48. There was a courtesan named Metanira; and when Democles the

parasite, who was nicknamed Lagynion, fell down in a lot of whitewash,

she said, "Yes, for you have devoted yourself to a place where there

are pebbles." And when he sprung upon a couch which was near him, "Take

care," said she, "lest you get upset." These sayings are recorded

by Hegesander. And Aristodemus, in the second book of his Laughable

Records, says that Gnathæna was hired by two men, a soldier and a

branded slave; and so when the soldier, in his rude manner, called her

a cistern, "How can I be so?" said she; "is it because two rivers,

Lycus and Eleutherus, fall into me?" On one occasion, when some poor

lovers of the daughter of Gnathæna came to feast at her house, and

threatened to throw it down, saying that they had brought spades

and mattocks on purpose; "But," said Gnathæna, "if you had those

implements, you should have pawned them, and brought some money with

you." And Gnathæna was always very neat and witty in all she said;

and she even compiled a code of laws for banquets, according to which

lovers were to be admitted to her and to her daughters, in imitation of

the philosophers, who had drawn up similar documents. And Callimachus

has recorded this code of hers in the third Catalogue of Laws which he

has given; and he has quoted the first words of it as follows:—"This

law has been compiled, being fair and equitable; and it is written in

three hundred and twenty-three verses."

49. But a slave who had been flogged hired Callistium, who was

nicknamed Poor Helen; and as it was summer, and he was lying down

naked, she, seeing the marks of the whip, said, "Where did you get

this, you unhappy man?" and he said, "Some broth was spilt over me when

I was a boy." And she said, "It must have been made of neats'-leather."

And once, when Menander the poet had failed with one of his plays,

and came to her house, Glycera brought him some milk, and recommended

him to drink it. But he said he would rather not, for there was some

γραῦς[37] on it. But she replied, "Blow it away, and take what

there is beneath."

Thais said once to a boastful lover of hers, who had borrowed some

goblets from a great many people, and said that he meant to break them

up, and make others of them, "You will destroy what belongs to each

private person." Leontium was once sitting at table with a lover of

hers, when Glycera came in to supper; and as the man began to pay more

attention to Glycera, Leontium was much annoyed: and presently, when

her friend turned round, and asked her what she was vexed at, she said,

"Ἡ ὑστέρα[38] pains me."

A lover of hers once sent his seal to Lais the Corinthian, and desired

her to come to him; but she said, "I cannot come; it is only clay."

Thais was one day going to a lover of hers, who smelt like a goat; and

when some one asked her whither she was going, she said—

To dwell with Ægeus,[39] great Pandion's son.

Phryne, too, was once supping with a man of the same description, and,

lifting up the hide of a pig, she said, "Take it, and eat[40] it."

And once, when one of her friends sent her some wine, which was very

good, but the quantity was small; and when he told her that it was ten

years old; "It is very little of its age," said she. And once, when

the question was asked at a certain banquet, why it is that crowns are

hung up about banqueting-rooms, she said, "Because they delight the

mind."[41] And once, when a slave, who had been flogged, was giving

himself airs as a young man towards her, and saying that he had been

often entangled, she pretended to look vexed; and when he asked her

the reason, "I am jealous of you," said she, "because you have been so

often smitten."[42] Once a very covetous lover of hers was coaxing her,

and saying to her, "You are the Venus of Praxiteles;" "And you," said

she, "are the Cupid of Phidias."[43]

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

50. And as I am aware that some of those men who have been involved

in the administration of affairs of state have mentioned courtesans,

either accusing or excusing them, I will enumerate some instances

of those who have done so. For Demosthenes, in his speech against

Androtion, mentions Sinope and Phanostrate; and respecting Sinope,

Herodicus the pupil of Crates says, in the sixth book of his treatise

on People mentioned in the Comic Poets, that she was called Abydus,

because she was an old woman. And Antiphanes mentions her in his

Arcadian, and in his Gardener, and in his Sempstress, and in his Female

Fisher, and in his Neottis. And Alexis mentions her in his Cleobuline,

and Callicrates speaks of her in his Moschion; and concerning

Phanostrate, Apollodorus, in his treatise on the Courtesans at Athens,

says that she was called Phtheiropyle, because she used to stand at the

door (πύλη) and hunt for lice (φθεῖρες).

And in his oration against Aristagoras, Hyperides says—"And again you

have named, in the same manner, the animals called aphyæ." Now, aphyæ,

besides meaning anchovies, was also a nickname for some courtesans;

concerning whom the before-mentioned Apollodorus says—"Stagonium and

Amphis were two sisters, and they were called Aphyæ, because they were

white, and thin, and had large eyes." And Antiphanes, in his book on

Courtesans, says that Nicostratis was called Aphya for the same reason.

And the same Hyperides, in his speech against Mantitheus, who was being

prosecuted for an assault, speaks in the following manner respecting

Glycera—"Bringing with him Glycera the daughter of Thalassis in a

pair-horse chariot." But it is uncertain whether this is the same

Glycera who was the mistress of Harpalus; concerning whom Theopompus

speaks in his treatise on the Chian Epistle, saying that after the

death of Pythionica, Harpalus sent for Glycera to come to him from

Athens; and when she came, she lived in the palace which is at Tarsus,

and was honoured with royal honours by the populace, and was called

queen; and an edict was issued, forbidding any one to present Harpalus

with a crown, without at the same time presenting Glycera with another.

And at Rhossus, he went so far as to erect a brazen statue of her by

the side of his own statue. And Clitarchus has given the same account

in his History of Alexander. But the author of Agen, a satyric drama,

(whoever he was, whether it was Python of Catana, or king Alexander

himself,) says—

And now they say that Harpalus has sent them

Unnumber'd sacks of corn, no fewer than

Those sent by Agen, and is made a citizen:

But this was Glycera's corn, and it may be

Ruin to them, and not a harlot's earnest.

51. And Lysias, in his oration against Lais, if, indeed, the speech is

a genuine one, mentions these circumstances—"Philyra abandoned the

trade of a harlot when she was still quite young; and so did Scione,

and Hippaphesis, and Theoclea, and Psamathe, and Lagisca, and Anthea."

But perhaps, instead of Anthea, we ought to read Antea. For I do not

find any mention made by any one of a harlot named Anthea. But there is

a whole play named after Antea, by either Eunicus or Philyllius. And

the author of the oration against Neæra, whoever he was, also mentions

her. But in the oration against Philonides, who was being prosecuted

for an assault, Lysias, if at least it is a genuine speech of his,

mentions also a courtesan called Nais. And in his speech against Medon,

for perjury, he mentions one by the name of Anticyra; but this was only

a nickname given to a woman, whose real name was Hoia, as Antiphanes

informs us in his treatise on Courtesans, where he says that she was

called Anticyra,[44] because she was in the habit of drinking with

men who were crazy and mad; or else because she was at one time the

mistress of Nicostratus the physician, and he, when he died, left her a

great quantity of hellebore, and nothing else. Lycurgus, also, in his

oration against Leocrates, mentions a courtesan named Irenis, as being

the mistress of Leocrates. And Hyperides mentions Nico in his oration

against Patrocles. And we have already mentioned that she used to be

nicknamed the Goat, because she had ruined Thallus the innkeeper. And

that the goats are very fond of the young shoots of the olive (θάλλοι),

on which account the animal is never allowed to approach the Acropolis,

and is also never sacrificed to Minerva, is a fact which we shall

dilate upon hereafter. But Sophocles, in his play called The Shepherds,

mentions that this animal does browse upon the young shoots, speaking

as follows—

For early in the morning, ere a man

Of all the folks about the stable saw me,

As I was bringing to the goat a thallus

Fresh pluck'd, I saw the army marching on

By the projecting headland.

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

Alexis also mentions Nannium, in his Tarentines, thus—

But Nannium is mad for love of Bacchus,—

jesting upon her as addicted to intoxication. And Menander, in his

false Hercules, says—

Did he not try to wheedle Nannium?

And Antiphanes, in his treatise on Courtesans, says—"Nannium was

nicknamed the Proscenium, because she had a beautiful face, and used

to wear very costly garments embroidered with gold, but when she

was undressed she was a very bad figure. And Corone was Nannium's

daughter, and she was nicknamed Tethe, from her exceedingly debauched

habits." Hyperides, in his oration against Patrocles, also speaks of

a female flute-player named Nemeas. And we may wonder how it was that

the Athenians permitted a courtesan to have such a name, which was

that of a most honourable and solemn festival. For not only those who

prostituted themselves, but all other slaves also were forbidden to

take such names as that, as Polemo tells us, in his treatise on the

Acropolis.

52. The same Hyperides also mentions my Ocimum, as you call her, O

Cynulcus, in his second oration against Aristagoras, speaking thus—"As

Lais, who appears to have been superior in beauty to any woman who had

ever been seen, and Ocimum, and Metanira." And Nicostratus, a poet of

the middle comedy, mentions her also in his Pandrosus, where he says—

Then go the same way to Aerope,

And bid her send some clothes immediately,

And brazen vessels, to fair Ocimum.

