DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0479
443
fathers of legitimate children, and maintain faithful guardians for our
houses; the Hetairai were meant to promote the enjoyment of life.' 1
Whether single or married, their whole lives were regulated by their
male relatives, and no kind of attention was paid to their mental
education. As a necessary consequence of such neglect and dishonour,
the female citizens of Athens were in all respects inferior to their hus-
bands. These, finding no charm in the society of their wives or sisters,
sought refuge in the company of young women called Hetairai (com-
panions), for the most part aliens, who lived a free life, and having no
fixed duties or recognised social status, sought to maintain themselves
in the favour of the men by cultivating every personal and mental gift.
Man)- of them attached themselves as disciples to the great statesmen
and philosophers of Greece, and Aspasia was the companion, on equal
terms, of Pericles and Socrates. Lastheneia, the Mantineian, the
disciple of Plato, and Leontion, the pupil and mistress of Epicurus,
were more celebrated for their abilities and literary accomplishments
than for their beauty.2 No doubt the vast majority of these women
were degraded both in character and position, as we learn from the
pages of Lucian, Plautus, and Terence ; and were for the most part
slaves. If a freeborn woman adopted the same mode of life (and
such cases were very rare), she lost all the privileges of her birth, was
compelled to change her name, and sank into the class of aliens.
The Hetairai, as we see, were not unknown even in the best period
of Greek art, but their influence did not make itself widely and deeply
felt until after the Peloponnesian W ar. Such a scene as that recorded
by Athcn;L'Us,3 who relates that Phrync, letting down her hair,
descended into the sea before all the Greeks at the public festival at
Elcusis, would have been impossible at any earlier period, and clearly
shows to what an extent the worship of mere beauty had lowered the
tone of the national morality.
Of this new Aphrodisian cult in its most refined and intellectual
phase, Praxiteles was the most distinguished Hierophant. He has
been called ' the sentimental adorer of the Hetairai;' and if wc accept
this designation for him, we must remember how great were the
1 Sec an excellent article on this sul>ject * I^'°g- I-aert. iii. 46; iv. 2. Athenians,
in the Quarttily h'r. im; vol. xxii. p. 104. xiii. p. 58S. • Athen. xiii. p. 590.
fathers of legitimate children, and maintain faithful guardians for our
houses; the Hetairai were meant to promote the enjoyment of life.' 1
Whether single or married, their whole lives were regulated by their
male relatives, and no kind of attention was paid to their mental
education. As a necessary consequence of such neglect and dishonour,
the female citizens of Athens were in all respects inferior to their hus-
bands. These, finding no charm in the society of their wives or sisters,
sought refuge in the company of young women called Hetairai (com-
panions), for the most part aliens, who lived a free life, and having no
fixed duties or recognised social status, sought to maintain themselves
in the favour of the men by cultivating every personal and mental gift.
Man)- of them attached themselves as disciples to the great statesmen
and philosophers of Greece, and Aspasia was the companion, on equal
terms, of Pericles and Socrates. Lastheneia, the Mantineian, the
disciple of Plato, and Leontion, the pupil and mistress of Epicurus,
were more celebrated for their abilities and literary accomplishments
than for their beauty.2 No doubt the vast majority of these women
were degraded both in character and position, as we learn from the
pages of Lucian, Plautus, and Terence ; and were for the most part
slaves. If a freeborn woman adopted the same mode of life (and
such cases were very rare), she lost all the privileges of her birth, was
compelled to change her name, and sank into the class of aliens.
The Hetairai, as we see, were not unknown even in the best period
of Greek art, but their influence did not make itself widely and deeply
felt until after the Peloponnesian W ar. Such a scene as that recorded
by Athcn;L'Us,3 who relates that Phrync, letting down her hair,
descended into the sea before all the Greeks at the public festival at
Elcusis, would have been impossible at any earlier period, and clearly
shows to what an extent the worship of mere beauty had lowered the
tone of the national morality.
Of this new Aphrodisian cult in its most refined and intellectual
phase, Praxiteles was the most distinguished Hierophant. He has
been called ' the sentimental adorer of the Hetairai;' and if wc accept
this designation for him, we must remember how great were the
1 Sec an excellent article on this sul>ject * I^'°g- I-aert. iii. 46; iv. 2. Athenians,
in the Quarttily h'r. im; vol. xxii. p. 104. xiii. p. 58S. • Athen. xiii. p. 590.