Women and Cult (Greek and Roman): The term ‘cultic prostitution’ is an oxymoron because the cultic function of prostitutes, in Greece, never existed.
‘Using feminist methodology, discuss Strabo’s view of cultic prostitution in the context of Greek society. Was cultic prostitution as acceptable as Strabo maintains or was this an isolated case?’
This essay will argue that Strabo, in his first century C.E. testimony of prostitutes being dedicated to Aphrodite’s temple in the fifth century B.C.E., rather than signalling ‘cultic prostitution’, offers exaggerated tales that lack authentic evidence to validate his stories.
In recent years, there has been a growing consensus amongst scholars that the cultic function of prostitutes, in Greece, never existed. prostitutes, however, hierodouloi, were dedicated to temples of Aphrodite to be used for commercial purposes to enrich the temple’s coffers and the polis[1]. These temples were erected to honour Aphrodite, the deity the prostitutes paid homage to, the goddess of love.
People other than prostitutes also worshipped Aphrodite. The goddess attracted all those women and men celebrating the joyous consummation of love[2]. One of Sappho’s poems aptly expresses Aphrodite’s charms and ‘the circle of maidens who are awaiting marriage’[3]. However, sexual intercourse never took place in the Greek sanctuary: ‘those activities that defined the human condition – birth, defecation, sexual intercourse, and death – were not permitted in sanctuaries[4].
At the height of Athenian prosperity, there were four classes of women prostitutes. The Hetairai, ‘companions of men’, were the kept, freedwomen and free non-citizen, ‘cultivated foreign women’, who acted as courtesans[5]. Statues erected in the courtesan’s honour signify the beauty and prestige of some of the more famous[6].
One of the more famous Hetairai of Athens was Lamia. Lamia was the delight of not only Alexandria and King Ptolemy but also Demetrius of Macedon[7]. Her name and exploits were well known.
On the other hand, the names of respectable Greek women were concealed in public discourse. However, the Greeks did not abide by that rule when it came to some of the more famous hetairai. ‘No less than eleven reputable authors have recorded the history of courtesans at Athens’[8].
Another class of prostitutes, the Auletrides, flute players, were usually women who entertained guests at the symposium with music dance and sexual favours. The lowest class, the Dicteriades, were the common prostitutes; the Dicteriades generally worked at the port of Piraeus, for a fixed sum[9]. Lastly, the Concubines were women slaves owned by rich men who lived under the same roof as the Athenian’s wife[10]. Corinth’s reputation for licentiousness was even greater than Athens.
Corinth, the largest emporium of commerce in Greece, was successful in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. Corinth became a byword in Greece for licentiousness[11]. Aristophanes coined the verb ‘korinthiazesthai, ‘to fornicate”; Plato used “korinthia kore”, a Corinthian girl, to mean a man-pleaser[12]. Stratonikos called Corinth, ‘Androcorinth’, or ‘Male Corinth’ in reference to the abundance of male prostitutes available[13]. Strabo, when reminiscing on old Corinth’s wealth, recalls the proverb, ‘not for every man is the voyage to Corinth’[14]. Corinth was imagined by the rest of Greece as an ‘Orientalizing Other’: a foreign city in their midst[15].
This Oriental influence in Corinth is due to Aphrodite, whose cult is inseparable from both Corinth and Greek mythology. Aphrodite’s temple was situated on the Acropolis of Corinth. However, ‘the famous temple … has left little trace’[16]. The use of frankincense, which was always know in Greek by its Semitic name also has a special association with Aphrodite[17]. Strabo, like Herodotus before him, links his tales of Aphrodite and prostitutes to both Corinth and the East[18].
Strabo, a philosopher, geographical theorist, a first century C.E. Greek, was living in Rome under its first emperor, Augustus. Strabo’s encyclopaedic Geography of the Mediterranean tells of exotic and remarkable tales and customs of women in Asia Minor in their relationship to Aphrodite’s temple[19]. Strabo refers to Herodotus to back his claims. However, before relating these tales of the exotic East, Strabo tells a story about ancient Corinth in the fifth century B.C.E.
