spot of ground to a woman whom everybody knew to have been common to every one who chose at the same fixed price, and to call both the temple and the altar those of Pythionica Venus; and in so doing, he despised also the vengeance of the Gods, and endeavoured to insult the honours to which you are entitled.

Philemon also mentions these circumstances, in his comedy called the Babylonian, where he says—

1. You shall be queen of Babylon if the Fates
2. Will but permit it. Sure you recollect
3. Pythionica and proud Harpalus.

Alexis also mentions her in his Lyciscus.