And Menander, in his comedy called The Flatterer, gives the following

catalogue of courtesans—

Chrysis, Corone, Ischas, and Anticyra,

And the most beautiful Nannarium,—

All these you had.

And Philetærus, in his Female Hunter, says—

Is not Cercope now extremely old,

Three thousand years at least? and is not Telesis,

Diopithes' ugly daughter, three times that?

And as for old Theolyte, no man

Alive can tell the date when she was born.

Then did not Lais persevere in her trade

Till the last day of her life? and Isthmias,

Neæra too, and Phila, grew quite rotten.

I need not mention all the Cossyphæ,

Galenæ, and Coronæ; nor will I

Say aught of Nais, as her teeth are gone.

And Theophilus, in his Amateur of the Flute, says—

Lest he should with disastrous shipwreck fall

Into Meconis, Lais, or Sisymbrion,

Or Barathrum, or Thallusa, or any other

With whom the panders bait their nets for youths,

Nannium, or Malthace.

53. Now when Myrtilus had uttered all this with extreme volubility, he

added:—May no such disaster befal you, O philosophers, who even before

the rise of the sect called Voluptuaries, yourselves broke down the

wall of pleasure, as Eratosthenes somewhere or other expresses it. And

indeed I have now quoted enough of the smart sayings of the courtesans,

and I will pass on to another topic. And first of all, I will speak

of that most devoted lover of truth, Epicurus, who, never having been

initiated into the encyclic series of learning, used to say that

those were well off who applied themselves to philosophy in the same

way in which he did himself; and these were his words—"I praise and

congratulate you, my young man, because you have come over to the study

of philosophy unimbued with any system." On which account Timon styles

him—

The most unletter'd schoolmaster alive.

Now, had not this very Epicurus Leontium for his mistress, her, I mean,

who was so celebrated as a courtesan? But she did not cease to live as

a prostitute when she began to learn philosophy, but still prostituted

herself to the whole sect of Epicureans in the gardens, and to Epicurus

himself, in the most open manner; so that this great philosopher was

exceedingly fond of her, though he mentions this fact in his epistles

to Hermarchus.

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

54. 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.

55. And Aristippus every year used to spend whole days with her in

Ægina, 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 on the People who

have been admired and eminent in Sicily, says that Lais was a native

of Hyccara, which he describes 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—

_A._ Where do these damsels come from, and who are they?

_B._ At present they are come from Megara,

But they by birth are all Corinthians:

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—

This is the tomb of Lais, to whose beauty,

Equal to that of heavenly goddesses,

The glorious and unconquer'd Greece did bow;

Love was her father, Corinth was her home,

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.

56. 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:—

My mistress is the fair Archaianassa

From Colophon, a damsel in whom Love

Sits on her very wrinkles irresistible.

Wretched are those, whom in the flower of youth,

When first she came across the sea, she met;

They must have been entirely consumed.

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

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 recall, exacting the

favours of Elpinice as his recompense.

And Pythænetus, in the third book of his History of Ægina, 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 cup-bearer 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.

57. 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:—

_A._ Just as Seleucus sent the tiger (τὴν τίγριν) here,

Which we have seen, so we in turn ought now

To send Seleucus back a beast from here.

_B._ Let's send him a trigeranum;[45] for that's

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 masculine gender; and these are his words:

Come, open quick the door; I have been here,

Though all unseen, walking some time,—a statue,

A millstone, and a seahorse, and a wall,

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.

58. 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.

59. 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 anyone, and that no man or woman, when

impeached, shall have his or her case decided on while present."

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

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:—

Praxiteles has devoted earnest care

To representing all the love he felt,

Drawing his model from his inmost heart:

I gave myself to Phryne for her wages,

And now I no more charms employ, nor arrows,

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.

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.

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."

62. 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—

Is it not owing to you the greedy Lais

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:—

And while she still was in her bed, I saw

Isocrates' concubine, Lagisca,

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."

63. 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.

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

64. 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."

65. 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.[47]

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

Ægialea; 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."

66. 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.[48] And Archilochus mentions her in the following

lines:—

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

As a fig-tree planted on a lofty rock

Feeds many crows and jackdaws, so Pasiphila's

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.

67. 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 Bacchis, the female flute-player. And Bacchis herself had

been the slave of Sinope the Thracian, who brought her establishment of

harlots from Ægina 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—

You shall be queen of Babylon if the Fates

Will but permit it. Sure you recollect

Pythionica and proud Harpalus.

Alexis also mentions her in his Lyciscus.

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

68. But after the death of Pythionica, Harpalus sent for Glycera, and

she also was a courtesan, as Theopompus relates, when he says that

Harpalus issued an edict that no one should present him with a crown,

without at the same time paying a similar compliment to his prostitute;

and adds,—"He has also erected a brazen statue to Glycera in Rhossus of

Syria, where he intends to erect one of you, and another of himself.

And he has permitted her to dwell in the palace in Tarsus, and he

permits her to receive adoration from the people, and to bear the title

of Queen, and to be complimented with other presents, which are only

fit for your own mother and your own wife." And we have a testimony

coinciding with this from the author of the Satyric drama called Agen,

which was exhibited, on the occasion when the Dionysian festival was

celebrated on the banks of the river Hydaspes, by the author, whether

he was Pythen of Catana or Byzantium, or the king himself. And it was

exhibited when Harpalus was now flying to the sea-shore, after he had

revolted; and it mentions Pythionica as already dead; and Glycera,

as being with Harpalus, and as being the person who encouraged the

Athenians to receive presents from Harpalus. And the verses of the play

are as follows:—

_A._ There is a pinnacle, where never birds

Have made their nests, where the long reeds do grow;

And on the left is the illustrious temple

Raised to a courtesan, which Pallides

Erected, but repenting of the deed,

Condemn'd himself for it to banishment.

And when some magi of the barbarians

Saw him oppressed with the stings of conscience,

They made him trust that they could raise again

The soul of Pythionica.

And the author of the play calls Harpalus Pallides in this passage; but

in what follows, he speaks of him by his real name, saying—

_B._ But I do wish to learn from you, since I

Dwell a long way from thence, what is the fate

At present of the land of Athens; and

How all its people fare?

_A._ Why, when they said

That they were slaves, they plenty had to eat,

But now they have raw vegetables only,

And fennel, and but little corn or meat.

_B._ I likewise hear that Harpalus has sent them

A quantity of corn no less than Agen,

And has been made a citizen of Athens.

That corn was Glycera's. But it is perhaps

To them a pledge of ruin, not of a courtesan.

69. Naucratis also has produced some very celebrated courtesans of

exceeding beauty; for instance, Doricha, whom the beautiful Sappho,

as she became the mistress of her brother Charaxus, who had gone to

Naucratis on some mercantile business, accuses in her poetry of having

stripped Charaxus of a great deal of his property. But Herodotus calls

her Rhodopis, being evidently ignorant that Rhodopis and Doricha

were two different people; and it was Rhodopis who dedicated those

celebrated spits at Delphi, which Cratinus mentions in the following

lines—

* * * *

Posidippus also made this epigram on Doricha, although he had often

mentioned her in his Æthiopia, and this is the epigram—

Here, Doricha, your bones have long been laid,

Here is your hair, and your well-scented robe:

You who once loved the elegant Charaxus,

And quaff'd with him the morning bowl of wine.

But Sappho's pages live, and still shall live,

In which is many a mention of your name,

Which still your native Naucratis shall cherish,

As long as any ship sails down the Nile.

Archedice also was a native of Naucratis; and she was a courtesan of

great beauty. "For some how or other," as Herodotus says, "Naucratis is

in the habit of producing beautiful courtesans."

70. There was also a certain courtesan named Sappho, a native of

Eresus, who was in love with the beautiful Phaon, and she was very

celebrated, as Nymphis relates in his Voyage round Asia. But Nicarete

of Megara, who was a courtesan, was not a woman of ignoble birth, but

she was born of free parents, and was very well calculated to excite

affection by reason of her accomplishments, and she was a pupil of

Stilpon the philosopher.

There was also Bilisticha the Argive, who was a very celebrated

courtesan, and who traced her descent back to the Atridæ, as those

historians relate who have written the history of the affairs of

Argolis. There was also a courtesan named Leæna, whose name is very

celebrated, and she was the mistress of Harmodius, who slew the tyrant.

And she, being tortured by command of Hippias the tyrant, died under

the torture without having said a word. Stratocles the orator also

had for his mistress a courtesan whose name was Leme,[49] and who was

nicknamed Parorama, because she used to let whoever chose come to her

for two drachmas, as Gorgias says in his treatise on Courtesans.

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

Now though Myrtilus appeared to be intending to say no more after

this, he resumed his subject, and said:—But I was nearly forgetting,

my friends, to tell you of the Lyda of Antimachus, and also of her

namesake Lyda, who was also a courtesan and the mistress of Lamynthius

the Milesian. For each of these poets, as Clearchus tells us in his

Tales of Love, being inflamed with love for the barbarian Lyde, wrote

poems, the one in elegiac, and the other in lyric verse, and they both

entitled their poems "Lyde." I omitted also to mention the female

flute-player Nanno, the mistress of Mimnermus, and Leontium, the

mistress of Hermesianax of Colophon. For he inscribed with her name, as

she was his mistress, three books of elegiac poetry, in the third of

which he gives a catalogue of things relating to Love; speaking in the

following manner:—

71.

