Chapter 16

"But you did well for every man, O Solon: For they do say you were the first to see The justice of a public-spirited measure, The saviour of the State (and it is fit For me to utter this avowal, Solon); You, seeing that the State was full of men, Young, and possessed of all the natural appetites, And wandering in their lusts where they'd no business.

Bought women and in certain spots did place them, Common to be and ready for all comers. They naked stood: look well at them, my youth,-- Do not deceive yourself; aren't you well off? You're ready, so are they: the door is open-- The price an obol: enter straight--there's No nonsense here, no cheat or trickery; But do just what you like, how you like. You're off: wish her good-bye; she's no more claim on you."

In the early days antedating the Persian War, before the Athenians had been corrupted by power and by extensive intercourse with the outside world, it was regarded as shameful for a married man to associate with a hetaera. When the husband was guilty of such conduct, the insulted wife could obtain a decree of separation, which involved the return to the wife's family of the full dowry, while the enmity of the wife's kindred was visited upon the unfaithful husband. During the Golden Age of Pericles, however, Athens departed from her earlier simplicity, and the increase of wealth and the influx of foreigners swept away the old-fashioned standards of morality. The influence of Pericles and Aspasia on smaller minds seems to have been unfortunate. Reverential regard for the marriage bond became a thing of the past, and hetairism became the common practice. Almost all the great men of Athens had relations with hetaersae; the young men gave themselves up to the life of pleasure; and with the disruption of family ties began the downfall of the State.

In Corinth, hetairism was invested with all the sanctity of religion, and these votaries of pleasure enjoyed a distinction accorded them in no other Greek city. When Xerxes was advancing against Hellas with his vast armament, the courtesans of Corinth betook themselves in solemn procession to the temple of Aphrodite, the patron deity of the city, and implored her aid for the preservation of the fatherland, dedicating their services to her in return for a favorable answer to their prayers, and vowing to reward with their unpurchased embraces the victorious warriors upon their return. The goddess was supposed to have heard their petitions, and out of gratitude the Corinthians dedicated to Aphrodite a painting, in which were represented various hetaerae who had supplicated the goddess, while beneath were inscribed the following verses of Simonides:

"These damsels, in behalf of Greece, and all Their gallant countrymen, stood nobly forth, Praying to Venus, the all-powerful goddess; Nor was the queen of beauty willing ever To leave the citadel of Greece to fall Beneath the arrows of the unwarlike Persians."

Private individuals frequently vowed, upon the fortunate issue of some undertaking, to dedicate to the goddess of love a certain number of hetaerae. These votaries of Aphrodite were called _hierodulae_, or temple attendants. Pindar in his immortal verses thus describes them:

"O hospitable damsels, fairest train Of soft Persuasion,-- Ornament of the wealthy Corinth, Bearing in willing hands the golden drops That from the frankincense distil, and flying To the fair mother of the Loves, Who dwelleth in the sky, The lovely Venus,--you do bring to us Comfort and hope in danger, that we may Hereafter, in the delicate beds of Love, Reap the long-wished-for fruits of joy Lovely and necessary to all mortal men."

Strabo states that there were over a thousand _hierodulae_ in the Corinth of his day. Because of the enormous number of such damsels and of the respect which was accorded them, Corinth became the most noted hetaera city. Here dwelt the wealthiest and most beautiful hetaerae. As the most important commercial centre of Greece, the city was the abiding place of wealthy merchants and travellers; these fell victims to the voluptuous and licentious life of the place, and the vast fortunes accumulated by the professional courtesans were acquired by the ruin of many a merchant. The expression "Corinthian maiden" denoted the acme of voluptuousness, and to "Corinthianize" became synonymous with leading the most dissolute life.

In other prominent commercial centres of Hellas and of the Greek colonies hetairism also flourished. Piraeus, the harbor of Athens, had its demi-monde quarter, and the number of courtesans in Athens and its harbor town was only surpassed by that of Corinth.

The inland cities were much more moral in this regard. From Sparta, in its best days, hetaerae were rigidly excluded. Plutarch records a saying of the Spartans, that when Aphrodite passed over the Eurotas River she put off her gewgaws and female ornaments, and for the sake of Lycurgus armed herself with shield and spear. This _Venus armata_ of the Spartans, as well as their sturdy morals, forbade the presence of the seductive strangers in their midst; but Ares was ever susceptible to Aphrodite, and the Spartan warrior, when located in the voluptuous Ionian cities, frequently forgot his early training, and fell a victim to his environment.