Strabo, lingering on the tales of old Corinth, claims, ‘the temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple-slaves, courtesans, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess’[20]. Strabo’s story is a grandiose account of sexual activity in Corinth. The tale embellishes Corinth’s exotic and licentious past[21]. Strabo’s story (8. 6. 20.) of a thousand prostitutes dedicated to Aphrodite on the Acropolis in Corinth is not an eyewitness account; rather, he is writing nostalgically[22].
Strabo is ‘glamorising the fleshpots of run-down Corinth as the dregs of a once proud cultic extravaganza un-parallelled through out Greece, talking about an illustrious past’[23]. Other scholars concur that Strabo was embellishing his story of Corinth. ‘It [Corinth] was not dedicated to the goddess of love, Aphrodite[24]; Strabo’s story of 1000 sacred prostitutes has been shown to be pure fabrication[25]. One thousand prostitutes would not fit on or in the limited vicinity of the Corinthian Acropolis[26].
In reality, Corinth was neither better nor worse than any other city in Greece[27]. The dedication to the goddess, of slaves – men and women, in order that they might earn money by prostitution, making the temple ‘very rich’, does not warrant the meaning, ‘cultic prostitution’.
The term ‘cultic prostitution’ suggests that women and men prostitutes engaged in legitimated sexual intercourse, of a ritual character, with strangers – devotees of the shrine. The sexual behavior was condoned by the priesthood and carried out in the vicinity of the sanctuary[28]. Cultic prostitution is considered a form of imitative magic – ‘like produces like’[29].
Through the use of homeopathic magic, the gods could be moved to engage in similar activities as a way to promote fecundity and fertility. Were there such an institution as a full scale temple brothel, with large numbers of women and men prostituting themselves, as Strabo claims, offering, say, a ‘mystic union’ with the deity, one would expect there to be textual proof to testify to its existence.
Attention to detail, where festivals, temples and religious calendars were concerned, was of prime importance in Greece and were part of a city’s constitution[30]. Religion was central to the Greeks way of life. Law stringently regulated female sexuality and prostitute’s sexual activity. Written laws were strictly kept’ these ensured the Greeks kept to ritual, public worship and sacrifices[31]. The Greeks were ‘deeply concerned for the sanctity of (the) rites[32].
Public signs, instructing and warning those attending the site how to conduct themselves, were placed near altars or close to sanctuaries. One example of this practice is in a notice in the sanctuary of Dionysus of the fourth century B.C.E. ‘This law they wrote on a pillar of stone and set it up in the sanctuary … by the altar’[33].
Signs placed near shrines might differentiate between such things as gender and class, age and dress codes, restrictions on accommodation near the site, regulations on the consumption of food, along with many other rules[34]. Even flies were signalled, in some instances, to keep out![35]. However, where ‘cultic prostitution’ is concerned, ‘none of the ancient evidence offers a narrative of any encounter within the institution that it envisages’[36].
Strabo (11. 14. 16.) in another place in his Geography, talks about slave-prostitutes in connection with the temple of Aphrodite in Acilisene, Asia Minor. He says that people, ‘dedicate to her [Aphrodite] service slaves, male and female’. He concludes, ‘this indeed is not a remarkable thing’.
The reason it is not remarkable to Strabo is because, rather than this ‘dedication’ referring to ‘cultic prostitution’, these slaves, as in Greece, brought in revenue that went to the temple funds and tax to the state. Solon, in Athens, in the fifth century, also saw the benefit in such a venture.
Solon, by law, formerly established houses of prostitution in Athens. His decision was proclaimed as ‘this democratic and salutary thing’[37]. The famous political leader and lawgiver filled the brothels with female slaves, supplying a legitimate source of revenue for the state[38].
Other than prostitutes, whose service rendered funds to the temple, ‘respectable women unquestionably held office in a wide range of pagan religions across the ancient world chronologically, geographically and culturally[39]. ‘The old woman who tends Sosipolis … lives in chastity’, … no one may enter it [the inner part] except the woman who tends the god’[40].
The myth of ‘cultic prostitution’ is not only associated with prostitutes but also with virgins – young, nubile, innocent parthenoi – untouched by any man. In Acilisene, Asia Minor, according to Strabo,
‘the most illustrious men of the tribe actually consecrate to Aphrodite their daughters while maidens; and it is the custom for these to be first prostituted in the temple of the goddess for a long time and after this to be given in marriage; and no one disdains to live in wedlock with such a woman[41].
