COURTESANS. supplication at the time, and who were present afterwards, Simonides composed this epigram:—
These damsels, in behalf of Greece, and all
Their gallant countrymen, stood nobly forth,
Praying to Venus, the all-powerful goddess;
Nor was the queen of beauty willing ever
To leave the citadel of Greece to fall
Beneath the arrows of the unwarlike Persians.
And even private individuals sometimes vow to Venus, that if they succeed in the objects for which they are offering their vows, they will bring her a stated number of courtesans.
33. As this custom, then, exists with reference to this goddess, Xenophon the Corinthian, when going to Olympia, to the games, vowed that he, if he were victorious, would bring her some courtesans. And Pindar at first wrote a panegyric on him, which begins thus:—
Praising the house which in th' Olympic games
Has thrice borne off the victory.[1]
But afterwards he composed a scolium[2] on him, which was sung at the sacrificial feasts; in the exordium of which he turns at once to the courtesans who joined in the sacrifice to Venus, in the presence of Xenophon, while he was sacrificing to the goddess himself; on which account he says—
O queen of Cyprus' isle,
Come to this grove!
Lo, Xenophon, succeeding in his aim,
Brings you a band of willing maidens,
Dancing on a hundred feet.
And the opening lines of the song were these:—
O hospitable damsels, fairest train
Of soft Persuasion,—
Ornament of the wealthy Corinth,
Bearing in willing hands the golden drops
That from the frankincense distil, and flying
was a song which went round at banquets, sung to the
lyre by the guests, one after another, said to have been introduced by Terpander; but the word is first found in Pind. Fr. lxxxvii. 9; Aristoph. Ach. 532. The name is of uncertain origin: some refer it to the character of the music, [Greek: nomos skolios], as opposed to [Greek: nomos orthios]; others to the [Greek: rhythmos skolios], or amphibrachic rhythm recognised in many scolia; but most, after Dicæarchus and Plutarch, from the irregular zigzag way it went round the table, each guest who sung holding a myrtle-branch, which he passed on to any one he chose.—Lid. & Scott, Gr. Lex. in voc.]