There were in Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries, four classes of hetaerae, graded according to political standing. The first and lowest class was that of the public prostitute--slaves bought by the State for the public houses, which were taxed for the benefit of the city and were under the supervision of city inspectors. These unfortunate women were gathered from the slave markets of Samos, Lesbos, Cyprus, and the Ionian cities, where every year large numbers of wretched human beings, who had been torn from their homes, usually as a result of war, were exposed for sale. These included many young girls who had been taken captive in the sacking of cities or had been stolen from their homes by the fiends in human form who made it a business to secure maidens of promising beauty or charm for the bawdy houses of the Greek cities. From these markets, too, came usually the hetaerae of the second class, who were likewise slaves, but were the property of panders or procuresses, who bought girls of tender age and educated them for the sake of the wealth to be acquired from traffic in lust. Aged and faded hetaerae, who had passed their lives in gross licentiousness and had finally lost their hold on the public, especially devoted themselves to this horrible trade. They owned their own houses, and had in conjunction with them regular schools or institutes for the training of hetaerae. In these institutes the girls were trained in physical culture, in music and dancing, and frequently in all the branches of learning that were popular at the time. They became experts in all the arts of pleasure, and were offered every advantage that would make them pleasing to men. From these institutes often emerged young women who played an important role in the social and intellectual life of the day, as Leontium, Gnathaena, Pythionice, and others. The names of certain of these establishments are preserved, as those of Nicarete, of Bacchis, and of the Thracian Sinope, who removed her institute from AEgina to Athens. Girls in such establishments remained at all times in the relation of slaves, and were compelled always to surrender to the mistresses or the panders the funds they collected from the sale of their favors. As young girls they acted as musicians or dancers at the banquets of the men, and as they developed into womanhood they entered upon their careers as regular courtesans. Often they were hired out for a considerable time; or if a good purchaser presented himself, they were sold outright, and lived as the kept mistress of a single lover. From him they usually obtained their freedom, in time, either as a mark of favor, or as the readiest means of ridding himself of a burden when the lover had wearied of the hetaera's charm.

Slave girls who obtained their freedom belonged to the third and most numerous hetaera class; they lived on a fully independent footing, and conducted their business on their own account. This class attached themselves especially to young and inexperienced men, preferably to youths who were still under parental control. They frequented the schools of rhetoricians and philosophers and the studios of artists, and sought in every way possible to make themselves interesting and indispensable to men. The _jeunesse doree_ of the day found in association with these young and beautiful and independent damsels their especial delight. At the banquets and drinking bouts of the young men, they were invited to take part; and the gay and frivolous youths would assemble in numbers at their houses, or take them on pleasure trips in the suburbs of the city, and would frequently engage in serenades and torchlight processions in their honor. Such a life was full of pitfalls for the young men, and they frequently brought down on themselves the rage of parents for their intercourse with these sirens. The avarice and greed of women of this class was such that they led their lovers into every form of deceit to obtain for them money and presents. To purloin and sell a mother's jewels and to contract debts in a father's name were frequent devices to which youths resorted whose parents kept a tight hold on the purse strings. These heroines of the demi-monde also sought to draw their lovers away from serious pursuits. Lucian, in his _Dialogues of Courtesans_, recounts an interesting conversation between two hetaerae, Chelidonion [Little Swallow] and Drosis [Dewdrop], about a youth whom his father had suddenly checked in his wild career and placed in the hands of a wise and artful tutor, to the end that he might be drawn away from his wild associations and given instruction in philosophy.

The fourth and most elevated hetaera class was that of freeborn women, who were attracted to this calling because of dissatisfaction with the restraint of home and longing for the ease and independent life which it seemed to offer. Frequently, the daughters of citizens, through the poverty or greed of their parents, or their own wilfulness, were driven to a life of shame. Usually, they changed their names, to bring forgetfulness of their former standing, and they sought by outward splendor to make up for the loss of virtue. To us in this day such a change seems most disgraceful; but to the Greeks it appeared to be in many instances nothing more serious than a change of patron goddess. Thus the maiden transferred herself from the protection of one of the austere virgin goddesses, Artemis and Athena, to that of the gracious and seductive Paphian goddess; or the widow, who with the death of her husband had lost her means of subsistence, would renounce Hera, the goddess of wedded love, for the frivolous and light-minded Aphrodite. This transfer was usually accompanied with solemn religious ceremonies, Greek epigrammatists frequently give us a poetical treatment of such life histories, and we thereby gain glimpses into the woes of many a feminine heart; thus we have a pathetic genre picture of a maiden, who, weary of the spindle and the service of Athena, betakes herself to the patron goddess of the hetaerae and pledges to her for her protection a tithe of all her earnings in her new calling.