Athens had a different attitude toward ‘maidens’ than this. Fathers and the state guarded the virgin daughters of its citizens: the moment a parthenoi was caught in the sexual act, she suffered a change of status. The young woman of puberty age was sold into slavery: she was reduced to nothing[42].
However, according to Strabo, there, in Acilisene, the customs regarding young marriageable women were the exact opposite to Greece. Strabo is again relying heavily upon Herodotus account of similar activates to back his story. In Acilisene, Asia Minor, young maidens were sold into slavery, on behalf of the goddess in the name of some ‘sacred rites of the Persians’.
However, according to Strabo, unlike Athens, there is no change of status. Following their sexual service to the goddess, the young maidens are given in marriage. Strabo’s testimony of women prostituting themselves to the goddess hangs on a very thin thread. ‘Without Herodotus, the picture that even the most confident scholar can produce is always revealed as embarrassingly tentative’[43]. Eastern documents, like their Greek neighbours, ‘repeatedly fail to confirm’ this practice in the East[44].
In Greece, the way in which virgins consecrate their virginity to the goddess prior to marriage, is to symbolically offer it as a sacred votive offering to a goddess within the confines of a sacred precinct, ‘Intercourse with the deity is conducted through gifts … votive offerings of all kinds.’[45]. The bond between man [sic] and the sacred is consummated in the continuous exchange of gift for gift; it may even be replaced by an image[46].
A third instance where Strabo mentions prostitutes connected with Aphrodite’s temple is at Comana, in Asia Minor[47]. Strabo says it was‘ a notable emporium for the people from Armenia[48]. Attending were ‘a multitude of women who make gain from their persons, most of whom are dedicated to the goddess’[49]. Strabo here likens Comana to Corinth, ‘for in a way the city is a lesser Corinth’[50].
‘For there too, on account of the multitude of courtesans, who were sacred to Aphrodite, outsiders resorted [to Corinth] in great numbers and kept holiday’ [51].
The term ‘cultic prostitution’ is an oxymoron; when it is done away with, all that is left in Strabo’s tale of Comana are women courtesans. These women prostitutes were enslaved to a system that demanded they serve the goddess of love. The Greeks calling this base sexual service, ‘dedicated to the goddess’, glosses over the way in which the women were used in Greece’s male dominated society.
In actuality, the women were paying the price, with their bodies, to produce earnings for the temple while they supplied sexual service for the male population. Greek men enjoyed boasting of their infamous Hetairai. However, the majority of women prostitutes, and men too, for that matter, who were attached to the temple of Aphrodite, rather than contributing sexual service to some exotic cult of the mysterious East, eked out their lives in degrading and humiliating circumstances. The prostitutes of Greece suffered public insult, humiliation and physical abuse, as noted by Philemon[52]. ‘But you can immediately have whichever one you want how you want. Then you leave; tell her to get lost, she’s nothing to you[53].
Strabo’s stories of prostitutes being used for ‘cultic prostitution’ cannot be justified. The only evidence backing Strabo’s stories of unusual customs in Acilisene and Comana is Herodotus, whose testimony, scholars say, are tenuous, to say the least. Strabo’s titillating tale of the one thousand prostitutes of Corinth is not true; Greece’s records do not mention the institute, ‘cultic prostitution’.
Strabo’s account of the thousand prostitutes of Corinth is a misfit: it does not fit scholars understanding of classical Greek cities: the way in which they used their civic space or the way in which commercial prostitution was conducted in Greece. Finally, prostitutes attached to the temples of Aphrodite, whether slave or free, earned money by providing a sexual service, whereby those temples grew rich and notorious.
Footnote for bible students:
The concept of prostitution as a means to pay vows was so well-known, that the Greek translators of Prov 19:13b had recourse to it in elucidating a passage that otherwise remained obscure to them. Whereas the Hebrew text speaks of a wife’s quarreling that is likened to “a continual dripping of rain,” the LXX talks about the unholy “votive gifts (euchai, the current translation of Heb neádaµréÆm) from the hire of a hetaera.” From a text-critical point of view the Masoretic Text is to be preferred, but the Greek rendering reveals the notoriety of the custom that interests us here.
