Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters (Deipnosophistae) 590f · 590f
Lovelier where no one looked
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Myrtilus — κατηγορουμένην κρίνεσθαι. ἦν δὲ ὄντως μᾶλλον ἡ Φρύνη καλὴ ἐν τοῖς μὴ βλεπομένοις. διόπερ οὐδὲ ῥᾳδίως ἦν αὐτὴν ἰδεῖν γυμνήν· ἐχέσαρκον γὰρ χιτώνιον ἠμπείχετο καὶ τοῖς δημοσίοις οὐκ ἐχρῆτο βαλανείοις. τῇ δὲ τῶν Ἐλευσινίων πανηγύρει καὶ τῇ τῶν Ποσειδωνίων ἐν ὄψει τῶν Πανελλήνων πάντων ἀποθεμένη θοἰμάτιον καὶ λύσασα τὰς κόμας ἐνέβαινε τῇ θαλάττῃ· καὶ ἀπ’ αὐτῆς Ἀπελλῆς
…should be tried in view. Phryne was in truth even more beautiful in the parts no one saw. So it was not easy to see her naked: she wore a close-fitting slip and never used the public baths. But at the festival of the Eleusinia and at the Poseidonia, in sight of all the Greeks, she took off her cloak, let down her hair and walked into the sea. And from her Apelles…
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Myrtilus goes on: Phryne was modest in daily life, and that is what made her one public moment so famous.
A note on this passage
The point of the story is the contrast. The most famous body in Greece was kept covered, and shown once a year, at a festival, as she walked into the sea like a goddess. That is why the painters and sculptors wanted her.<br><br>The festivals are real ones: the Eleusinia, held near Athens, and the Poseidonia, a festival of the sea god. A courtesan walking into the sea at Poseidon's feast was re-enacting Aphrodite's birth from the waves, which is exactly what the next sentence says Apelles painted.
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