The giving of votive offerings to Aphrodite for successes and rich gains in their dealings with men was a customary act of "pious" hetaerae. Toilet articles which enhance beauty, and costly gifts, such as statues, were frequently dedicated to the goddess. The hetaerae who followed in the wake of the Athenian army led by Pericles to Samos built a temple to Aphrodite from the tithes of their gains. This giving of votive offerings is frequently the subject of Greek epigrams.

The daughters or widows of citizens constituted but the smaller number of hetaerae of this class. The larger number were stranger-women, chiefly from Ionia, who came to Athens, attracted by its prominence in politics and the arts, that they might play their role on a larger and more brilliant stage. In the various cities of Asia Minor, there were groups of freeborn women who had broken away from the conventional bonds and had devoted themselves to intellectual and artistic pursuits and to the cultivation of every personal grace and charm. It was natural that they and others like them from other parts of Hellas should flock to Athens. Such women, though they were politically only resident aliens, were granted great freedom and had the benefit of all the intellectual advantages the city afforded. Marriage was the only political sin these beautiful and cultivated strangers could commit; they might do anything else that they liked. Hence they entered into relations with citizens as "companions," and soon became an important factor in the social life of the day. Bringing with them from their homes all the attractions and graces that attended the service of the Muses, they undoubtedly exercised a beneficial influence on the social customs and manners, but they also contributed much to the general demoralization of the Athenian people.

From the number of these women of foreign birth came the most beautiful and distinguished, as also the most selfish and proud, representatives of the hetaera class. Through their beauty and the outward splendor of their station they posed as veritable priestesses of Aphrodite, while through their intellectual brilliancy and their social charms they exercised a great influence over the daily life of the Athenians.

To this class belonged the celebrated "daughters of the people," for whose favor the most prominent and dignified men of the State became suppliants. As Propertius sang of Lais, they could literally boast that "all Hellas lay before their doors." Among these hetaerae we see the high life of the day on a most brilliant scale. Their dwellings were most sumptuous in their appointments; the walls were painted in frescoes, pieces of statuary and rich tapestries embellished their apartments, while the grounds about their houses were laid off with flower beds and beautiful fountains. Their apparel was of the richest fabrics and was made up in the most fashionable styles. They possessed numberless jewels and ornaments of enormous value. They never appeared in public without an imposing cortege of female slaves and eunuchs. Much of the etiquette of the courts of princes was maintained in their establishments.

To keep up this elaborate state, they sold their favors at almost shameless prices. Thus the elder Lais, Gnathaena, and Phryne were celebrated for their incredible demands. There is a story that the orator Demosthenes made a trip to Corinth and paid ten thousand drachmae for a single evening with the younger Lais. As has been intimated, Corinth possessed the most voluptuous, Athens the most highly cultivated hetaerae. The excessive charges of "the Corinthian maiden" gave occasion for the proverb: "Not every man can journey to Corinth." Not only the celebrated beauties made such exorbitant demands, but even the ordinary courtesans asked prices which forbade to men of moderate means intercourse with them.

Beauty and wealth were the factors which determined the social status of the hetaerae, and with the fading of beauty and the squandering of their gains many celebrated hetaerae fell from the highest to the lowest station.

The principal classification of the queens of the demi-monde, however, was into "domestic" and "learned" hetaerae. The former attracted chiefly by their beauty and their social grace; the latter, by their native wit, their vivacity, and their intellectual endowments. These gifted women entered into intimate relations with the philosophers and rhetoricians of the day; they visited the lecture halls, devoted themselves to earnest study, and carried on their prostitution under the protection of philosophy. They allied themselves with the various philosophical schools, and by their manner of bestowing their favors sought to advance the interests of the sect they espoused.

They found, too, in the pursuit of philosophy the justification of their calling. The hetaerae of the Academy claimed that they were merely putting into practice Plato's doctrine of the community of women. The followers of the Cyrenaic school, with its doctrine of moderation in the pursuit of pleasure, maintained that they carried out the maxims of Aristippus in their pursuit of the joys of love. The female adherents of the Cynics, or "the Bitches," as they were called, sought to surpass one another in taking the beasts as models of imitation. The Dialecticians found in their system the widest range for feminine cleverness of speech, and defended hetairism with the greatest subtlety and the most ingenious sophism. The feminine Epicureans saw in the teachings of their school, with its doctrine of friendship and of the broadest cultivation of the sensibilities, the fullest justification for the pursuit of sexual enjoyment, and they sought to illustrate the greatest voluptuousness and refinement in their methods of gratifying animal passion.