On the basis of these texts, we may conclude that the phenomenon of women—and, occasionally, men—prostituting themselves in order to obtain the money to fulfill their vows was known and to some extent accepted in broad layers of the Israelite society. Until the Deuteronomic reform it seems to have been tolerated by the official religion, which preferred the resulting votive gifts over an ethical rigorism.
Considering the available evidence, then, there is no need to postulate the existence of sacred prostitution in the service of a fertility cult. The witness of the OT certainly does not compel us to posit that the Israelites had recourse to such forms of sympathetic magic. The comparative material that is adduced to demonstrate a common ANE pattern of ritually staged copulation as a magical means to promote fertility is not as conclusive as is sometimes said. Prostitution whereby the income fell to the temple was definitely known, but its alleged magical connotation remains unproved.
Without going into a discussion of all the available ANE evidence, it will be useful to conclude this survey with a succinct analysis of the Mesopotamian data. Both the Sumerian and the Akkadian lexicon contain a number of words meaning “female prostitute.” Generally, the attention of OT scholars has been monopolized by the qadištu, clearly cognate with Heb qeádeµsûaÆ. The connection between the two terms is frequently said to go beyond the level of etymology; both would have been designations of the “cult prostitute.”
A survey of the texts in which qadištu occurs, however, shows that the term is frequently used, especially in the 1st millennium b.c.e., for a wet nurse or a midwife. One should therefore avoid narrowing down her activities to those of a prostitute. Nevertheless, the term does at times refer to a prostitute. Together with the hÉaré÷mtu and the isûtaré÷tu, the qadištu operated under the patronage of Ishtar, the goddess of love. There is no evidence, however, that such prostitution was ritual in the sense that it was part of a fertility cult.
In Akkadian texts, the brothel can be called “the house of Ishtar,” even though the entertainment offered there involved nothing particularly religious. Prostitution was a profane profession, unattractive perhaps, but on the whole not dishonorable. Also, the frequent connection of prostitutes with temples should not be interpreted as proof of the sacred character of their profession. Neo-Babylonian records from the Ishtar temple of Uruk show that the temple hired out certain members of its lower female personnel as concubines to private citizens. The relations between the hierodule and the man were conducted at the home of the latter, and nothing indicates that he had any higher designs than to have a pleasurable time. To the temple, prostitutes could be a source of income, but they were not cultic functionaries.
In a famous passage of the Histories, Herodotus tells us that every Babylonian woman had to prostitute herself, once in her life, to a stranger within the precincts of the Ishtar temple (1.199). Assyriologists disagree about the accuracy of this information. Supposing Herodotus was right, one cannot make him say that the women did so as part of a fertility rite. The only thing the “Father of History” tells us is that the piece of silver the woman received in payment belonged to the deity. This is precisely what we have found in the OT.
We may even wonder whether Herodotus might not have mistaken the prostitution in payment of a vow for a general, once-in-a-lifetime duty. However that be may, the cuneiform evidence does not warrant the conclusion that the Mesopotamians practiced cultic prostitution in order to enhance the fertility of the soil or the flocks. The only instance one could quote to support the idea of a connection between sexual intercourse and fertility in nature is the so-called “sacred marriage.” Evidence for this custom, however, is scarce and stems mainly from the late 3d millennium b.c.e. Also the term “prostitution” could hardly be applied to this.
In short, both the evidence from the OT and the Akkadian and Ugaritic data do not support the hypothesis of “cultic prostitution.” Ancient Near Eastern civilizations were familiar with prostitutes working in the service of the temple, as they were with the phenomenon of prostitution as a means to pay vows. In neither case, however, does there seem to have been a conscious connection with fertility rites.[54]
‘Cultic Prostitution’ (extra notes): sacred marriage
“The famous hetairi, Neara, a foreigner, was accused of enacting this role of ‘queen’ in the sacred marriage, ‘she was given to Dionysus as wife, she conducted for the city the ancestral practices towards the gods, many sacred, secret practices”.[1]. Evidence for this custom, however, is scarce and stems mainly from the late third millennium b.c.e. In addition, the term “prostitution” could hardly be applied to this.
