49. But a slave who had been flogged hired Callistium, who was nicknamed Poor Helen; and as it was summer, and he was lying down naked, she, seeing the marks of the whip, said, "Where did you get this, you unhappy man?" and he said, "Some broth was spilt over me when I was a boy." And she said, "It must have been made of neats'-leather." And once, when Menander the poet had failed with one of his plays, and came to her house, Glycera brought him some milk, and recommended him to drink it. But he said he would rather not, for there was some γραῦς[37] on it. But she replied, "Blow it away, and take what there is beneath."
Thais said once to a boastful lover of hers, who had borrowed some goblets from a great many people, and said that he meant to break them up, and make others of them, "You will destroy what belongs to each private person." Leontium was once sitting at table with a lover of hers, when Glycera came in to supper; and as the man began to pay more attention to Glycera, Leontium was much annoyed: and presently, when her friend turned round, and asked her what she was vexed at, she said, "Ἡ ὑστέρα[38] pains me."
A lover of hers once sent his seal to Lais the Corinthian, and desired her to come to him; but she said, "I cannot come; it is only clay." Thais was one day going to a lover of hers, who smelt like a goat; and when some one asked her whither she was going, she said—
To dwell with Ægeus,[39] great Pandion's son.
Phryne, too, was once supping with a man of the same description, and, lifting up the hide of a pig, she said, "Take it, and eat[40] it." And once, when one of her friends sent her some wine, which was very good, but the quantity was small; and when he told her that it was ten years old; "It is very little of its age," said she. And once, when the question was asked at a certain banquet, why it is that crowns are hung up about banqueting-rooms, she said, "Because they delight the mind."[41] And once, when a slave, who had been flogged, was giving himself airs as a young man towards her, and saying that he had been often entangled, she pretended to look vexed; and when he asked her the reason, "I am jealous of you," said she, "because you have been so often smitten."[42] Once a very covetous lover of hers was coaxing her, and saying to her, "You are the Venus of Praxiteles;" "And you," said she, "are the Cupid of Phidias."[43]
COURTESANS.
50. And as I am aware that some of those men who have been involved in the administration of affairs of state have mentioned courtesans, either accusing or excusing them, I will enumerate some instances of those who have done so. For Demosthenes, in his speech against Androtion, mentions Sinope and Phanostrate; and respecting Sinope, Herodicus the pupil of Crates says, in the sixth book of his treatise on People mentioned in the Comic Poets, that she was called Abydus, because she was an old woman. And Antiphanes mentions her in his Arcadian, and in his Gardener, and in his Sempstress, and in his Female Fisher, and in his Neottis. And Alexis mentions her in his Cleobuline, and Callicrates speaks of her in his Moschion; and concerning Phanostrate, Apollodorus, in his treatise on the Courtesans at Athens, says that she was called Phtheiropyle, because she used to stand at the door (πύλη) and hunt for lice (φθεῖρες).
And in his oration against Aristagoras, Hyperides says—"And again you have named, in the same manner, the animals called aphyæ." Now, aphyæ, besides meaning anchovies, was also a nickname for some courtesans; concerning whom the before-mentioned Apollodorus says—"Stagonium and Amphis were two sisters, and they were called Aphyæ, because they were white, and thin, and had large eyes." And Antiphanes, in his book on Courtesans, says that Nicostratis was called Aphya for the same reason. And the same Hyperides, in his speech against Mantitheus, who was being prosecuted for an assault, speaks in the following manner respecting Glycera—"Bringing with him Glycera the daughter of Thalassis in a pair-horse chariot." But it is uncertain whether this is the same Glycera who was the mistress of Harpalus; concerning whom Theopompus speaks in his treatise on the Chian Epistle, saying that after the death of Pythionica, Harpalus sent for Glycera to come to him from Athens; and when she came, she lived in the palace which is at Tarsus, and was honoured with royal honours by the populace, and was called queen; and an edict was issued, forbidding any one to present Harpalus with a crown, without at the same time presenting Glycera with another. And at Rhossus, he went so far as to erect a brazen statue of her by the side of his own statue. And Clitarchus has given the same account in his History of Alexander. But the author of Agen, a satyric drama, (whoever he was, whether it was Python of Catana, or king Alexander himself,) says—
And now they say that Harpalus has sent them
Unnumber'd sacks of corn, no fewer than