You know, too, how Œager's much-loved son,

Skilfully playing on the Thracian harp,

Brought back from hell his dear Agriope,

And sail'd across th' inhospitable land

Where Charon drags down in his common boat

The souls of all the dead; and far resounds

The marshy stream slow creeping through the reeds

That line the death-like banks. But Orpheus dared

With fearless soul to pass that lonely wave,

Striking his harp with well-accustom'd hand.

And with his lay he moved the pitiless gods,

And various monsters of unfeeling hell.

He raised a placid smile beneath the brows

Of grim Cocytus; he subdued the glance

So pitiless of the fierce, implacable dog,

Who sharpen'd in the flames his fearful bark,

Whose eye did glare with fire, and whose heads

With triple brows struck fear on all who saw.

He sang, and moved these mighty sovereigns;

So that Agriope once again did breathe

The breath of life. Nor did the son of Mene,

Friend of the Graces, the sweet-voiced Musæus,

Leave his Antiope without due honour,

Who, amid the virgins sought by many suitors

In holiest Eleusis' sacred soil,

Sang the loud joyful song of secret oracles,

Priestess of Rharian[50] Ceres, warning men.

And her renown to Pluto's realms extends.

Nor did these bards alone feel Cupid's sway;

The ancient bard, leaving Bœotia's halls,

Hesiod, the keeper of all kinds of learning,

Came to fair Ascra's Heliconian village,

Where long he sought Eoia's wayward love;

Much he endured, and many books he wrote,

The maid the inspiring subject of his song.

And that great poet whom Jove's Fate protects,

Sweetest of all the votaries of the muse,

Immortal Homer, sought the rocky isle

Of Ithaca, moved by love for all the virtue

And beauty of the chaste Penelope.

Much for her sake he suffer'd; then he sought

A barren isle far from his native land,

And wept the race of Icarus, and of Amyclus

And Sparta, moved by his own woes' remembrances.

Who has not heard of sweet Mimnermus' fame;

Parent of plaintive elegiac verses,

Which to his lyre in sweetest sounds he sang?

Much did he suffer, burning with the love

Of cruel Nanno; and full oft inflamed

With ardent passion, did he feast with her,

Breathing his love to his melodious pipe;

And to his hate of fierce Hermobius

And Pherecles, tuneful utterance he gave.

Antimachus, too, felt the flame inspired

By Lydian Lyde; and he sought the stream

Of golden-waved Pactolus, where he laid

His lost love underneath the tearless earth,

And weeping, went his way to Colophon;

And with his wailing thus sweet volumes fill'd,

Shunning all toil or other occupation.

How many festive parties frequent rang

With the fond love of Lesbian Alcæus,

Who sang the praises of the amorous Sappho,

And grieved his Teian[51] rival, breathing songs

Such as the nightingale would gladly imitate;

For the divine Anacreon also sought

To win the heart of the sacred poetess,

Chief ornament of all the Lesbian bands;

And so he roved about, now leaving Samos,

Now parting from his own enslavèd land,

Parent of vines, to wine-producing Lesbos;

And often he beheld Cape Lectum there,

Across th' Æolian wave. But greatest of all,

The Attic bee[52] oft left its rugged hill,

Singing in tragic choruses divine,

Bacchus and Love * *

* * * * *

I tell, besides, how that too cautious man,

Who earn'd deserved hate from every woman,

Stricken by a random shot, did not escape

Nocturnal pangs of Love; but wander'd o'er

The Macedonian hills and valleys green,

Smitten with love for fair Argea, who

Kept Archelaus' house, till the angry god

Found a fit death for cold Euripides,

Striving with hungry hounds in vain for life.

Then there's the man whom, mid Cythera's rocks,

The Muses rear'd, a faithful worshipper

Of Bacchus and the flute, Philoxenus:

Well all men know by what fierce passion moved

He to this city came; for all have heard

His praise of Galatea, which he sang

Amid the sheepfolds. And you likewise know

The bard to whom the citizens of Cos

A brazen statue raised to do him honour,

And who oft sang the praises of his Battis,

Sitting beneath a plane-tree's shade, Philetas;

In verses that no time shall e'er destroy.

Nor do those men whose lot in life is hard,

Seeking the secret paths of high philosophy,

Or those whom logic's mazes hold in chains,

Or that laborious eloquence of words,

Shun the sharp struggle and sweet strife of Love;

But willing, follow his triumphant car.

Long did the charms of fair Theano bind

The Samian Pythagoras, who laid bare

The tortuous mysteries of geometry;

Who all the mazes of the sphere unfolded,

And knew the laws which regulate the world,

The atmosphere which doth surround the world,

And motions of the sun, and moon, and stars.

Nor did the wisest of all mortal men,

Great Socrates, escape the fierce contagion,

But yielded to the fiery might of Venus,

And to the fascinations of the sex,

Laying his cares down at Aspasia's feet;

And though all doubts of nature he could solve,

He found no refuge from the pursuit of Love.

Love, too, did draw within the narrow Isthmus

The Cyrenean sage: and winning Lais,

With her resistless charms, subdued and bound

Wise Aristippus, who philosophy

Deserted, and preferr'd a trifling life.

[Sidenote: COURTESANS.]

72. But in this Hermesianax is mistaken when he represents Sappho and

Anacreon as contemporaries. For the one lived in the time of Cyrus and

Polycrates; but Sappho lived in the reign of Alyattes, the father of

Crœsus. But Chameleon, in his treatise on Sappho, does assert that some

people say that these verses were made upon her by Anacreon—

Love, the golden-haired god,

Struck me with his purple ball,

And with his many wiles doth seize

And challenge me to sport with him.

But she—and she from Lesbos comes,

That populous and wealthy isle—

Laughs at my hair and calls it grey,

And will prefer a younger lover.

And he says, too, that Sappho says this to him—

You, O my golden-throned muse,

Did surely dictate that sweet hymn,

Which the noble Teian bard,

From the fair and fertile isle,

Chief muse of lovely womanhood,

Sang with his dulcet voice.

But it is plain enough in reality that this piece of poetry is not

Sappho's. And I think myself that Hermesianax is joking concerning the

love of Anacreon and Sappho. For Diphilus the comic poet, in his play

called Sappho, has represented Archilochus and Hipponax as the lovers

of Sappho.

Now it appears to me, my friends, that I have displayed some diligence

in getting up this amorous catalogue for you, as I myself am not a

person so mad about love as Cynulcus, with his calumnious spirit, has

represented me. I confess, indeed, that I am amorous, but I do deny

that I am frantic on the subject.

And why should I dilate upon my sorrows,

When I may hide them all in night and silence?

as Æschylus the Alexandrian has said in his Amphitryon. And this is the

same Æschylus who composed the Messenian poems—a man entirely without

any education.

[Sidenote: LOVE.]

73. Therefore I, considering that Love is a mighty and most powerful

deity, and that the Golden Venus is so too, recollect the verses of

Euripides on the subject, and say—

Dost thou not see how great a deity

Resistless Venus is? No tongue can tell,

No calculation can arrive at all

Her power, or her dominions' vast extent;

She nourishes you and me and all mankind,

And I can prove this, not in words alone,

But facts will show the might of this fair goddess.

The earth loves rain when the parch'd plains are dry,

And lose their glad fertility of yield

From want of moisture. Then the ample heaven,

When fill'd with rain, and moved by Venus' power,

Loves to descend to anxious earth's embrace;

Then when these two are join'd in tender love

They are the parents of all fruits to us,

They bring them forth, they cherish them; and so

The race of man both lives and flourishes.

And that most magnificent poet Æschylus, in his Danaides, introduces

Venus herself speaking thus—

Then, too, the earth feels love, and longs for wedlock,

And rain, descending from the amorous air,

Impregnates his desiring mate; and she

Brings forth delicious food for mortal man,—

Herds of fat sheep, and corn, the gift of Ceres;

The trees love moisture, too, and rain descends

T' indulge their longings, I alone the cause.

74. And again, in the Hippolytus[53] of Euripides, Venus says—

And all who dwell to th' eastward of the sea,

And the Atlantic waves, all who behold

The beams of the rising and the setting sun,

Know that I favour those who honour me,

And crush all those who boast themselves against me.

And, therefore, in the case of a young man who had every other

imaginable virtue, this one fault alone, that he did not honour Venus,

was the cause of his destruction. And neither Diana, who loved him

exceedingly, nor any other of the gods or demi-gods could defend him;

and accordingly, in the words of the same poet,—

Whoe'er denies that Love's the only god,[54]

Is foolish, ignorant of all that's true,

And knows not him who is the greatest deity

Acknowledged by all nations.

