COURTESANS. jesting upon her as addicted to intoxication. And Menander, in his false Hercules, says—
Did he not try to wheedle Nannium?
And Antiphanes, in his treatise on Courtesans, says—"Nannium was nicknamed the Proscenium, because she had a beautiful face, and used to wear very costly garments embroidered with gold, but when she was undressed she was a very bad figure. And Corone was Nannium's daughter, and she was nicknamed Tethe, from her exceedingly debauched habits." Hyperides, in his oration against Patrocles, also speaks of a female flute-player named Nemeas. And we may wonder how it was that the Athenians permitted a courtesan to have such a name, which was that of a most honourable and solemn festival. For not only those who prostituted themselves, but all other slaves also were forbidden to take such names as that, as Polemo tells us, in his treatise on the Acropolis.
52. The same Hyperides also mentions my Ocimum, as you call her, O Cynulcus, in his second oration against Aristagoras, speaking thus—"As Lais, who appears to have been superior in beauty to any woman who had ever been seen, and Ocimum, and Metanira." And Nicostratus, a poet of the middle comedy, mentions her also in his Pandrosus, where he says—
Then go the same way to Aerope,
And bid her send some clothes immediately,
And brazen vessels, to fair Ocimum.
And Menander, in his comedy called The Flatterer, gives the following catalogue of courtesans—
Chrysis, Corone, Ischas, and Anticyra,
And the most beautiful Nannarium,—
All these you had.
And Philetærus, in his Female Hunter, says—
Is not Cercope now extremely old,
Three thousand years at least? and is not Telesis,
Diopithes' ugly daughter, three times that?
And as for old Theolyte, no man
Alive can tell the date when she was born.
Then did not Lais persevere in her trade
Till the last day of her life? and Isthmias,
Neæra too, and Phila, grew quite rotten.
I need not mention all the Cossyphæ,
Galenæ, and Coronæ; nor will I
Say aught of Nais, as her teeth are gone.
