Εἰς Ὀρσιλόχου (Ar. Lys. 752) (original) (raw)
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Logeion, 2021
If the Peloponnesian war burst out because of three prostitutes, two of them belonging to Aspasia, according to Aristophanes’ (mis?)information in Acharnians of 425 bc, by contrast, in 411, Aristophanes assigned to a woman, Lysistrata, the extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War, using once more the power of sex. Is (the fictional, Athenian, socially and morally respectful) Lysistrata of 411 bc a cryptic reverse image of (the real, non-Athenian, socially and morally ambiguous) Aspasia, who both employ the power of sex, the one to set off the war, the other one to end it? Using the figure of Aspasia as a par excellence “case” of the Other in ancient Greek society, this paper reviews her obvious and latent traces in extant fifth- and fourth-century literature, focusing on Aristophanes’ overt or allusive references in his Acharnians, Peace and, last but not least, Lysistrata.
The figure of the κίναιδος, and his κιναιδία, offer a puzzling object of inquiry both in terms of sexual practices and of gender expression. Whereas recent scholarship has problematized the relevance of gender rather than sexuality to capture the Greek definition of this kind of person, I attach the utmost importance to Plato’s emphasis on the life of these men, κιναίδων βίος, in the Gorgias. Taking the cue from Plato, I focus on character, dispositional states and lifestyles as the truly important notions that pertain to the erotic experience in ancient Greece. After a discussion of the epistemological obstacles created by the modern binaries active/passive and penetrating/penetrated, I argue that our dilemma is not between framing the κίναιδος in terms of either sexual acts or manners of living a gendered body. We must rather reconstruct the semantic ramifications of the Greek discourses themselves. Thinkers and writers such as Aristophanes, Plato, Aeschines, Aristotle connect matters, textures, sensations, habits, dispositions, pleasures and desires. They convey a phenomenological ethics in the form of praise or blame. The paradox of the κίναιδος is that he lives a life of sensuality, both soft and hyperactive, thereby impossible to praise.
https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415519410 Only a few names of female authors have come down to us from ancient Greece and Rome. The ancients, however, often attribute the writing of treaties or erotic manuals to women, one such example being Philaenis. The fact that a dozen sources refer to her work, Peri Aphrodision, as well as the publication in 1972 of a few fragments of papyrus supposedly from a manual of which she is the author (P. Oxy. 2891), suggest that Philaenis's book, dating from the mid-fourth century BC, was particularly notorious even in imperial times: Athenaeus, among others, cites it in his Deipnosophistai. But who was Philaenis? When female figures emerge, either in the form of female poets or the female authors of medical treatises, historians and philologists often suspect the use of a pseudonym by a male author. So was Philaenis a woman? What kind of work is envisaged when our sources refer to the ‘tablets’ of Philaenis? The aim of this article is to explore the way in which the issue of the author’s sex raises the broader and more complex questions about authority and authorship in antiquity. It will not determine whether or not Philaenis was a woman but, rather, will try to identify what the name Philaenis stood for. There are number of academic articles which examine P. Oxy. 2891, but very few studies have so far revealed the fact that the name Philaenis appeared on three occasions in a female homoerotic context. Whereas now the name of Sappho connotes love between women, for the ancients the poetess of Mytilene was certainly not an emblematic figure of female homosexuality. Philaenis, the female author of an erotic manual, often identified - erroneously and anachronistically - as a prostitute, may well have fulfilled this function, however.
, in Spyridon Tzounakas (ed.), The Reception of Ancient Cyprus in Roman Sources and Beyond, Rome: Deinotera Editrice 2023 (The Seeds of Triptolemus 3), 57-73.
This study examines certain ancient sources that mention prostitution in Cyprus, focuses on how this idea became established in Latin literature, and argues that historical facts aside, it was the existence of such Latin accounts that primarily contributed to the entrenchment of the promiscuous Cypriot woman stereotype. Special emphasis is given to the account of Justin and to the myth of the Propoetides, as this is described in the 10th book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. As I argue, despite its short length, the myth of the Propoetides greatly influenced later writings which explored the loss of modesty (pudor), especially that of a heroine, while at the same time contributing to the entrenchment of the stereotype in question. Finally, this chapter discusses how the particular stereotype was exploited in various ways by travel writers within the context of their respective aims.