“Neither the maidens of Pyrrha, nor those of Methymna[[121]], nor all the host of Lesbian beauties please me. Vile to me seems Anactoria, vile the fair Cydno, Atthis is no more so dear to my eyes as once she was, nor yet a hundred others I loved not innocently[[122]]. Villain! yours is now what belonged to many women....”
and verse 201:
“Lesbian women, beloved, who made me infamous!”
Sappho speaks first in general of those that have submitted to her caresses, the maidens of Pyrrha and Methymna; then she mentions by name Anactoria, Cydno and Atthis,—to whom Suidas adds Telesippa and Megara:
“Her favorites, whom she loved well, were three in number, Atthis, Telesippa, Megara, and for those she burnt in impure passion.”
These passages from the Ancients are clear enough, and do not admit of any doubt; they even assist us in explaining other sentences, which otherwise seem obscure or ambiguous; for instance the “masculine Sappho” of Horace (Epistles I., XIX., 28); “making plaint against the maids of her country” (Odes II., XIII., 25); also Ovid, Art of Love, III., 331.
“Sappho should be well known, too; what more wanton than she?” Tristia, II., 363:
“What was the lore Lesbian Sappho taught, but to love maids?”
and Martial, VII., 68[[123]].
“Sappho, the amorous, praised our poetess; the latter was more pure, the former not more perfect in art.”