And the wise Anacreon, who is in everybody's mouth, is always

celebrating love. And, accordingly, the admirable Critias also speaks

of him in the following manner:—

Teos brought forth, a source of pride to Greece,

The sweet Anacreon, who with sweet notes twined

A wreath of tuneful song in woman's praise,

The choicest ornament of revelling feasts,

The most seductive charm; a match for flutes'

Or pipes' shrill aid, or softly moving lyre:

O Teian bard, your fame shall never die;

Age shall not touch it; while the willing slave

Mingles the wine and water in the bowl,

And fills the welcome goblet for the guests;

While female hands, with many twinkling feet,

Lead their glad nightly dance; while many drops,

Daughters of these glad cups, great Bacchus' juice,

Fall with good omen on the cottabus dish.

75. But Archytas the Harmonist, as Chamæleon calls him, says that

Alcman was the original poet of amatory songs, and that he was the

first poet to introduce melodies inciting to lawless indulgence, ...

being, with respect to women.... On which account he says in one of his

odes—

But Love again, so Venus wills,

Descends into my heart,

And with his gentle dew refreshes me.

He says also that he was in a moderate degree in love with

Megalostrate, who was a poetess, and who was able to allure lovers to

her by the charms of her conversation. And he speaks thus concerning

her—

This gift, by the sweet Muse inspired,

That lovely damsel gave,

The golden-hair'd Megalostrate.

And Stesichorus, who was in no moderate degree given to amorous

pursuits, composed many poems of this kind; which in ancient times were

called παιδιὰ and παιδικά. And, in fact, there was such emulation about

composing poems of this sort, and so far was any one from thinking

lightly of the amatory poets, that Æschylus, who was a very great poet,

and Sophocles, too, introduced the subject of the loves of men on the

stage in their tragedies: the one describing the love of Achilles for

Patroclus, and the other, in his Niobe, the mutual love of her sons (on

which account some men have given an ill name to that tragedy); and all

such passages as those are very agreeable to the spectators.

76. Ibycus, too, of Rhegium, speaks loudly as follows—

In early spring the gold Cydonian apples,

Water'd by streams from ever-flowing rivers,

Where the pure garden of the Virgins is,

And the young grapes, growing beneath the shade

Of ample branches, flourish and increase:

But Love, who never rests, gives me no shade,

Nor any recruiting dew; but like the wind,

Fierce rushing from the north, with rapid fire,

Urged on by Venus, with its maddening drought

Burns up my heart, and from my earliest youth,

Rules o'er my soul with fierce dominion.

[Sidenote: LOVE.]

And Pindar, who was of an exceedingly amorous disposition, says—

Oh may it ever be to me to love,

And to indulge my love, remote from fear;

And do not thou, my mind, pursue a chase

Beyond the present number of your years.

On which account Timon, in his Silli, says—

There is a time to love, a time to wed,

A time to leave off loving;

and adds that it is not well to wait until some one else shall say, in

the words of this same philosopher—

When this man ought to set (δύνειν) he now begins

To follow pleasure (ἡδίνεσθαι).

Pindar also mentions Theoxenus of Tenedos, who was much beloved by him;

and what does he say about him?—

And now (for seasonable is the time)

You ought, my soul, to pluck the flowers of love,

Which suit your age.

And he who, looking on the brilliant light that beams

From the sweet countenance of Theoxenus,

Is not subdued by love,

Must have a dark discolour'd heart,

Of adamant or iron made,

And harden'd long in the smith's glowing furnace.

That man is scorn'd by bright-eyed Venus.

Or else he's poor, and care doth fill his breast;

Or else beneath some female insolence

He withers, and so drags on an anxious life:

But I, like comb of wily bees,

Melt under Venus's warm rays,

And waste away while I behold

The budding graces of the youth I love.

Surely at Tenedos, persuasion soft,

And every grace,

Abides in the lovely son of wise Agesilas.

77. And many men used to be as fond of having boys for their favourites

as women for their mistresses. And this was a frequent fashion in

many very well regulated cities of Greece. Accordingly, the Cretans,

as I have said before, and the Chalcidians in Eubœa, were very much

addicted to the custom of having boy-favourites. Therefore Echemenes,

in his History of Crete, says that it was not Jupiter who carried off

Ganymede, but Minos. But the before-mentioned Chalcidians say that

Ganymede was carried off from them by Jupiter; and they show the

spot, which they call Harpagius;[55] and it is a place which produces

extraordinary myrtles. And Minos abandoned his enmity to the Athenians,

(although it had originated in consequence of the death of his son, out

of his love for Theseus: and he gave his daughter Phædra to him for

his wife,) as Zenis, or Zeneus, the Chian, tells us in his treatise on

Country.

78. But Hieronymus the Peripatetic says that the ancients were

anxious to encourage the practice of having boy-favourites, because

the vigorous disposition of youths, and the confidence engendered by

their association with each other, has often led to the overthrow of

tyrannies. For in the presence of his favourite, a man would choose to

do anything rather than to get the character of a coward. And this was

proved in practice in the case of the Sacred Band, as it was called,

which was established at Thebes by Epaminondas. And the death of the

Pisistratidæ was brought about by Harmodius and Aristogiton; and at

Agrigentum in Sicily, the mutual love of Chariton and Melanippus

produced a similar result, as we are told by Heraclides of Pontus, in

his treatise on Amatory Matters. For Melanippus and Chariton, being

informed against as plotting against Phalaris, and being put to the

torture in order to compel them to reveal their accomplices, not only

did not betray them, but even made Phalaris himself pity them, on

account of the tortures which they had undergone, so that he dismissed

them with great praise. On which account Apollo, being pleased at

this conduct, gave Phalaris a respite from death; declaring this to

the men who consulted the Pythian priestess as to how they might best

attack him. He also gave them an oracle respecting Chariton, putting

the Pentameter before the Hexameter, in the same way as afterwards

Dionysius the Athenian did, who was nicknamed the Brazen, in his

Elegies; and the oracle runs as follows—

Happy were Chariton and Melanippus,

Authors of heavenly love to many men.

[Sidenote: LOVE.]

The circumstances, too, that happened to Cratinus the Athenian, are

very notorious. For he, being a very beautiful boy, at the time when

Epimenides was purifying Attica by human sacrifices, on account of

some old pollution, as Neanthes of Cyzicus relates in the second book

of his treatise on Sacrifices, willingly gave himself up to secure

the safety of the woman who had brought him up. And after his death,

Apollodorus, his friend, also devoted himself to death, and so the

calamities of the country were terminated. And owing to favouritism of

this kind, the tyrants (for friendships of this sort were very adverse

to their interests) altogether forbad the fashion of making favourites

of boys, and wholly abolished it. And some of them even burnt down

and rased to the ground the palæstræ, considering them as fortresses

hostile to their own citadels; as, for instance, Polycrates the tyrant

of Samos did.

79. But among the Spartans, as Agnon the Academic philosopher tells us,

girls and boys are all treated in the same way before marriage: for the

great lawgiver Solon has said—

Admiring pretty legs and rosy lips;—

as Æschylus and Sophocles have openly made similar statements; the one

saying, in the Myrmidons—

You paid not due respect to modesty,

Led by your passion for too frequent kisses;—

and the other, in his Colchian Women, speaking of Ganymede, says—

Inflaming with his beauty mighty Jove.

But I am not ignorant that the stories which are told about Cratinus

and Aristodemus are stated by Polemo Periegetes, in his Replies to

Neanthes, to be all mere inventions. But you, O Cynulcus, believe that

all these stories are true, let them be ever so false. And you take

the greatest pleasure in all such poems as turn on boys and favourites

of that kind; while the fashion of making favourites of boys was first

introduced among the Grecians from Crete, as Timæus informs us. But

others say that Laius was the originator of this custom, when he was

received in hospitality by Pelops; and that he took a great fancy to

his son, Chrysippus, whom he put into his chariot and carried off, and

fled with to Thebes. But Praxilla the Sicyonian says that Chrysippus

was carried off by Jupiter. And the Celtæ, too, although they have the

most beautiful women of all the barbarians, still make great favourites

of boys.... And the Persians, according to the statement of Herodotus,

learnt from the Greeks to adopt this fashion.

80. Alexander the king was also very much in the habit of giving

in to this fashion. Accordingly, Dicæarchus, in his treatise on the

Sacrifice at Troy, says that he was so much under the influence of

Bagoas the eunuch, that he embraced him in the sight of the whole

theatre; and that when the whole theatre shouted in approval of the

action, he repeated it. And Carystius, in his Historic Commentaries,

says,—"Charon the Chalcidian had a boy of great beauty, who was a

great favourite of his: but when Alexander, on one occasion, at a great

entertainment given by Craterus, praised this boy very much, Charon

bade the boy go and salute Alexander: and he said, 'Not so, for he will

not please me so much as he will vex you.' For though the king was of a

very amorous disposition, still he was at all times sufficiently master

of himself to have a due regard to decorum, and to the preservation of

appearances. And in the same spirit, when he had taken as prisoners

the daughters of Darius, and his wife, who was of extraordinary

beauty, he not only abstained from offering them any insult, but he

took care never to let them feel that they were prisoners at all; but

ordered them to be treated in every respect, and to be supplied with

everything, just as if Darius had still been in his palace; on which

account, Darius, when he heard of this conduct, raised his hands to the

Sun and prayed that either he might be king, or Alexander."

