Phryne of Thespiae: Courtesan, Muse, and Myth - Paperback

by Laura McClure (Author)

Although Phryne is considered the most famous of the many Greek courtesans who flocked to Athens during the fourth century BCE, there have been no modern attempts to reconstruct her life. It was not until the eighteenth century that artistic interest in her developed and her stories were continually reimagined and embellished. Artists and writers have 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. However, she left no writings in her own words, and only a handful of fragments related to her have survived from her time. Until now, 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.

Author Biography

Laura McClure is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classical Literature Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her books include Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama, Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus, and Women in Classical Antiquity: From Birth to Death.