Herodotus reports a story told to him by Babylonian priests, in this regard, which Lerner says ‘seems to have more historic foundation. The high priestess dwelt in a room with a couch, in which she ‘was nightly visited by the God’.[2]. Whether actually carried out or symbolically re-enacted there is no way of knowing.
The only instance one could quote to support the idea of a connection between sexual intercourse and f ertility in nature is the so-called ‘sacred marriage’. A sacred marriage, a mythical union took place once a year. The sacred marriage was performed annually in the temples of the fertility goddesses for almost two thousand years. It was ‘a public celebration considered essential to the well-being of the community’.[3].
The community honoured the priestess and her shepherd/king for having performed this ‘sacred’ service. E.M. Yamauchi, looking for clues to sacred prostitution, says ‘It is generally assumed that the worship of the major Ugaritic goddesses – Asheras, Astarte, Anath, Qudshu … involved sacred prostitution. though there are no explicit texts which can prove this. [Of Carthage and Sicily] the lack of evidence for sacred prostitution is surprising. [4].
Evidence of a similar sacred marriage ritual is in the three-day, Anthesteria festival, referred to in Athens as the older Dionysia, in contrast to the great Dionysia, and associated by the Greeks with the blossoming of Spring (Burkett p. 237). A ‘queen’ the wife of the archon-basilius. is given as wife to the god himself’ at night. ‘Nowhere else does Greek literature speaks so clearly of a sacred marriage ritual’. How the ‘marriage’ was actually consummated is a question, which remains unanswered.[5].
Herodotus, (1.196) on the other hand, is not talking about maidens being prostituted, but rather, about a custom that surrounded ‘girls of marriageable age’[6]. ‘Marriage was the object of the transaction (1.196 p. 78). Herodotus finishes off the account by saying that “the ‘admirable practice’ had now , [at the time Herodotus was writing], fallen into disuse. Of lately, they prostitute the girls of the lower classes to earn some money due to poverty”. Whatever this account says about the way in which women of Babylon were treated prior to marriage, it does not fit in with Strabo’s story, “who, one and all”, he says, “prostitute themselves”.
Neither Herodotus nor Strabo are giving an eyewitness account. Nevertheless, it is more than likely that both Herodotus and Strabo, each in their own timeframe, were maintaining what Kramer says male historians do. “The ultimate function, ‘the affirmation of the social order as it exists’, is the goal of the male historian” (Kramer p 34).
Another religion that may have enacted a sacred marriage is the Eulysian Mysteries. Burke asks the question, ‘was there a sacred marriage of hierophant and priestess in the process of the Elysian mysteries?’ However, he concludes, ‘we do not know the true course of events.’[7]
What was considered immoral was a man hiring out one’s body to another man’s use, identified as kinaidos: a socially and sexually anti-type, deviant male:[8] Promiscuity, payment, and passivity to another man’s penetration was ‘unacceptable behaviour’ for an Athenian adult male-citizen[9].
Then, king’s daughters carried out important religious functions amongst other religious, economical, and political activities. The marriage takes place at night; the Choes revellers stand with torches around the couch of Dionysis and Ariadne (p 240). Dionysis is represented by a mask. The mask is fastened to a column. Neara, mentioned above, enacted this role ‘she was given to Dioysis as wife, she conducted for the city the ancestral practices towards the gods, many sacred, secret practices (Demosth. Or. 59.73 in Burkett p 239).
C The names of respectable Greek women were concealed in public discourse. Perikles said in this respect, ‘the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by a man’[10]. However, the Greeks did not abide by that rule when it came to their famous hetairai. ‘No less than eleven reputable authors have recorded the history of courtesans at Athens’[11].
Statues erected in their honour signify the beauty and prestige of some of the more famous[12].
Amongst the famous prostitutes of Athens was Lamia and Aspasia. Lamia was the delight of not only Alexandria and King Ptolemy but also Demetrius of Macedon, ‘who levied a tax of some $250, 000 on the city of Athens as a gift to her’ [13]. Aspasia mixed with and lectured the Greek male intelligentsia and their wives. Corinth also boasted of its sexual activities outside of marriage.
Twenty temples were erected in various cities of Greece to Venus the Courtesan. Another was called Venus Mucheia, or the Venus of the houses of ill fame; yet another, Venus Castnia, or the goddess of indecency[14].
