Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera

She called them by the name of daughters in order that, by giving out that they were free women, she might exact the largest fees from those who wished to enjoy them. When she had reaped the profit of the youthful prime of each, she sold them, all seven, without omitting one—Anteia and Stratola and Aristocleia and Metaneira and Phila and Isthmias and this Neaera.

Who it was who purchased them severally, and how they were set free by those who bought them from Nicaretê, I will tell you in the course of my speech, if you care to hear and if the water in the water-clock holds out. I wish for the moment to return to the defendant Neaera, and prove to you that she belonged to Nicaretê, and that she lived as a prostitute letting out her person for hire to those who wished to enjoy her.

Lysias, the sophist,[*](This was the well-known orator.) being the lover of Metaneira, wished, in addition to the other expenditures which he lavished upon her, also to initiate her; for he considered that everything else which he expended upon her was being taken by the woman who owned her, but that from whatever he might spend on her behalf for the festival and the initiation the girl herself would profit and be grateful to him. So he asked Nicaretê to come to the mysteries bringing with her Metaneira that she might be initiated, and he promised that he would himself initiate her.

When they got here, Lysias did not bring them to his own house, out of regard for his wife, the daughter of Brachyllus and his own niece, and for his own mother, who was elderly and who lived in the same house; but he lodged the two, Metaneira and Nicaretê, with Philostratus of Colonus,[*](Colonus, a deme of the tribe Aegeïs.) who was a friend of his and was as yet unmarried. They were accompanied by this woman Neaera, who had already taken up the trade of a prostitute, young as she was; for she was not yet old enough.

To prove the truth of my statements—that the defendant belonged to Nicaretê and followed in her train, and that she prostituted her person to anyone who wished to pay for it—I will call Philostratus as witness to these facts.

The Deposition

Philostratus, son of Dionysius, of Colonus, deposes that he knows that Neaera was a slave of Nicaretê, to whom Metaneira also belonged, that they were residents of Corinth, and that they stayed at his house when they came to Athens for the mysteries, and that Lysias the son of Cephalêus, who was an intimate friend of his, established them in his house.

Again after this, men of Athens, Simus the Thessalian came here with the defendant Neaera for the great Panathenaea.[*](The Great Panathenaea was celebrated in Athens every fifth year in the month Hecatombaeon (July).) Nicaretê came with her, and they lodged with Ctesippus son of Glauconides,of Cydantidae[*](Cydantidae, a deme of the tribe Aegeïs.); and the defendant Neaera drank and dined with them in the presence of many men, as any courtesan would do.

To prove the truth of my statements, I will call witnesses to these facts.