Here, Doricha, your bones have long been laid,
Here is your hair, and your well-scented robe:
You who once loved the elegant Charaxus,
And quaff'd with him the morning bowl of wine.
But Sappho's pages live, and still shall live,
In which is many a mention of your name,
Which still your native Naucratis shall cherish,
As long as any ship sails down the Nile.
Archedice also was a native of Naucratis; and she was a courtesan of great beauty. "For some how or other," as Herodotus says, "Naucratis is in the habit of producing beautiful courtesans."
70. There was also a certain courtesan named Sappho, a native of Eresus, who was in love with the beautiful Phaon, and she was very celebrated, as Nymphis relates in his Voyage round Asia. But Nicarete of Megara, who was a courtesan, was not a woman of ignoble birth, but she was born of free parents, and was very well calculated to excite affection by reason of her accomplishments, and she was a pupil of Stilpon the philosopher.
There was also Bilisticha the Argive, who was a very celebrated courtesan, and who traced her descent back to the Atridæ, as those historians relate who have written the history of the affairs of Argolis. There was also a courtesan named Leæna, whose name is very celebrated, and she was the mistress of Harmodius, who slew the tyrant. And she, being tortured by command of Hippias the tyrant, died under the torture without having said a word. Stratocles the orator also had for his mistress a courtesan whose name was Leme,[1] and who was nicknamed Parorama, because she used to let whoever chose come to her for two drachmas, as Gorgias says in his treatise on Courtesans.
Now though Myrtilus appeared to be intending to say no more after this, he resumed his subject, and said:—But I was nearly forgetting, my friends, to tell you of the Lyda of Antimachus, and also of her namesake Lyda, who was also a courtesan and the mistress of Lamynthius the Milesian. For each of these poets, as Clearchus tells us in his Tales of Love, being inflamed with love for the barbarian Lyde, wroteliterally means the matter which gathers in the corner of the eyes; [Greek: Lêmai], sore eyes. [Greek: Parorama] means an oversight, a defect in sight; but there is supposed to be some corruption in this latter word.]
- ↑ [Greek: Lêmê