Other than Strabo, there are various texts that are pulled together to ‘prove’ cult prostitution existed in Ancient Greece. One ancient source is Athenaeus is giving a sophist’s talk, saying that Xonophon made a vow to Aphrodite. ‘Queen of Cyprus, here to your sanctuary Xenophon has brought a herd of a hundred grazing girls’[15].
Athenaeus, however, is not giving an eyewitness account of Aphrodite’s temple in 5th century Corinth. Rather, Athenaeus, in the 3rd century C.E., like Strabo in the 1st Century C.E., was relating ‘a string of saucy anecdotes that weave quotes from classical literary texts into an account of Corinth [in the 5th century] as a paradise of sacred sex’[16]. However, rather than cult prostitution, ‘marriage was the object of the transaction’[17].
Whereas sexual activity and the pure realm of the sacred are antithetical to one another in Christian ideals[18], Prostitution was a way of life for Greek men; ‘for there are very good-looking young girls in the brothels … and each of these can be visited fearlessly, cheaply, during the day, in the evening, in any way you like’[19].
Prostitution was viewed as a democratic ideal in Athens: Solon legalised state-owned brothels. The brothels were staffed by slave women. [20]. Prostitutes were a source of income to Aphrodite’s temple. Dedicating slaves to her temple was a common practice in Greece. Burkett points out that the slaves ‘were not cultic functionaries.’[21].
In Greece, the word ‘sacred’, hieros, was the decisive concept for demarcating the sphere of the religious, having a delimiting and defining function, from Mycenaean times. Everything which has to do with the sanctuary, was sacred, herios, such as the sacrifice, the alter, the votive gifts, even the lock of hair. A person is herios if he or she is dedicated to the god in a special way- as a ‘seer, an official of the sanctuary, or even as a temple slave’, hierodouloi[22].
Strabo proposes, in his geography, that discourse, rather than symbols, is men’s language: it imparts knowledge (17. 1. 43.)[23]. The Greeks idea of virginity, rather than placing an emphasis on the hymen staying intact, is, instead, portrayed through the Pythia of Delphi: the purity of her body – which no mortal has known, … it is that which makes reception of the god possible’[24]. Strabo may have linked virginity with the reception of the gods through the medium of sexual activity. Was it this concept of maidens and reception by the gods that made Strabo tell such preposterous tales about the women of the exotic East? “And of the daughters of Acilisene, in Asia Minor, and the multitude of women who make gain from their persons, most of whom are dedicated to the goddess, for in a way the city is a lesser Corinth”. The temple of Aphrodite at Comana, Babylon’s virgins and wives fits graphically the description of this exotic scripting as does Herodotus[25].
Much more might be said about famous Corinthian prostitutes such as Lais and Phryne[26]. Corinth was the largest emporium of commerce in Greece[27]. The book of Leviticus warns the Israelites, ‘do not prostitute your daughter’[28]. The Israelites were forbidden to bring into the sanctuary, the ‘hire of a whore’ for any vow. [29]. ‘It has long been assumed that the terms Heb. qades/qedesa allude to the practice of cultic prostitution in Israel, yet recent studies seriously question this widespread assumption’[30].
One famous women, Naera, for example, whose career originated in Corinth, was sold originally for half a talent.[31]. Their way of life, however it may appear through the lenses of phallo-centricity would have been the source of much pain and humiliation for the women. ‘First of all, they care about making money and robbing their neighbours. Everything else has second priority’.[32].
In Aspasia’s case, the chaste women of Athens rose against her, and after being publicly insulted, attacked her in the street. Aspasia was also accused of impiety before the Areopagus.[33]. The Cratinus, a comedian of the time, ‘bluntly called her a prostitute in these lines: ‘the goddess of vice produced that shameless bitch, Aspasia’.[34]. In spite of this, the heights the hetarai managed to reach in Athenian society goes a long way in showing how much greater Greece might have become had all women been emancipated to the degree that the Greek citizen male was.
