The interior of the Didascalion, the seven classes, the little theatre and the peristyle of the court were ornamented with ninety-two frescoes which comprised the teaching of love. They were the lifework of a man, Cleochares of Alexandria the natural son and disciple of Apelles, who had furnished them on his death-bed. Lately Queen Berenice, who was greatly interested in this famous school and had sent her little sisters there, had ordered from Demetrios a series of marble groups to complete the decoration; but only one of them had yet been placed in position in the infants’ school.
At the end of every year in the presence of all the famous courtesans, a great gathering took place at which there was extraordinary emulation among the women to win the twelve prizes offered, for they consisted of the entry into the Cotytteion, the greatest honour of which they ever dreamed.
This last monument was wrapped in such mystery that to-day it is not possible to give a detailed description of it. We only know that it was in the shape of a triangle the base of which was a temple to the Goddess Cotytto, in whose name frightful unheard-of debauchery was committed. The two other sides of the monument consisted of eighteen houses; thirty-six courtesans dwelt there, and were much sought after by wealthy lovers; they were the Baptes of Alexandria. Once every month, on the night of the full moon, they met within the temple maddened by aphrodisiacs. The oldest of the thirty-six had to take a fatal dose of the terrible erotogenous drug. The certainty of her immediate death made her try without fear all the dangerous pleasures from which the living recoil. Her body, which soon became covered with sweat, was the centre and model of the whirling orgie; in the midst of loud wailings, cries, tears and dancing the other naked women embraced her, mingled their hair in her sweat, rubbed themselves upon her burning skin and derived fresh ardour from the interrupted spasm of this furious agony. For three years these women lived in this way, and at the end of thirty-six months such was the intoxication of their end.
Other but less venerated sanctuaries had been built by the women in honour of the other names of Aphrodite. There was an altar consecrated to the Ouranian Aphrodite which received the chaste vows of sentimental courtesans; another to Aphrodite Apostrophia, where unfortunate love affairs were forgotten, and there were many others. But these separate altars were only efficacious and effective in the case of trivial desires. They were used day by day, and their favours were trivial ones. The suppliants who had their requests granted placed offerings of flowers on them, while those who were not satisfied spat upon them. They were neither consecrated nor maintained by the priests and consequently their profanation was not punishable.
The discipline of the Temple was very different.
The Temple, the Mighty Temple of the Great Goddess, the most holy place in the whole of Egypt, was a colossal edifice 336 feet in length with golden gates standing at the top of seventeen steps at the end of the gardens.
The entrance was not towards the East, but in the direction of Paphos, that is to say the north-west; the rays of the sun never penetrated directly into the Sanctuary. Eighty-six columns supported the architraves, they were all tinted with purple to half their height, and the upper part of each stood out with indescribable whiteness like the bust of a woman from her attire.
Within were placed sculptured groups representing many famous scenes, Europa and the Bull, Lêda and the Swan, the Siren and the dying Glaucos, the God Pan and a Hamadryad, and at the end of the frieze the sculptor was depicted modelling the Goddess Aphrodite herself.