But Ibycus states that Talus was a great favourite of Rhadamanthus the

Just. And Diotimus, in his Heraclea, says that Eurystheus was a great

favourite of Hercules, on which account he willingly endured all his

labours for his sake. And it is said that Argynnus was a favourite of

Agamemnon; and that they first became acquainted from Agamemnon seeing

Argynnus bathing in the Cephisus. And afterwards, when he was drowned

in this river, (for he was continually bathing in it,) Agamemnon

buried him, and raised a temple on the spot to Venus Argynnis. But

Licymnius of Chios, in his Dithyrambics, says that it was Hymenæus

of whom Argynnus was a favourite. And Aristocles the harp-player was

a favourite of King Antigonus: and Antigonus the Carystian, in his

Life of Zeno, writes of him in the following terms:—"Antigonus the

king used often to go to sup with Zeno; and once, as he was returning

by daylight from some entertainment, he went to Zeno's house, and

persuaded him to go with him to sup with Aristocles the harp-player,

who was an excessive favourite of the king's."

[Sidenote: LOVE.]

81. Sophocles, too, had a great fancy for having boy-favourites, equal

to the addiction of Euripides for women. And accordingly, Ion the poet,

in his book on the Arrival of Illustrious Men in the Island of Chios,

writes thus:—"I met Sophocles the poet in Chios, when he was sailing

to Lesbos as the general: he was a man very pleasant over his wine, and

very witty. And when Hermesilaus, who was connected with him by ancient

ties of hospitality, and who was also the proxenus[56] of the Athenians,

entertained him, the boy who was mixing the wine was standing by the

fire, being a boy of a very beautiful complexion, but made red by the

fire: so Sophocles called him and said, 'Do you wish me to drink with

pleasure?' and when he said that he did, he said, 'Well, then, bring

me the cup, and take it away again in a leisurely manner.' And as the

boy blushed all the more at this, Sophocles said to the guest who was

sitting next to him, 'How well did Phrynichus speak when he said—

The light of love doth shine in purple cheeks.

And a man from Eretria, or from Erythræ, who was a schoolmaster,

answered him,—'You are a great man in poetry, O Sophocles; but still

Phrynichus did not say well when he called purple cheeks a mark of

beauty. For if a painter were to cover the cheeks of this boy with

purple paint he would not be beautiful at all. And so it is not well to

compare what is beautiful with what is not so.' And on this Sophocles,

laughing at the Eretrian, said,—'Then, my friend, I suppose you are

not pleased with the line in Simonides which is generally considered

among the Greeks to be a beautiful one—

The maid pour'd forth a gentle voice

From out her purple mouth.[57]

And you do not either like the poet who spoke of the golden-haired

Apollo; for if a painter were to represent the hair of the god as

actually golden, and not black, the picture would be all the worse. Nor

do you approve of the poet who spoke of rosy-fingered.[58] For if any

one were to dip his fingers in rosy-coloured paint he would make his

hands like those of a purple-dyer, and not of a pretty woman.' And when

they all laughed at this, the Eretrian was checked by the reproof; and

Sophocles again turned to pursue the conversation with the boy; for he

asked him, as he was brushing away the straws from the cup with his

little finger, whether he saw any straws: and when he said that he did,

he said, 'Blow them away, then, that you may not dirty your fingers.'

And when he brought his face near the cup he held the cup nearer to his

own mouth, so as to bring his own head nearer to the head of the boy.

And when he was very near he took him by the hand and kissed him. And

when all clapped their hands, laughing and shouting out, to see how

well he had taken the boy in, he said, 'I, my friends, am meditating

on the art of generalship, since Pericles has said that I know how to

compose poetry, but not how to be a general; now has not this stratagem

of mine succeeded perfectly?' And he both said and did many things of

this kind in a witty manner, drinking and giving himself up to mirth:

but as to political affairs he was not able nor energetic in them, but

behaved as any other virtuous Athenian might have done.

[Sidenote: LOVE.]

82. And Hieronymus of Rhodes, in his Historic Commentaries, says that

Sophocles was not always so moderate, but that he at times committed

greater excesses, and gave Euripides a handle to reproach him, as

bringing himself into disrepute by his excessive intemperance.

83. And Theopompus, in his treatise on the Treasures of which the

Temple at Delphi was plundered, says that "Asopichus, being a favourite

of Epaminondas, had the trophy of Leuctra represented in relief on his

shield, and that he encountered danger with extraordinary gallantry;

and that this shield is consecrated at Delphi, in the portico." And

in the same treatise, Theopompus further alleges that "Phayllus, the

tyrant of Phocis, was extremely addicted to women; but that Onomarchus

used to select boys as his favourites: and that he had a favourite,

the son of Pythodorus the Sicyonian, to whom, when he came to Delphi

to devote his hair to the god (and he was a youth of great beauty),

Onomarchus gave the offerings of the Sybarites—four golden combs.

And Phayllus gave to the daughter of Diniades, who was a female

flute-player, a Bromiadian,[59] a silver goblet of the Phocæans, and a

golden crown of ivy-leaves, the offering of the Peparethians. And," he

says, "she was about to play the flute at the Pythian games, if she had

not been hindered by the populace.

"Onomarchus also gave," as he says, "to his favourite Lycolas, and to

Physcidas the son of Tricholaus (who was very handsome), a crown of

laurel, the offering of the Ephesians. This boy was brought also to

Philip by his father, but was dismissed without any favour. Onomarchus

also gave to Damippus, the son of Epilycus of Amphipolis, who was a

youth of great beauty, a present which had been consecrated to the god

by Plisthenes.

"And Philomelus gave to Pharsalia, a dancing-woman from Thessaly,

a golden crown of laurel-leaves, which had been offered by the

Lampsacenes. But Pharsalia herself was afterwards torn to pieces at

Metapontum, by the soothsayers, in the market-place, on the occasion

of a voice coming forth out of the brazen laurel which the people

of Metapontum had set up at the time when Aristeas of Proconnesus

was sojourning among them, on his return, as he stated, from the

Hyperboreans, the first moment that she was seen entering the

market-place. And when men afterwards inquired into the reason for this

violence, she was found to have been put to death on account of this

crown which belonged to the god."

84. Now I warn you, O philosophers, who indulge in unnatural passions,

and who treat the great goddess Venus with impiety, to beware, lest

you be destroyed in the same manner. For boys are only handsome, as

Glycera the courtesan said, while they are like women: at least, this

is the saying attributed to her by Clearchus. But my opinion is that

the conduct of Cleonymus the Spartan was in strict conformity with

nature, who was the first man to take such hostages as he took from

the Metapontines—namely, two hundred of their most respectable and

beautiful virgins; as is related by Duris the Samian, in the third book

of his History of Agathocles. And I too, as is said by Epicrates in his

Antilais,

Have learnt by heart completely all the songs

Breathing of love which sweetest Sappho sang,

Or the Lamynthian Cleomenes.

But you, my philosophical friends, even when you are in love with

women . . . as Clearchus says. For a bull was excited by the sight of

the brazen cow at Pirene: and in a picture that existed of a bitch,

and a pigeon, and a goose; and a gander came up to the goose, and a

dog to the bitch, and a male pigeon to the pigeon, and not one of them

discovered the deception till they got close to them; but when they

got near enough to touch them, they desisted; just as Clisophus the

Salymbrian did. For he fell in love with a statue of Parian marble

that then was at Samos, and shut himself up in the temple to gratify

his affection; but when he found that he could make no impression on

the coldness and unimpressibility of the stone, then he discarded his

passion. And Alexis the poet mentions this circumstance in his drama

entitled The Picture, where he says—

And such another circumstance, they say,

Took place in Samos: there a man did fall

In love with a fair maiden wrought in marble,

And shut himself up with her in the temple.

And Philemon mentions the same fact, and says—

But once a man, 'tis said, did fall, at Samos,

In love with a marble woman; and he went

And shut himself up with her in the temple.

[Sidenote: LOVE.]

But the statue spoken of is the work of Ctesicles; as Adæus of Mitylene

tells us in his treatise on Statuaries. And Polemo, or whoever the

author of the book called Helladicus is, says—"At Delphi, in the

museum of the pictures, there are two boys wrought in marble; one of

which, the Delphians say, was so fallen in love with by some one who

came to see it, that he made love to it, and shut himself up with

it, and presented it with a crown; but when he was detected, the god

ordered the Delphians, who consulted his oracle with reference to the

subject, to dismiss him freely, for that he had given him a handsome

reward.

