Phryne of Thespiae: Courtesan, Muse, and Myth

"Phryne of Thespiae: Courtesan, Muse, and Myth is the first comprehensive attempt to reconstruct the life of an Athenian courtesan who lived and worked in fourth-century Athens. Although considered the most famous of the many Greek courtesans who flocked to Athens during this period, Phryne became even more popular in the later literary tradition, which continually reimagined and embellished her stories. They recounted again and again how she served as the model for the Praxiteles' Cnidian Aphrodite, the first monumental female nude in Western art, and how the sight of her naked body won acquittal when she was prosecuted for impiety. But she left no writings in her own words and only a handful of fragments related to her have survived from her time. The primary evidence for her life comes down to us from texts composed hundreds of years after her death, all of them written by men, whose works reflect the changing tastes, experiences, and values of Greeks living under Roman rule. Through a close analysis of the evidence for Athenian sexual labor in classical Athens and drawing on parallels with other Greek courtesans, this book argues that key aspects of her biography, even those that have been dismissed as male fantasies, could have plausibly originated in historical events. The portrait that emerges is that of a powerful and socially consequential woman whose wealth and connections helped to shape the society in which she lived"--