View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Open Access-Zeitschriften an der WWU Münster (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität) Chapter 1 HANS BECK, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
[email protected] “If I am from Megara.” Introduction to the Local Discourse Environment of an Ancient Greek City-State Neaira ran. Gathering what she could carry – presumably a few personal items, clothes, jewelry – she fled from the exploitation she experienced in Athens. Thebes would have been the obvious destination, but the city was too far to keep in touch with regular clients from Athens who desired to do so. Corinth, about the same distance, was out of the picture because she had been freed from there earlier; returning to Corinth would have implied a return to slavery. The most appealing choice, then, was Megara. But things didn’t work out as she would have hoped, for Neaira hadn’t reckoned with the Megarians. In his famous prosecution speech from the 340s BCE, Apollodoros explains that, she spent two years in Megara, .... Her work as a prostitute was not bringing in enough money for her to run her household, since she was a big spender, and the Megarians are stingy and pusillanimous; also, there wasn’t much foreign traffic because the Megarians had sided with Sparta, and you [the Athenians] had control of the sea. (Against Neaira 36) According to Apollodoros, Neaira’s business in Megara suffered from travel obstacles created by war, along with the Megarians’ general lack of appreciation for high-end ἀνελεύθεροι καὶ μικρολόγοι prostitutes.