85. And even brute beasts have fallen in love with men: for there was

a cock who took a fancy to a man of the name of Secundus, a cup-bearer

of the king; and the cock was nicknamed the Centaur. But this Secundus

was a slave of Nicomedes the king of Bithynia; as Nicander informs us

in the sixth book of his essay on the Revolutions of Fortune. And,

at Ægium, a goose took a fancy to a boy; as Clearchus relates in the

first book of his Amatory Anecdotes. And Theophrastus, in his essay

on Love, says that the name of this boy was Amphilochus, and that he

was a native of Olenus. And Hermeas the son of Hermodorus, who was a

Samian by birth, says that a goose also took a fancy to Lacydes the

philosopher. And in Leucadia (according to a story told by Clearchus),

a peacock fell so in love with a maiden there, that when she died, the

bird died too. There is a story also that, at Iasus, a dolphin took a

fancy to a boy (and this story is told by Duris, in the ninth book of

his History); and the subject of that book is the history of Alexander,

and the historian's words are these: "He likewise sent for the boy from

Iasus. For near Iasus there was a boy whose name was Dionysius, and he

once, when leaving the palæstra with the rest of the boys, went down to

the sea and bathed; and a dolphin came forward out of the deep water to

meet him, and taking him on his back, swam away with him a considerable

distance into the open sea, and then brought him back again to

land." But the dolphin is an animal which is very fond of men, and

very intelligent, and one very susceptible of gratitude. Accordingly

Phylarchus, in his twelfth book, says—"Coiranus the Milesian, when he

saw some fishermen who had caught a dolphin in a net, and who were

about to cut it up, gave them some money and bought the fish, and took

it down and put it back in the sea again. And after this it happened to

him to be shipwrecked near Myconos, and while every one else perished,

Coiranus alone was saved by a dolphin. And when, at last, he died of

old age in his native country, as it so happened that his funeral

procession passed along the sea-shore close to Miletus, a great shoal

of dolphins appeared on that day in the harbour, keeping only a very

little distance from those who were attending the funeral of Coiranus,

as if they also were joining in the procession and sharing in their

grief."

The same Phylarchus also relates, in the twentieth book of his History,

the great affection which was once displayed by an elephant for a boy.

And his words are these: "But there was a female elephant kept with

this elephant, and the name of the female elephant was Nicæa; and to

her the wife of the king of India, when dying, entrusted her child,

which was just a month old. And when the woman did die, the affection

for the child displayed by the beast was most extraordinary; for it

could not endure the child to be away; and whenever it did not see him,

it was out of spirits. And so, whenever the nurse fed the infant with

milk, she placed it in its cradle between the feet of the beast; and if

she had not done so, the elephant would not take any food; and after

this, it would take whatever reeds and grass there were near, and,

while the child was sleeping, beat away the flies with the bundle. And

whenever the child wept, it would rock the cradle with its trunk, and

lull it to sleep. And very often the male elephant did the same."

[Sidenote: LOVE.]

86. But you, O philosophers, are far fiercer than dolphins and

elephants, and are also much more untameable; although Persæus the

Cittiæan, in his Recollections of Banquets, says loudly,—"It is a very

consistent subject of conversation at drinking parties for men to

talk of amatory matters; for we are naturally inclined to such topics

after drinking. And at those times we should praise those who indulge

in that kind of conversation to a moderate and temperate degree, but

blame those who go to excess in it, and behave in a beastly manner.

But if logicians, when assembled in a social party, were to talk about

syllogisms, then a man might very fairly think that they were acting

very unseasonably. And a respectable and virtuous man will at times get

drunk; but they who wish to appear extraordinarily temperate, keep up

this character amid their cups for a certain time, but afterwards, as

the wine begins to take effect on them, they descend to every kind of

impropriety and indecency. And this was the case very lately with the

ambassadors who came to Antigonus from Arcadia; for they sat at dinner

with great severity of countenance, and with great propriety, as they

thought,—not only not looking at any one of us, but not even looking at

one another. But as the wine went round, and music of different kinds

was introduced, and when the Thessalian dancing-women, as their fashion

is, came in, and danced quite naked, except that they had girdles round

their waists, then the men could not restrain themselves any longer,

but jumped up off the couches, and shouted as if they were beholding a

most gratifying sight; and they congratulated the king because he had

it in his power to indulge in such pastimes; and they did and said a

great many more vulgar things of the same kind.

"And one of the philosophers who was once drinking with us, when a

flute-playing girl came in, and when there was plenty of room near him,

when the girl wished to sit down near him, would not allow her, but

drew himself up and looked grave. And then afterwards, when the girl

was put up to auction, as is often the fashion at such entertainments,

he was exceedingly eager to buy her, and quarrelled with the man who

sold her, on the ground that he had knocked her down too speedily to

some one else; and he said that the auctioneer had not fairly sold her.

And at last this grave philosopher, he who at first would not permit

the girl even to sit near him, came to blows about her." And perhaps

this very philosopher, who came to blows about the flute-playing girl,

may have been Persæus himself; for Antigonus the Carystian, in his

treatise on Zeno, makes the following statement:—"Zeno the Cittiæan,

when once Perseus at a drinking-party bought a flute-playing girl, and

after that was afraid to bring her home, because he lived in the same

house with Zeno, becoming acquainted with the circumstance, brought

the girl home himself, and shut her up with Persæus." I know, also,

that Polystratus the Athenian, who was a pupil of Theophrastus, and who

was surnamed the Tyrrhenian, used often to put on the garments of the

female flute-players.

87. Kings, too, have shown great anxiety about musical women; as

Parmenion tells us in his Letter to Alexander, which he sent to that

monarch after he had taken Damascus, and after he had become master

of all the baggage of Darius. Accordingly, having enumerated all the

things which he had taken, he writes as follows:—"I found three

hundred and twenty-nine concubines of the king, all skilled in music;

and forty-six men who were skilful in making garlands, and two hundred

and seventy-seven confectioners, and twenty-nine boilers of pots, and

thirteen cooks skilful in preparing milk, and seventeen artists who

mixed drinks, and seventy slaves who strain wine, and forty preparers

of perfumes." And I say to you, O my companions, that there is no sight

which has a greater tendency to gladden the eyes than the beauty of

a woman. Accordingly Œneus, in the play of Chæremon the tragedian,

speaking of some maidens whom he had seen, says, in the play called

Œneus,—

And one did lie with garment well thrown back,

Showing her snow-white bosom to the moon:

Another, as she lightly danced, display'd

The fair proportions of her lefthand side,

Naked—a lovely picture for the air

To wanton with; and her complexion white

Strove with the darkening shades. Another bared

Her lovely arms and taper fingers all:

Another, with her robe high round her neck,

Conceal'd her bosom, but a rent below

Show'd all her shapely thighs. The Graces smiled,

And love, not without hope, did lead me on.

Then on th' inviting asphodel they fell,

Plucking the dark leaves of the violet flower,

And crocus, which, with purple petals rising,

Copies the golden rays of the early sun.

There, too, the Persian sweetly-smelling marjoram

Stretch'd out its neck along the laughing meadow.

88. And the same poet, being passionately fond of flowers, says also in

his Alphesibœa—

The glorious beauty of her dazzling body

Shone brilliant, a sweet sight to every eye;

And modesty, a tender blush exciting,

Tinted her gentle cheeks with delicate rose:

Her waxy hair, in gracefully modell'd curls,

Falling as though arranged by sculptor's hand,

Waved in the wanton breeze luxuriant.

[Sidenote: BEAUTY OF WOMEN.]

And in his Io he calls the flowers children of spring, where he says—

Strewing around sweet children of the spring.

And in his Centaur, which is a drama composed in many metres of various

kinds, he calls them children of the meadow—

There, too, they did invade the countless host

Of all the new-born flowers that deck the fields,

Hunting with joy the offspring of the meadows.

And in his Bacchus he says—

The ivy, lover of the dance,

Child of the mirthful year.

And in his Ulysses he speaks thus of roses:—

And in their hair the Hours' choicest gifts

They wore, the flowering, fragrant rose,

The loveliest foster-child of spring.

And in his Thyestes he says—

The brilliant rose, and modest snow-white lily.

And in his Minyæ he says—

There was full many a store of Venus to view,

Dark in the rich flowers in due season ripe.

89. Now there have been many women celebrated for their beauty (for, as

Euripides says—

E'en an old bard may sing of memory)

There was, for instance, Thargelia the Milesian, who was married

to fourteen different husbands, so very beautiful and accomplished

was she, as Hippias the Sophist says, in his book which is entitled

Synagoge. But Dinon, in the fifth book of his History of Persia, and

in the first part of it, says that the wife of Bagazus, who was a

sister of Xerxes by the same father, (and her name was Anytis,) was the

most beautiful and the most licentious of all the women in Asia. And

Phylarchus, in his nineteenth book, says that Timosa, the concubine of

Oxyartes, surpassed all women in beauty, and that the king of Egypt had

originally sent her as a present to Statira, the wife of the king.

