Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture by Skinner Marilyn B

Author:Skinner, Marilyn B.
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2013-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

Athenian Idol

Apart from seeking answers to her own doubts about life, a successful hetaira could have sound business reasons for taking up philosophy. Wealthy and educated clients might enjoy discussing serious intellectual matters over the wine. Accordingly, the grammarian Myrtilus of Thessaly, one of the learned participants in Athenaeus’ ­second-century CE dialogue Deipnosophistae, tells us that in Hellenistic Athens there were “hetairai who put on airs, embracing education and allotting their time to lessons; for that reason they were also quick at responding to objections” (13.583f).18 He goes on to recount an anecdote about Stilpo, a sophist, who accused the courtesan Glycera of ruining young men. “We’re both guilty of that,” she replied. “Your students are hair-splitting fakes, mine are rakes. Whether you or I ruin them makes no difference.”19 This apocryphal story, in which the “bad girl,” with her quick repartee, scores one against the smug professor, illustrates what has been called the “discourse on prostitutes” of the fourth and following centuries (Henry 1995: 58). During that era the imaginary whore acquires a heart of gold and the doings of the real-life courtesan are recorded for posterity.

In earlier Greek literature fictional hetairai are paid relatively scant attention, almost all of it negative. Portrayals of girlfriends in sympotic lyric are at best ambivalent, and in the iambic verse of Archilochus and Hipponax the prostitute is inevitably characterized as greedy, deceitful, drunken, and lecherous. Hetairai, nude or suggestively dressed, are brought on stage in most of Aristophanes’ plays simply as mute props to the dramatic action. His Assemblywomen of 392 BCE, however, contains a climactic scene in which four whores, one a pretty girl, the others old and horrendously ugly, argue over sexual rights to the young woman’s suitor ­(877–1111). Similarly, an elderly courtesan who keeps a boyfriend has a lengthy part (950–1094, 1197–203) in his last play, Wealth. Abuse of the aging prostitute, already a well-worn iambic motif, receives its fullest surviving dramatic treatment in these two episodes, which in their deployment of the hetaira as speaking character simultaneously look forward to later developments in comedy.

Middle Comedy, produced in Athens from approximately 390 to 320 BCE, moves the courtesan even closer to stage center (Henry 1985: 33–40). No complete example of this kind of drama has come down to us, but the titles and abundant fragments indicate that she was often a principal figure. Many plays bore the names of fictive or real hetairai (Ath. 13.567c), and, though quotations tell us very little, it is a reasonable inference that an individual who gives her name to a play must have been featured in it (Webster 1953: 22–3). Mythological comedy was in vogue and other titles (Circe, Calypso) indicate that the hetaira was likened to a legendary enchantress. Thus courtesans continued to be portrayed as rapacious and dishonest: Alexis, a leading dramatist of the period, has one of his characters describe in detail the various tricks by which they alter their appearance, including high heels, padding, and makeup (ap. Ath. 13.568a–d).

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