46. Up to this point we have been recapitulating the things mentioned by Macho. For our beautiful Athens has produced such a number of courtesans (of whom I will tell you as many anecdotes as I can) as no other populous city ever produced. At all events, Aristophanes the Byzantian counted up a hundred and thirty-five, and Apollodorus a still greater number; and Gorgias enumerated still more, saying that, among a great many more, these eminent ones had been omitted by Aristophanes—namely, one who was surnamed Paroinos, and Lampyris, and Euphrosyne: and this last was the daughter of a fuller. And, besides these, he has omitted Megisto, Agallis, Thaumarium, Theoclea (and she was nicknamed the Crow), Lenætocystos, Astra, Gnathæna, and her grand-daughter Gnathænium, and Sige, and Synoris (who was nicknamed the Candle), and Euclea, and Grymæa, and Thryallis, and Chimæra, and Lampas. But Diphilus the comic poet was violently in love with Gnathæna, (as has been already stated, and as Lynceus the Samian relates in his Commentaries;) and so once, when on the stage he had acted very badly, and was turned out (ἠρμένος) of the theatre, and, for all that, came to Gnathæna as if nothing had happened; and when he, after he had arrived, begged Gnathæna to wash his feet, "Why do you want that?" said she; "were you not carried (ἠρμένος) hither?" And Gnathæna was very ready with her repartees. And there were other courtesans who had a great opinion of themselves, paying attention to education, and spending a part of their time on literature; so that they were very ready with their rejoinders and replies.

Accordingly, when on one occasion Stilpo, at a banquet, was accusing Glycera of seducing the young men of the city, (as Satyrus mentions in his Lives,) Glycera took him up and said, "You and I are accused of the same thing, O Stilpo; for they say that you corrupt all who come to you, by teaching them profitless and amorous sophistries; and they accuse me of the same thing: for if people waste their time, and are treated ill, it makes no difference whether they are living with a philosopher or with a harlot." For, according to Agathon,

It does not follow, because a woman's body

Is void of strength, that her mind, too, is weak.

47. And Lynceus has recorded many repartees of Gnathæna. There was a parasite who used to live upon an old woman, and kept himself in very good condition; and Gnathæna, seeing him, said, "My young friend, you appear to be in very good case." "What then do you think," said he, "that I should be if I slept by myself?" "Why, I think you would starve," said she. Once, when Pausanius, who was nicknamed Laccus,[35] was dancing, he fell into a cask. "The cellar," says Gnathæna, "has fallen into the cask." On one occasion, some one put a very little wine into a wine-cooler, and said that it was sixteen years old. "It is very little of its age," said she, "to be as old as that." Once at a drinking-party, some young men were fighting about her, and beating one another, and she said to the one who was worsted, "Be of good cheer, my boy; for it is not a contest to be decided by crowns, but by guineas." There was a man who once gave her daughter a mina, and never brought her anything more, though he came to see her very often. "Do you think, my boy," said she, "that now you have once paid your mina, you are to come here for ever, as if you were going to Hippomachus the trainer?" On one occasion, when Phryne said to her, with some bitterness, "What would become of you if you had the stone?" "I would give it to you," said she, "to sharpen your wit upon." For it was said that Gnathæna was liable to the stone, while the other certainly wanted it as Gnathæna hinted. On one occasion, some men were drinking in her house, and were eating some lentils dressed with onions (βολβοφάκη); as the maidservant was clearing the table, and putting some of the lentils in her bosom (κόλπον), Gnathæna said, "She is thinking of making some κολποφάκη."

Once, when Andronicus the tragedian had been acting his part in the representation of the Epigoni with great applause, and was coming to a drinking-party at her house, and sent a boy forward to bid her make preparation to receive him, she said—

"O cursed boy, what word is this you've spoken?"

And once, when a chattering fellow was relating that he was just come from the Hellespont, "Why, then," said she, "did you not go to the first city in that country?" and when he asked what city, "To Sigeum,"[36] said she. Once, when a man came to see her, and saw some eggs on a dish, and said, "Are these raw, Gnathæna, or boiled?" "They are made of brass, my boy," said she. On one occasion, when Chærephon came to sup with her without an invitation, Gnathæna pledged him in a cup of wine. "Take it," said she, "you proud fellow." And he said, "I proud?" "Who can be more so," said she, "when you come without even being invited?" And Nico, who was nicknamed the Goat (as Lynceus tells us), once when she met a parasite, who was very thin in consequence of a long sickness, said to him, "How lean you are." "No wonder," says he; "for what do you think is all that I have had to eat these three days?" "Why, a leather bottle," says she, "or perhaps your shoes."

COURTESANS.

48. There was a courtesan named Metanira; and when Democles the parasite, who was nicknamed Lagynion, fell down in a lot of whitewash, she said, "Yes, for you have devoted yourself to a place where there are pebbles." And when he sprung upon a couch which was near him, "Take care," said she, "lest you get upset." These sayings are recorded by Hegesander. And Aristodemus, in the second book of his Laughable Records, says that Gnathæna was hired by two men, a soldier and a branded slave; and so when the soldier, in his rude manner, called her a cistern, "How can I be so?" said she; "is it because two rivers, Lycus and Eleutherus, fall into me?" On one occasion, when some poor lovers of the daughter of Gnathæna came to feast at her house, and threatened to throw it down, saying that they had brought spades and mattocks on purpose; "But," said Gnathæna, "if you had those implements, you should have pawned them, and brought some money with you." And Gnathæna was always very neat and witty in all she said; and she even compiled a code of laws for banquets, according to which lovers were to be admitted to her and to her daughters, in imitation of the philosophers, who had drawn up similar documents. And Callimachus has recorded this code of hers in the third Catalogue of Laws which he has given; and he has quoted the first words of it as follows:—"This law has been compiled, being fair and equitable; and it is written in three hundred and twenty-three verses."