And Theopompus, in the fifty-sixth book of his History, speaks of

Xenopithea, the mother of Lysandrides, as the most beautiful of all

the women in Peloponnesus. And the Lacedæmonians put her to death,

and her sister Chryse also, when Agesilaus the king, having raised a

seditious tumult in the city, procured Lysandrides, who was his enemy,

to be banished by the Lacedæmonians. Pantica of Cyprus was also a

very beautiful woman; and she is mentioned by Phylarchus, in the tenth

book of his History, where he says that when she was with Olympias,

the mother of Alexander, Monimus, the son of Pythion, asked her in

marriage. And, as she was a very licentious woman, Olympias said to

him—"O wretched man, you are marrying with your eyes, and not with

your understanding." They also say that the woman who brought back

Pisistratus to assume the tyranny, clad in the semblance of Minerva the

Saviour, was very beautiful, as indeed she ought to have been, seeing

that she assumed the appearance of a goddess. And she was a seller of

garlands; and Pisistratus afterwards gave her in marriage to Hipparchus

his son, as Clidemus relates in the eighth book of his Returns, where

he says—"And he also gave the woman, by name Phya, who had been in

the chariot with him, in marriage to his son Hipparchus. And she was

the daughter of a man named Socrates. And he took for Hippias, who

succeeded him in the tyranny, the daughter of Charmus the polemarch,

who was extraordinarily beautiful."

And it happened, as it is said, that Charmus was a great admirer of

Hippias, and that he was the man who first erected a statue of Love in

the Academy, on which there is the following inscription—

O wily Love, Charmus this altar raised

At the well-shaded bounds of her Gymnasium.

Hesiod, also, in the third book of his Melampodia, calls Chalcis in

Eubœa,

Land of fair women;—

for the women there are very beautiful, as Theophrastus also asserts.

And Nymphodorus, in his Voyage round Asia, says that there are nowhere

more beautiful women than those in Tenedos, an island close to Troy.

[Sidenote: PRAISE OF MODESTY.]

90. I am aware, too, that on one occasion there was a contest of beauty

instituted among women. And Nicias, speaking of it in his History of

Arcadia, says that Cypselus instituted it, having built a city in the

plain which is watered by the Alpheus; in which he established some

Parrhasians, and consecrated a plot of sacred ground and an altar to

Ceres of Eleusis, in whose festival it was that he had instituted this

contest of beauty. And he says that the woman who gained the victory

in this contest was Herodice.

And even to this day this contest is continued; and the women who

contend in it are called Goldbearing. And Theophrastus says that there

is also a contest of beauty which takes place among the Eleans, and

that the decision is come to with great care and deliberation; and that

those who gain the victory receive arms as their prize, which Dionysius

of Leuctra says are offered up to Minerva. And he says, too, that the

victor is adorned with fillets by his friends, and goes in procession

to the temple; and that a crown of myrtle is given to him (at least

this is the statement of Myrsilus, in his Historical Paradoxes). "But

in some places," says the same Theophrastus, "there are contests

between the women in respect of modesty and good management, as there

are among the barbarians; and at other places also there are contests

about beauty, on the ground that this also is entitled to honour,

as for instance, there are in Tenedos and Lesbos. But they say that

this is the gift of chance, or of nature; but that the honour paid

to modesty ought to be one of a greater degree. For that it is in

consequence of modesty that beauty is beautiful; for without modesty it

is apt to be subdued by intemperance."

91. Now, when Myrtilus had said all this in a connected statement; and

when all were marvelling at his memory, Cynulcus said—

Your multifarious learning I do wonder at—

Though there is not a thing more vain and useless,

says Hippon the Atheist. But the divine Heraclitus also says—"A great

variety of information does not usually give wisdom." And Timon said—

There is great ostentation and parade

Of multifarious learning, than which nothing

Can be more vain or useless.

For what is the use of so many names, my good grammarian, which are

more calculated to overwhelm the hearers than to do them any good? And

if any one were to inquire of you, who they were who were shut up in

the wooden horse, you would perhaps be able to tell the names of one or

two; and even this you would not do out of the verses of Stesichorus,

(for that could hardly be,) but out of the Storming of Troy, by

Sacadas the Argive; for he has given a catalogue of a great number of

names. Nor indeed could you properly give a list of the companions of

Ulysses, and say who they were who were devoured by the Cyclops, or

by the Læstrygonians, and whether they were really devoured or not.

And you do not even know this, in spite of your frequent mention of

Phylarchus, that in the cities of the Ceans it is not possible to see

either courtesans or female flute-players. And Myrtilus said,—But

where has Phylarchus stated this? For I have read through all his

history. And when he said,—In the twenty-third book; Myrtilus said—

92. Do I not then deservedly detest all you philosophers, since you are

all haters of philology,—men whom not only did Lysimachus the king

banish from his own dominions, as Carystius tells us in his Historic

Reminiscences, but the Athenians did so too. At all events, Alexis, in

his Horse, says—

Is this the Academy; is this Xenocrates?

May the gods greatly bless Demetrius

And all the lawgivers; for, as men say,

They've driven out of Attica with disgrace

All those who do profess to teach the youth

Learning and science.

And a certain man named Sophocles, passed a decree to banish all the

philosophers from Attica. And Philo, the friend of Aristotle, wrote

an oration against him; and Demochares, on the other hand, who was

the cousin of Demosthenes, composed a defence for Sophocles. And the

Romans, who are in every respect the best of men, banished all the

sophists from Rome, on the ground of their corrupting the youth of the

city, though, at a subsequent time, somehow or other, they admitted

them. And Anaxippus the comic poet declares your folly in his Man

struck by Lightning, speaking thus—

Alas, you're a philosopher; but I

Do think philosophers are only wise

In quibbling about words; in deeds they are,

As far as I can see, completely foolish.

[Sidenote: FAULTS OF PHILOSOPHERS.]

It is, therefore, with good reason that many cities, and especially

the city of the Lacedæmonians, as Chamæleon says in his book on

Simonides, will not admit either rhetoric or philosophy, on account

of the jealousy, and strife, and profitless discussions to which they

give rise; owing to which it was that Socrates was put to death; he,

who argued against the judges who were given him by lot, discoursing

of justice to them when they were a pack of most corrupt men. And it

is owing to this, too, that Theodorus the Atheist was put to death,

and that Diagoras was banished; and this latter, sailing away when he

was banished, was wrecked. But Theotimus, who wrote the books against

Epicurus, was accused by Zeno the Epicurean, and put to death; as is

related by Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise on People and

Things which go by the same Name.

93. And, in short, according to Clearchus the Solensian, you do not

adopt a manly system of life, but you do really aim at a system which

might become a dog; but although this animal has four excellent

qualities, you select none but the worst of his qualities for your

imitation. For a dog is a wonderful animal as to his power of smelling

and of distinguishing what belongs to his own family and what does not;

and the way in which he associates with man, and the manner in which

he watches over and protects the houses of all those who are kind to

him, is extraordinary. But you who imitate the dogs, do neither of

these things. For you do not associate with men, nor do you distinguish

between those with whom you are acquainted; and being very deficient

in sensibility, you live in an indolent and indifferent manner. But

while the dog is also a snarling and greedy animal, and also hard in

his way of living, and naked; these habits of his you practise, being

abusive and gluttonous, and, besides all this, living without a home

or a hearth. The result of all which circumstances is, that you are

destitute of virtue, and quite unserviceable for any useful purpose in

life. For there is nothing less philosophical than those persons who

are called philosophers. For whoever supposed that Æschines, the pupil

of Socrates, would have been such a man in his manners as Lysias the

orator, in his speeches on the Contracts, represents him to have been;

when, out of the dialogues which are extant, and generally represented

to be his work, we are inclined to admire him as an equitable and

moderate man? unless, indeed, those writings are in reality the work of

the wise Socrates, and were given to Æschines by Xanthippe, the wife of

Socrates, after his death, which Idomeneus asserts to be the case.

94. But Lysias, in the oration which bears this title—"Against

Æschines, the Pupil of Socrates, for Debt," (for I will recite the

passage, even though it be a rather long one, on account of your

excessive arrogance, O philosophers,)—begins in the following

manner—"I never should have imagined, O judges, that Æschines would

have dared to come into court on a trial which is so discreditable to

him. For a more disgracefully false accusation than the one which he

has brought forward, I do not believe it to be easy to find. For he,

O judges, owing a sum of money with a covenanted interest of three

drachmæ to Sosinomus the banker and Aristogiton, came to me, and

besought me not to allow him to be wholly stripped of his own property,

in consequence of this high interest. 'And I,' said he, 'am at this

moment carrying on the trade of a perfumer; but I want capital to go

on with, and I will pay you nine[60] obols a month interest.'" A fine

end to the happiness of this philosopher was the trade of a perfumer,

and admirably harmonizing with the philosophy of Socrates, a man who

utterly rejected the use of all perfumes and unguents! And moreover,

Solon the lawgiver expressly forbade a man to devote himself to any

such business: on which account Pherecrates, in his Oven, or Woman

sitting up all Night, says—

Why should he practise a perfumer's trade,

Sitting beneath a high umbrella there,

Preparing for himself a seat on which

To gossip with the youths the whole day long?

And presently afterwards he says—

And no one ever saw a female cook

Or any fishwoman; for every class

Should practise arts which are best suited to it.

