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Athenaeus on Phryne

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Athenaeus on Phryne Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters 590d— Note: The Learned Banqueters is an idiosyncratic work of Athenaeus of Naucratis, who lived towards the end of 2nd century CE. The conceit is that this is an account, by someone named Athenaeus, of a dinner held at a wealthy book collector’s house. The conversation concerns food, music, poetry, luxury, courtesans etc. A huge number of literary works are mentioned and quoted. The orator Hyperides threw his son Glaucippus out of their ancestral home and took up with the extremely expensive courtesan Myrrhine. He kept her in the city; Aristagora in the Piraeus; and Phila (a woman he had purchased for a large sum of money and then set free, and whom he had later made his housekeeper) in Eleusis, according to Idomeneus (FGrH 338 F 14a). In his speech On Behalf of Phryne (fr. 171 Jensen), Hyperides admits that he was in love with her and had by no means escaped these feelings when he moved the Myrrhine mentioned above into his house. Phryne was from Thespiae, and when Euthias successfully indicted her, she escaped the death penalty; Euthias was so angry about this that he never argued another case, according to Hermippus (fr. 68a I Wehrli). Hyperides spoke in support of Phryne, and when his speech accomplished nothing, and the jurors seemed likely to convict her, he brought her out in public, ripped her dress to shreds, exposed her chest, and at the conclusion of his speech produced cries of lament as he gazed at her, causing the jurors to feel a superstitious fear of this priestess and temple-attendant of Aphrodite, and to give in to pity rather than put her to death. Afterward, when she had been acquitted, a decree was passed to the effect that no speaker was to lament on another person’s behalf, and that no accused man or women was to be put on display while their case was being decided. The parts of Phryne’s body that were not seen were actually the most beautiful. As a consequence, it was not easy to get a glimpse of her naked, because she used to wear a tunic that clung to her body, and avoided the public baths. But at the Eleusinia and the Posidonia festivals, with all the Greeks watching, she took off her robe, let down her hair, and entered the sea; Apelles drew the inspiration for his “Aphrodite Rising from the Sea” from her. So too the sculptor Praxiteles, who was in love with her, used her as the model for his Cnidian Aphrodite, and on the pedestal of his Eros, which stood below the stage in the Theater, he placed the inscription (‘Simon.’ APl 204 = FGE 910–13): Praxiteles produced an exact replica of the Love he suffered, drawing his model from his own heart and offering me to Phryne as a price for me. I no longer cast love-spells by shooting arrows, but by being stared at. He gave her a choice of statues, letting her decide whether she would like to have the Eros or the satyr that stood in the Street of Tripods, and she chose the Eros and dedicated it in Thespiae. The people who lived in the area had a gold statue made of Phryne herself and dedicated it, mounted on a column of Pentelic marble, in Delphi; Praxiteles produced it. When the Cynic Crates (SSR V H 28) saw it, he called it a monument to Greek depravity. This statue stood between those of Archidamus, the king of Sparta, and Philip son of Amyntas, and carried the inscription “Phryne the daughter of Epicles of Thespiae”, according to Alcetas in Book II of On the Dedications in Delphi (FGrH 405 F 1). Apollodorus in his On Courtesans (FGrH 244 F 212) records that there were two Phrynes, one of whom was nicknamed Clausigelôta, while the other was called Saperdion. Herodicus in Book VI of Individuals Mentioned in Comedy (IV fr. 2, p. 126 Düring) says that the Phryne referred to by the orators as Sestos got her name from the fact that she robbed (aposêthein) and ruined the men who slept with her, whereas the other was the one from Thespiae. Phryne was extremely rich, and offered to build walls around Thebes, if the Thebans would inscribe on them: “Alexander tore them down, but the courtesan Phryne erected them again,” according to Callistratus in his On Courtesans (FGrH 348 F 1). The comic author Timocles mentioned her wealth in Neaera—the passage was cited above—as did Amphis in The Female Barber (fr. 24). Gryllion, who was a member of the Areopagus Council, used to live off of Phryne, as the actor Satyrus of Olynthus did off of Pamphile. Aristogeiton in his Against Phryne (IV, Baiter–Sauppe ii.310) claims that her given name was Mnesarete. Nor am I unaware that the travel-writer Diodorus (FGrH 372 F 36) claims that the speech attacking her assigned to Euthias was actually written by Anaximenes (FGrH 72 T 17a). The comic author Posidippus in The Girl from Ephesus (fr. 13) says the following about her: “Before our time, Phryne was far and away the best known courtesan there was; because even if you’re younger than that, you’ve heard about her trial. Even though they thought she did terrible damage to people’s lives, she captured the court when she was tried on acapital charge; and by taking the jurors’ hands, one by one, she saved her life—although just barely—with her tears.” .
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