CHAPTER III.
GREECE.
Mythology.—Solonian Legislation.—Dicteria.—Pisistratidæ.—Lycurgus and Sparta.—Laws on Prostitution.—Case of Phryne.—Classes of Prostitutes.—Pornikon Telos.—Dress.—Hair of Prostitutes.—The Dicteriades of Athens.—Abode and Manners.—Appearance of Dicteria.—Laws regulating Dicteria.—Schools of Prostitution.—Loose Prostitutes.—Old Prostitutes.—Auletrides, or Flute-players.—Origin.—How hired.—Performances.—Anecdote of Arcadians.—Price of Flute-players.—Festival of Venus Periboa.—Venus Callipyge.—Lesbian Love.—Lamia.—Hetairæ.—Social Standing.—Venus and her Temples.—Charms of Hetairæ.—Thargelia.—Aspasia.—Hipparchia.—Bacchis.—Guathena and Guathenion.—Lais.—Phryne.—Pythionice.—Glycera.—Leontium.—Other Hetairæ.—Biographers of Prostitutes.—Philtres.
The Greek mythology supposes obviously a relaxed state of public morals. What period in the history of the nation it may be assumed to reflect is, however, by no means certain. It is not reasonable to suppose that the Homeric poems were composed for immodest audiences, and it would perhaps be fairer to lay the blame of the mythological indecencies at the door of the age which polished and improved upon them, rather than of that which is entitled to the credit of their conception in the rough.
Our first reliable information regarding the morals of the Greek women, passing over, for the present, the legislation ascribed to Lycurgus, is found in the ordinances of Solon. Draco is supposed to have affixed the penalty of death indiscriminately to rape, seduction, and adultery. It has been conjectured that the safety-valve used at that time, ordinary prostitution being unknown, was a system of religious prostitution in the temples, borrowed from and analogous to the plan already described. This, however, is mere conjecture. Solon, while softening the rigors of the Draconian code, by law formally established houses of prostitution at Athens, and filled them with female slaves. They were called Dicteria, and the female tenants Dicteriades. Bought with the public money, and bound by law to satisfy the demands of all who visited them, they were in fact public servants, and their wretched gains were a legitimate source of revenue to the state. Prostitution became a state monopoly, and so profitable that, even in Solon’s lifetime, a superb temple, dedicated to Venus the courtesan, was built out of the fund accruing from this source. The fee charged, however, appears to have been small.[26] In Solon’s time, the Dicteriades were kept widely apart from the Athenian women of repute. They were not allowed to mix in religious ceremonies or to enter the temples. When they appeared in the streets they were obliged to wear a particular costume as a badge of infamy. They forfeited what rights of citizenship they may have possessed in virtue of their birth. A procurer or procuress who had been instrumental in introducing a free-born Athenian girl to the Dicterion incurred the penalty of death. Nor was the law content with branding with infamy prostitutes and their accomplices alone. Their children were bastards; that is to say, they could not inherit property, they could not associate with other youths, they could not acquire the right of citizenship without performing some signal act of bravery, they could not address the people in the public assemblies. Finally, to complete their ignominy, they were exempt from the sacred duty of maintaining their parents in old age.[27]
These regulations, for which Solon obtained the praise of Athenian philosophers,[28] were not long maintained in force. Tradition imputed to the profligacy of the Pisistratidæ a relaxation of the laws concerning prostitutes. It was believed that the sons of Pisistratus not only gave to the Dicteriades the freedom of the city, but allotted to them seats at banquets beside the most respectable matrons, and, on certain days each year, turned them into their father’s beautiful gardens, and let loose upon them the whole petulance of the Athenian youth.[29] The law against procuresses was modified, a fine being substituted for death. “About the same time,” says the scandalous Greek chronicle, “the death-penalty for adultery was also commuted for scourging.”
Still, notwithstanding this falling off, it would appear that Athens was more moral than her neighbors, Corinth and Sparta. The former, then the most flourishing sea-port of Greece, was filled with a very low class of prostitutes. No laws regulated the subject. Any female who chose could open house for the accommodation of travelers and seamen, and, though Corinth was yet far from the proverbial celebrity it afterward obtained for its prostitutes, there is no doubt they bore a fearful proportion to the aggregate population of the port. At Sparta the case was different. In the system of legislation which bears the name of Lycurgus, the individual was sacrificed to the state; the female to the male. Women were educated for the sole purpose of bearing robust children. Virgins were allowed to wrestle publicly with men. Girls were habited in a robe open at the skirts, which only partially concealed the person in walking, whence the Spartan women acquired an uncomplimentary name.[30] A Spartan husband was authorized to lend his wife to any handsome man for the purpose of begetting children. That these laws, the skillfully contrived appeals to the sensual appetites, and the constant spectacle of nude charms, must have led to a general profligacy among the female sex, is quite obvious. Aristotle affirms positively that the Spartan women openly committed the grossest acts of debauchery.[31] Hence it may be inferred that prostitutes by profession were unnecessary at Sparta, at all events until a late period of its history.
After the Persian wars, the subject of Athenian prostitution is revealed in a clearer light. As a reaction from the looseness of the age of the Pisistratidæ, the Solonian laws were reaffirmed and their severity heightened. It has been imagined, from certain obscure passages in Greek authors, that the courtesans formed several corporations, each of which was responsible for the acts of all its members. They were liable to vexatious prosecutions for such acts as inciting men to commit crime, ruining thoughtless youths, fomenting treason against the state, or committing impiety. Against such charges it was rarely possible to establish a sound defense. If the accuser was positive, the Areopagus, notoriously biased against courtesans, unhesitatingly condemned the culprit to death, or imposed on her corporation a heavy fine. In this way, says an old author, the state frequently contrived to get back from these women the money they obtained from their lovers. Before the famous case of Phryne, they were wholly at the mercy of their profligate associates. A man only needed to threaten an accusation of impiety or the like to obtain a receipt in full. Phryne, so long the favorite of the Athenians, was thus accused of various vague offenses by a common informer named Euthias. Her friend Bacchis fortunately persuaded Hyperides, the orator, to undertake her case, and he softened the judges by exhibiting her marvelous beauty in a moment of affected passion. “Henceforth,” says the hetaira Bacchis to Myrrhina, “our profits are secured by law.”[32]
At this time, that is to say, at the height of Athenian prosperity, there were four classes of women who led dissolute lives at Athens. The highest in rank and repute were the Hetairæ, or kept women, who lived in the best part of the city, and exercised no small influence over the manners and even the politics of the state. Next came the Auletrides, or flute-players, who were dancers as well. They were usually foreigners, bearing some resemblance to the opera-dancers of the last century, and they combined the most unblushing debauchery with their special calling. The lowest class of prostitutes were the Dicteriades, already mentioned. They were originally bound to reside at the Piræus, the sea-port of Athens, some four miles from the city, and were forbidden to walk out by day, or to offend the eyes of the public by open indecency. Lastly came the Concubines, who were slaves owned by rich men with the knowledge and consent of their wives, serving equally the passions of their master and the caprices of their mistress. These all paid a tax to the state, called Pornikon Telos, which was farmed out to speculators, who levied it with proverbial harshness upon the unfortunate women. In the time of Pericles the revenue from this source was large.