[Sidenote: LENDING MONEY.]

And after what I have already quoted, the orator proceeds to say—"And

I was persuaded by this speech of his, considering also that this

Æschines had been the pupil of Socrates, and was a man who uttered

fine sentiments about virtue and justice, and who would never attempt

nor venture on the actions practised by dishonest and unjust men."

95. And after this again, after he had run through the accusation of

Æschines, and had explained how he had borrowed the money, and how he

never paid either interest or principal, and how, when an action was

brought against him, he had allowed judgment to go by default, and how

a branded slave of his had been put forward by him as security; and

after he had brought a good many more charges of the same kind against

him, he thus proceeded:—"But, O judges, I am not the only person to

whom he behaves in this manner, but he treats every one who has any

dealings with him in the same manner. Are not even all the wine-sellers

who live near him, from whom he gets wine for his entertainments

and never pays for it, bringing actions against him, having already

closed their shops against him? And his neighbours are ill-treated

by him to such a degree that they leave their own houses, and go and

rent others which are at a distance from him. And with respect to all

the contributions which he collects, he never himself puts down the

remaining share which is due from him, but all the money which ever

gets into this pedlar's hands is lost as if it were utterly destroyed.

And such a number of men come to his house daily at dawn, to ask for

their money which he owes them, that passers-by suppose he must be

dead, and that such a crowd can only be collected to attend his funeral.

"And those men who live in the Piræus have such an opinion of him, that

they think it a far less perilous business to sail to the Adriatic

than to deal with him; for he thinks that all that he can borrow is

much more actually his own than what his father left him. Has he not

got possession of the property of Hermæus the perfumer, after having

seduced his wife, though she was seventy years old? whom he pretended

to be in love with, and then treated in such a manner that she reduced

her husband and her sons to beggary, and made him a perfumer instead

of a pedlar! in so amorous a manner did he handle the damsel, enjoying

the fruit of her youth, when it would have been less trouble to him to

count her teeth than the fingers of her hand, they were so much fewer.

And now come forward, you witnesses, who will prove these facts.—This,

then, is the life of this sophist."

These, O Cynulcus, are the words of Lysias. But I, in the words of

Aristarchus the tragic poet,

Saying no more, but this in self-defence,

will now cease my attack upon you and the rest of the Cynics.

FOOTNOTES.

[12] διφυὴς meaning, "of double nature."

[13] Iliad, xxiv. 489.

[14] Iliad, ii. 220.

[15] Theognis.

[16] It is not known from what play this fragment comes. It is

given in the Variorum Edition of Euripides, _Inc. Fragm._ 165.

[17] From the Andromeda.

[18] This is a blunder of Athenæus; for the passage alluded to

is evidently that in the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. The lines as

quoted in the text here are—

Δίδυμα γὰρ τόξα αὐτὸν

Ἐντείνεσθαι χαρίτων

Τὸ μὲν ἐπ' εἰαίωνι τύχα

Τὸ δ' ἐπὶ συγχύσει βιοτᾶς.

The passage in Euripides is—

Δίδυμ' Ἕρως ὁ χρυσοκόμας

Τόξ' ἐντείνεται χαρίτων

Τὸ μὲν ἐπ' εὐαίωνι πότμῳ

Τὸ δ' ἐπὶ συγχύσει βιοτᾶω.—_Iph. in Aul._ 552.

[19] Iliad, x. 401.

[20] This fragment is from the Hippodamia.

[21] Ode 67.

[22] This is not from any one of the odes, which we have

entire; but is only a fragment.

[23] From κείρω, to cut the hair.

[24] From the Æolus.

[25] Iliad, iii. 156.

[26] Ib. iii. 170.

[27] Ib. xx. 234.

[28] Ach. 524.

[29] Pind. Ol. 13.

[30] A σκολιὸν was a song which went round at banquets,

sung to the lyre by the guests, one after another, said to have been

introduced by Terpander; but the word is first found in Pind. Fr.

lxxxvii. 9; Aristoph. Ach. 532. The name is of uncertain origin: some

refer it to the character of the music, νόμος σκολιὸς, as opposed to

νόμος ὔρθιος; others to the ῥυθμὸς σκολιὸς, or amphibrachic rhythm

recognised in many scolia; but most, after Dicæarchus and Plutarch,

from the irregular zigzag way it went round the table, each guest

who sung holding a myrtle-branch, which he passed on to any one he

chose.—Lid. & Scott, Gr. Lex. _in voc._

[31] These are the second and third lines of the Electra of

Sophocles.

[32] The Kids was a constellation rising about the beginning of

October, and supposed by the ancients to bring storms.

Theocritus says—

χὤταν ἐφ' ἑσπερίοις ἐρίφοις νότος ὑγρὰ διώκῃ κύματα.—vii. 53.

[33] Θάλλος means "a young twig."

[34] There is a pun here on her name,—Ἵππη meaning a

mare.

[35] Λάκκος, a cistern; a cellar.

[36] This is a pun on the similarity of the name Σίγειον to

σιγὴ, silence.

[37] Γραῦς means both an old woman, and the scum on

boiled milk.

[38] Ὑστέρα means both "the womb," and "the new

comer."

[39] Punning on the similarity of the name Αἰγεὺς to

αἲξ, a goat.

[40] Punning on the similarity of κατατράγω, to eat,

and τράγος, a goat.

[41] The Greek word is ψυχαγωγοῦσι, which might perhaps also

mean to bring coolness, from ψῦχος, coolness.

[42] The young man says πολλαῖς συμπέπλεχθαι

(γύναιξι scil.), but Phryne chooses to suppose that he meant

to say πολλαῖς πληγαῖς, blows.

[43] This is a pun on the name Φειδίας, as if from

φείδω, to be stingy.

[44] Anticyra was the name of three islands celebrated as

producing a great quantity of hellebore. Horace, speaking of a madman,

says:

Si tribus Anticyris caput insanabile nunquam

Tonsori Licino commiserit.—A. P. 300.

[45] This probably means a large crane.

[46] From κλαίω, to weep, and γέλως,

laughter.

[47] That is, With beautiful Eyelids; from χάρις,

grace, and βλέφαρον, an eyelid.

[48] The universal Friend.

[49] Λήμη literally means the matter which gathers in

the corner of the eyes; λήμαι, sore eyes. Παρόραμα means an oversight,

a defect in sight; but there is supposed to be some corruption in

this latter word.

[50] Rharia was a name of Ceres, from the Rharian plain near

Eleusis, where corn was first sown by Triptolemus, the son of Rharus.

It is mentioned by Homer:—

ἐς δ' ἄρα Ῥάριον ἷξε, φερέσβιον οὖθαρ ἀρούρης

τὸ πρίν, ἄταρ τότε γ' οὔτι φερέσβιον, ἀλλὰ ἕκηλον

εἱστήκι πανάφυλλον, ἔκευθε δ' ἄρα κρῖ λευκὸν

μήδεσι Δήμητρος καλλισφύρου.—Od. in Cerer. 450.

[51] Anacreon.

[52] Sophocles.

[53] V. 3.

[54] This is not from the Hippolytus, but is a fragment from

the Auge.

[55] From ἁρπάζω, to carry off.

[56] "Of far greater importance was the public hospitality

(προξενία) which existed between two states, or between an

individual or a family on the one hand, and a whole state on the

other.... When two states established public hospitality, it was

necessary that in each state persons should be appointed to show

hospitality to, and watch over the interests of all persons who came

from the state connected by hospitality. The persons who were

appointed to this office, as the recognised agents of the state for

which they acted, were called πρόξενοι....

"The office of πρόξενοσ, which bears great resemblance to that

of a modern consul, or minister resident, was in some cases hereditary

in a particular family. When a state appointed a proxenus, it either

sent out one of its own citizens to reside in the other state, or it

selected one of the citizens of the other, and conferred on him the

honour of proxenus.... This custom seems in later times to have been

universally adopted by the Greeks....

"The principal duties of a proxenus were to receive those persons,

especially ambassadors, who came from the state which he represented;

to procure for them admission to the assembly, and seats in the

theatre; to act as the patron of the strangers, and to mediate between

the two states, if any dispute arose. If a stranger died in the state,

the proxenus of his country had to take care of the property of the

deceased. The proxenus usually enjoyed exemption from taxes; and their

persons were inviolable both by sea and land."—Smith, Dict. Ant. v.

_Hospitium_, p. 491.

[57] Pindar, Ol. vi. 71.

[58] Homer gives this epithet to Aurora, Iliad, i. 477, and in

many other places.

[59] Schweighauser says this word is to him totally

unintelligible.

[60] This would have been 18 per cent. Three drachmæ were

about 36 per cent. The former appears to have been the usual rate of

interest at Athens in the time of Lysias; for we find in Demosthenes

that interest ἐπὶ δραχμῇ, that is to say, a drachma a month

interest for each mina lent, was considered low. It was exceedingly

common, however, among the money-lenders, to exact an exorbitant rate

of interest, going even as high as a drachma every four days.—See

Smith's Dict. Ant. v. _Interest_, p. 524.