Σὺ δ’ εἰς ἅπαντας εὗρες ἀνθρώπους, Σόλων, σὲ γὰρ λέγουσιν τοῦτ’ ἰδεῖν πρῶτον [βροτῶν]. δημοτικὸν, ὦ Ζεῦ, πρᾶγμα καὶ σωτήριον· μεστὴν ὁρῶντα τὴν πόλιν νεωτέρων, τούτους τ’ ἔχοντας τὴν αναγκαίαν φύσιν, ἁμαρτάνοντας τ’ εἰς ὃ μὴ προσῆκον ἦν, στῆσαι πριάμενον τότε γυναῖκας κατὰ τόπους κοινὰς ἅπασι καὶ κατεσκευασμένας. Ἐστᾶσι γυμναί· μὴ ’ξαπατηθῇς· πάνθ’ ὅρα· — — — — ἡ θύρα ’στ’ ἀνεῳγμένη. εἷς ὀβολός· εἰσπήδησον· οὐκ ἔστ’ οὐδὲ εἷς ἀκκισμὸς, οὐδὲ λῆρος, οὐδ’ ὑφήρπασεν. ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ὡς βούλει σὺ χὣν βούλει τρόπον. Ἐξῆλθες ; οἰμώζειν λέγ’, ἀλλοτρία ’στί σοι.
(So too Philemon in his play the “Adelphi” relates that it was Solon who first on account of the vigorous desires of the young men bought and established public women in brothels. The same is related by Nicander of Colophon in the Third book of his Colophoniaca, who says that he (Solon) was the first to found a temple of the Pandemian Aphrodité, built from the gains of the women in charge of brothels. Philemon writes as follows “Well hast thou deserved of all men, Solon; for thou they say wert first to invent a thing both popular, by Zeus, and salutary. Seeing the city crowded full of young men, and these possessed of the natural appetites of manhood, and consequently offending in quarters unmeet, bought women and established them in certain places to be common to all and put there for that very purpose. There they are, standing all but naked; don’t be cheated; examine everything.... The door is open. One obol; in you go. There’s not an atom of coyness, no coquetry, no stealing off; but right away as you please and how you please. You have left the house? tell the girl go hang! she’s nothing to you.”)
Alexander ab Alexandro, Genial. Dier., bk. IV. ch. 1. Solon vero ut ab adulteriis cohiberetur inventus, coëmptas meretriculas Athenis prostituit primus, obviasque in venerem esse voluit, ne matronarum contagio polluerentur. (But Solon, in order that young men might be kept from adulterous connexions, was the first to buy women and set them up as harlots at Athens; and wished all to resort to them for the gratification of love, that they might not be polluted by intrigue with matrons). Comp. Meursius, “Solon, sive de eius vita, legibus, dictis atque scriptis,” (Solon—his Life, Laws, Words and Works). Copenhagen 1732. 4to., p. 98.
[125] Onomast., bk. IX. ch. 5. 34., Τὰ δὲ περὶ τοὺς λιμένας μέρη, δεῖγμα, χῶμα, ἐμπόριον· — τοῦ δ’ ἐμπορίου μέρη, καπηλεῖα, καὶ πορνεῖα, ἃ καὶ οἰκήματα ἄν τις εἴποι. (And the parts of the city near the harbour, market, mole, exchange;—and parts of the exchange, inns and brothels or “houses” as one might say). Meursius, Peiraeeus, last chapter—From this low-lying situation of the brothels comes the expression ἐπ’ οἰκήματος καθῆσθαι (to live down in a “house”, e. g. in Plato, Charmides 163 c.—C. Ernesti on Xenophon, Memorab. Socrat., II. 2. 4.
[126] s. v. Κεραμεικός· τόπος Ἀθήνῃ ἐστιν, ἔνθα αἱ πόρναι προεστήκεσαν· εἰσὶ δὲ δύο Κεραμεικοὶ, ὁ μὲν ἔξω τείχους, ὁ δὲ ἐντός. (Under the word “Ceramicus”: this is a place at Athens, where the Prostitutes plied their trade. There are two Ceramici, the Ceramicus without, and the Ceramicus within, the walls). Comp. Meursius, Graecia feriata (Holiday Greece), p. 186.
[127] Pollux, Onomast. bk. IV. ch. 5. 48., Καὶ ταῦτα δὲ, εἰ καὶ αἰσχίω, μέρη πόλεως, ἀσωτεῖα, πεττεῖα, κυβεῖα, κυβευτήρια, σκιραφεῖα, ματρυλεῖα, ἀγωγεῖα, προαγωγεῖα. (And these also are parts of the city, though somewhat disreputable ones, the profligates’ quarter, the gamesters’ quarter, the dicers’ quarter, the quarter of dicing-houses, of gaming-houses, of bawdy houses and of pimps’ establishments).
[128] Philostratus, Epist., 23., πάντα με αἵρει τὰ σὰ, τὸ καπηλεῖον ὡς Ἀφροδίσιον. (Everything about you draws me, like the tavern, home of love).
[129] In the better times of Athens this never occurred. The women were kept far too closely shut up; and their moral behaviour was subject to the supervision of the γυναικονόμοι (Commissioners for the oversight of Women). Meursius, Lect. Attic. II. 5.—Reiske, Index Graec. in Demosthen. p. 66. A regulation which existed even among the self-indulgent Sybarites. Athenaeus, Deipnos. bk. XII. p. 521. Later it was poverty especially that drove free Greek women to take up the calling of prostitute. Demosthenes, In Neaeram p. 533., παντελῶς ἤδη ἡ μὲν τῶν πορνῶν ἐργασία ἥξει εἰς τὰς τῶν πολιτίδων θυγατέρας δι’ ἀπορίαν, ὅσαι ἂν μὴ δύνωνται ἐκδοθῆναι. (Completely after a while will the trade of prostitutes come to be the occupation of the daughters of our fellow-citizenesses through poverty, that will force all to it who cannot get a dower).
[130] Lysias, Orat. I. in Theomnestum.
[131] Suidas, διάγραμμα· τὸ μίσθωμα· διέγραφον δὲ οἱ ἀγορανόμοι, ὅσον ἔδει λαμβάνειν τὴν ἑταίραν ἑκάστην—μίσθωμα· ὁ μισθὸς ὁ ἑταιρικὸς. (“Scale”: the fee; for the Market-Commissioners fixed the scale, how much each hetaera was to receive.—“fee”: the pay of a hetaera).