Phryne
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Phryne (Φρύνη) was a famous hetaera (courtesan) of Ancient Greece (4th century BC) who adjusted her prices for customers depending upon how she felt about them emotionally. As accounts portray her, she always had her price, and if the customer met it, she would uphold her end of the bargain. Her trial is depicted Phryne before the Areopagus, a 1861 painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme.
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Notoriety
She was famously beautiful. On the occasion of a festival of Poseidon at Eleusis, she laid aside her garments, let down her hair, and stepped nude into the sea in the sight of the people, thus suggesting to the painter Apelles his great picture of Aphrodite Anadyomene (also portrayed at times as this Venus Anadyomene), for which Phryne herself sat as model, and other works of art from the period are alleged to be modeled after Phryne.
She was (according to some) the model for the statue of the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles.
Trial
When accused of profaning the Eleusinian mysteries, she was defended by the orator Hypereides, one of her lovers. When it seemed as if the verdict would be unfavourable, he tore open her robe and displayed her breasts, which so moved her judges that they acquitted her. According to others, she herself removed her clothing. The judges' change of heart was not simply because they were overcome by the beauty of her nude body, but because physical beauty was often seen as a facet of divinity or a mark of divine favor during those times.
Athenaeus of Naucratis in The Deipnosophists (Book XIII Concerning Women) remarked that "Phryne was more beautiful in the unseen parts."
Doubts on authenticity of disrobing scene
It is argued by Craig Cooper that Phryne never bared her chest before the Areopagus during her trial. Our knowledge of Phryne's trial is based on Athenaeus (13.590d-e) and more briefly Pseudo-Plutarch (X Orat. 849d-e). Both versions ultimately derive from the work of the biographer Hermippus of Smyrna (ca 200 B.C.) who adapted the story from Idomeneus of Lampsacus (ca 300 B.C.).
The earliest known description of the trial is found in the Ephesia of Poseidippus of Cassandreia. He simply describes Phryne as clasping the hand of each juror and with tears pleading for her life. It is a scene of supplication without disrobing being mentioned. If the disrobing did happen, Poseidippus would most likely have mentioned it because he was a comic poet. Therefore the only conclusion can be that the disrobing of Phryne must have been a later invention, sometime after 290 B.C., when Poseidippus was active as a poet. Idomeneus was writing around that time.
The evidence suggests that Idomeneus, possibly in his desire to parody and ridicule the courtroom displays of Athenian demagogues. Considering his preference for attributing sexual excess to these demagogues the provocative act of disrobing Phryne fits the character Hyperides had acquired in Idomeneus' work. As is not uncommon in the biographical tradition, later biographers failed to notice that earlier biographers did not give an accurate representation of events. The later biographer Hermippus incorporated the account of Idomeneus in his own biography. An extract from Hemippus' biography, not Idomeneus, is preserved in the work of Athenaeus and Pseudo-Plutarch.
In modern and contemporary culture
Due to her beauty, she also inspired the much later painting by artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, Phryné devant l'Areopage (Phryne before the Areopagus, 1861) as well as other works of art throughout history. Charles Baudelaire in his poems Lesbos and La beauté and Rainer Maria Rilke in his poem Die Flamingos were inspired by her beauty and fame. Phryné was also the subject of an opera by Camille Saint-Saëns: Phryné (1893). Dimitris Varos, modern Greek poet and writer, wrote a book called Phryne. Witold Jabłoński, Polish fantasy writer, also wrote a book called Phryne the Hetaera.
Painting
- Phryne (Gustave Boulanger) [1] (1850) by Gustave Boulanger
![[1]](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phryne006.jpg){kind=link}