For example, Aspasia continued to lecture on philosophy until the day of her death.[35]. Her successor, Hipparchia, was one of the most voluminous and esteemed authors of her day. Another, Pythionice, was sent all the way to the governor of Babylon, Harpalus, and was installed in the palace following Alexander’s conquest of Babylon[36]. Pythionice ‘began top rule over the province, [and] governed Harpalus, it is said, with sternness and vigour’ until her untimely and sudden death, possibly poisoned by a rival[37]. Once again, the ultimate function ‘the affirmation of the social order as it exists’ is the goal of the male historian (Kramer p 34). The separation of their children from their mothers and their submission to the patriarchal order (p 25 Kramer). END
[1] Demosth. Or. 59.73 in Burkett p 239.
[2] Lerner p. 129-30.
[3] Lerner p. 126.
[4] cE.M. Yamauchi, Cultic prostitution: A case study in cultural diffusion in Beard and Henderson, p. 65., in Beard and Henderson p. 65.
[5] p 239 Burkett.
[6] Herodotus, p. 78.
[7] Burkett, (p. 288).
[8] Mathew Dillon & Lynda Garland, Ancient Greece. Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates, Routledge, London, 2000, p. 430.
[9]John J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire. The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece, Routledge, London, 1990, p. 46.
[10] Perikles,
[11] ‘Their works have not reached us entire … but enough remains in the quotations of Athenaeus, Alciphron’s Letters, Lucian, Diogenes Laaertius, Aristophanes, Aristaenetus, and others’ [11] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, Eugenics publishing, 1897, p. 62.
[12] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, Eugenics publishing, 1897, p. 59.
[13] Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 16, 19, 24-27; in W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, eugenics publishing, p. 53. This amount was estimated by Sanger in 1897, when the work was originally published.
[14] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, Eugenics, New York, 1937, p. 54.
[15] Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 572-574 in UNE p. 76.
[16] Beard Na Henderson p. 57.
[17] ‘all the girls of marriageable age used to be collected together in one place’, Herodotus, 1. 196, p. 78.
[18] Mary Beard and John Henderson, p. 58.
[19] Xanarchos F4, lines 1-17 (Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 569a), in Mathew Dillon & Lynda Garland, doc 13.91, p. 439.
[20] Sarah B. Pomeroy, p.89.
[21] Anchor Bible Dictionary, Prostitution, etc
[22] Walter Burkett, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, (trans. John Raffan), Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1985, p. 269.
[23] Strabo, in Giulia Sissa Greek Virginity, (trans.) Arthur Goldhammer, Harvard University, Massachusetts, 1990, p. 9.
[24] Giulia Sissa, op. cit., 1990, p. 9.
[25] Herodotus 1.199, p. 79.
[26] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, Eugenics publishing, 1897, p. 58-59
[27] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, Eugenics publishing, 1897, p. 58-.
[28] Leviticus 19:29.
[29]Deut. 23:17-18. The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.
[30] Anchor Bible Dictionary ‘Prostitution’
[31] J. B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth: A history of the city to 338 B.C., Clarendale Press. Oxford, 1984, p. 400.
[32] Alexis, Fr. 18 Pickard- Cambridge, in Mary R. Lefkowitz & Maureen B. Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, 1982, p. 27.
[33] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, Eugenics publishing, 1897,p. 56.
[34] Plutarch on Pericles, The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, Penguin, Victoria, 1960, p. 191.
[35] Plutarch, Life of Pericles, 24
[36] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, Eugenics publishing, 1897, p. 60.
[37] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, 1897, Eugenics publishing, 1897, p. 60.
[1] Semonides, 14, Xenophon, 13. 84; etc.in Mathew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Greece, Social and historical documents from archaic times to the death of Socrates(c.800-399 B.C.), (2nd ed.), Routledge, London, 2000, pp. 209; 436.
[2] W. Burkett, Greek Religion: Archaic and classical, (trans.), J. Raffan, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1985, p. 152.
[3] Sapho Fr. 2; 5; 1, in Burkett, op. cit., p. 155.
[4] Cole, Gynaiki ou themis: gender difference in the Greek Leges, Helios, 1992, p. 108.
[5] Ross. S. Kramer, Her Share of the Blessings, Oxford University, New York, 1992, p. 28.
[6] W.W. Sanger, History of Prostitution, Eugenics Publishing, 1937, p. 59.
[7] Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 16, 19, 24-27; in W.W. Sanger, op. cit., p. 53.