The hetaerae of the various schools surpassed the men in their imitation of the jargon and the manners of the leading lights of their systems. Many of the philosophers yielded themselves readily to the seductions of their beautiful and clever adherents; yet there were some choice spirits who deplored the demoralizing tendencies which hetairism brought into serious pursuits, and protested in no uncertain language.

These philosopher-hetaerae were indisputably the most interesting phenomenon in the social life of ancient times, to which the later Greek world and modern times afford no adequate parallel. They were present always at theatrical exhibitions and on all public occasions when respectable women remained at home. They took an absorbing interest in politics and in all public affairs; they discussed with the citizens the burning questions of the day; they criticised the acts of statesmen, the speeches of orators, the dramas of the poets, the productions of painters and sculptors. They exerted, in a word, an enormous influence for good or ill on the social and political life of the day; while they themselves had the consciousness of a mission to perform in having in their hands the real power of their sex.

Almost every great man in Athens had his "companion," usually in addition to a lawful wife. Plato had Archeanassa, to whom he wrote sonnets; but we know not what were her attractions. "For dear to me Theoris is," sings Sophocles; and we should like to know more of Archippa, to whom he left his fortune. Aristotle had his Herpyllis, and the eloquent Isocrates his Metaneira. Speusippus, Plato's successor, found a "companion" in Lasthenia, and Epicurus in Leontium. It is difficult to believe that all these for whom the learned men of the day showed such regard were vicious women; in fact, some of them are described as noble and high-minded.

"She was a citizen, without a guardian Or any near relations, and her manner Pure, and on virtue's strictest model form'd, A genuine mistress [Greek: heraira]: for the rest of the crew Bring into disrepute, by their vile manner, A name which in itself has nothing wrong."

But if the careers of the learned hetaerae were influential, they did not equal in brilliancy and power those of the more celebrated domestic hetaerae. The vastness of the influence of this latter class is best shown by naming the prominent rulers of various periods who were under the domination of their "companions." We have in an earlier chapter called attention to the work of Thargelia in moulding Persian sentiment before the invasions of Darius and Xerxes, and to the influence of Aspasia during the Periclean Age. Many later hetaerae played prominent roles in the courts of princes and kings, and not infrequently enjoyed royal honors, Leaena, Myrrhine, and Lamia were favorites of Demetrius the Besieger, and the latter shared with him all except the throne. Thais, for a time beloved of Alexander the Great, and at whose nod he set fire to the palace of the Persian kings, later bore two sons and a daughter to Ptolemy Soter, the first Macedonian king of Egypt. Pythionice and Glycera were in high favor at the court of Harpalus. Hieronymus of Syracuse elevated a beautiful prostitute named Pytho from the bawdy house to his palace and throne. Ptolemy Philadelphus was celebrated for the number of his mistresses, among them being a Didyma, a Blistyche, a Stratonice, a Myrtion. Ptolemy Philopator was under the degrading influence of an Agathoclea, daughter of the procuress Oenanthe, both of whom, in the trenchant phrase of Plutarch, trod diadems under their feet and were finally murdered by the Alexandrian mob.

Some hetaerae inspired such regard that they were honored with public monuments. The first instance of this in Athens was in the case of Leaena, who, after the murder of the tyrant Hipparchus, bit out her tongue rather than reveal the accomplices of her lover, Aristogiton. The Athenians at this early date felt a reluctance to erect a statue representing a hetaera, but they placed on the Acropolis a bronze lioness to commemorate perpetually the name of Leaena, and to preserve the memory of her noble deed. In honor of Phryne there was a marble statue at Thespian sculptured by Praxiteles, as well as another of gold at Delphi. In Sparta, in her degenerate days, there was a monument to the celebrated hetaera Cottine. There were also famous statues of Lais, Glycera, Pythionice, Neaera, Clino, Blistyche, Stratonice, and other women of pleasure. To Lamia, the renowned flute player, and to her rival, Leaena of Corinth, favorites of Demetrius the Besieger, the servile Athenians erected temples, in which they were revered as goddesses. There was also in Athens a most beautiful and costly tomb in honor of Pythionice, erected by the Macedonian governor Harpalus, described by Pausanias as "the best worth seeing of all ancient tombs." Such are instances of the tributes offered by the beauty-loving Greeks to these beautiful but light-minded women, who were regarded as incarnations, as it were, of the goddess Aphrodite herself.

"'Tis not for nothing that where'er we go We find a temple of hetaerae there, But nowhere one to any wedded wife,"

sings one of the poets of the Anthology.