[8] ‘Their works have not reached us entire … but enough remains in the quotations of Athenaeus, Alciphron’s Letters, Lucian, Diogenes Laaertius, Aristophanes, Aristaenetus, and others’ [8]. Sanger, History of Prostitution, op. cit., p. 62.
[9] Sanger, op. cit., p. 58.
[10] Antiphon I Prosecution of the Stepmother for Poisoning, 14-20, Dillon & Garland, op. cit., p. 409.
[11] Pindar Fr. 107 Bowra, in J. B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth: A history of the city to 338 B.C., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984, p. 398.
[12] Mary Beard and John Henderson, ‘With this body I thee worship: sacred prostitution in antiquity’, in Wyke, M. (ed.)Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean, Blackwell, Oxford, 1998, f/n 72, p. 79.
[13] Dillon & Garland, op. cit., p. 430.
[14] Strabo, Geography, 12. 3. 36. in RELS 307, Study Guide and Unit Notes, University of New England, Armidale, 2003, p. 77.
[15] Beard & Henderson, op. cit. p. 57.
[16] J. Wiseman in Beard & Henderson, op. cit., f/n 66, p. 78.
[17] Burkett, op. cit. p. 52.
[18] Strabo, Geography, 8. 6. 20; 11. 14. 16; 12. 3. 36 in Dillon & Garland, op. cit. p. 77.
[19] Strabo, loc. cit.
[20] Strabo,‘Geography’ 12. 3. 6., in UNE Documents and Iconography, University of New England, Armidale, 2003, p. 77.
[21] Beard & Henderson, op. cit., p. 71.
[22] Beard and Henderson point out that as the imperfect tense ‘it had acquired’, and ‘used to be’, and ‘the ship-captains would spend up easily’ shows, in this story of Corinth, that Strabo does not present the Corinth of his day. op. cit., p. 71.
[23] Beard & Henderson, loc. cit.
[24] Saffrey, 1985 in Noel Freedman, (ed.), ‘Cultic Prostitution’, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Doubleday, New York, CD, Logos Research Systems, CD, Oak Harbor, WA: 1997.
[25] Conzelmann, 1967, loc. cit.
[26] Williams, in Beard & Henderson, op. cit., p. 72.
[27] Beard & Henderson, op. cit., p. 58.
[28] Freedman, op. cit.
[29] James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A history of myth and religion, Octopus, London, 2000, p. 12.
[30] Aristotle, Athenian Constitution (320s B.C.), in RELS 307, Documents and Iconographies, op. cit. p. 64.
[31] Isocrates to Demonicus 13,Tr. G. B. Norlin (Loeb 1928), RELS 307, op. cit. p. 82.
[32] Domosthenes Against Neara, 80, RELS 307., op. cit., p. 73.
[33] ibid, Domosthenes Against Neara, 76, p. 72.
[34] Dillon & Garland, op. cit. p. 372.
[35] S. G. Cole, ‘Women, dogs and flies’ in The Ancient World, 1995, p. 182-3.
[36] Beard & Henderson, op. cit., p. 58.
[37] Philemon, F3, (Athenaeus Deipnosophistae, 569d), in Dillon & Garland, op. cit. p. 438.
[38] Sanger, op. cit., p. 43.
[39] Kramer, op. cit., p. 80.
[40] Pausanias, Description of Greece, Elis 1.20.2-3, in R. S. Kraemer, (ed.), Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A source book on women’s religions in the Greco-Roman world, Fortress, Philadelphia, 1988, p. 37.
[41] Strabo, Geography, 11. 14. 16., op. cit. p. 77.
[42] Giulia Sissa, Greek Virginity, (trans.) A. Goldhammer, Cambridge, 1990, p. 89.
[43] Beard and Henderson, op. cit., p. 65.
[44] Ibid, p. 64.
[45] Burkett, op. cit., p. 35.
[46] Burkett, loc. cit.
[47] Strabo, Geography, 12. 3. 36., op. cit. p. 77.
[48] ibid, p. 77
[49] ibid., p. 77.
[50] ibid., p. 77.
[51] ibid., p. 77
[52] Philemon, F3, (Athenaeus Deipnosophistae, 569d, in Dillon & Garland, loc. cit. p. 438.
[53] Ibid., p. 438.
Freedman, David Noel, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, (New York: Doubleday) 1997, 1992.