Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters (Deipnosophistae) 591c · 591c
Two Phrynes and a sifter
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Myrtilus — Λακεδαιμονίων βασιλέως καὶ τῆς Φιλίππου τοῦ Ἀμύντου, ἔχουσα ἐπιγραφὴν ‘ Φρύνη Ἐπικλέους Θεσπική’, ὥς φησιν Ἀλκέτας ἐν βʹ περὶ τῶν ἐν Δελφοῖς Ἀναθημάτων. Ἀπολλόδωρος δ’ ἐν τῷ περὶ Ἑταιρῶν δύο ἀναγράφει Φρύνας γεγονέναι, ὧν τὴν μὲν ἐπικαλεῖσθαι Κλαυσιγέλωτα, τὴν δὲ Σαπέρδιον. Ἡρόδικος δὲ ἐν ἕκτῳ Κωμῳδουμένων τὴν μὲν παρὰ τοῖς ῥήτορσί φησιν ὀνομαζομένην Σηστὸν καλεῖσθαι διὰ τὸ ἀποσήθειν καὶ ἀποδύειν τοὺς
…king of the Spartans, and that of Philip son of Amyntas, bearing the inscription “Phryne, daughter of Epicles, of Thespiae”, as Alcetas says in book two of On the Offerings at Delphi. Apollodorus, in his book On Courtesans, records that there were two Phrynes: one was nicknamed Laugh-and-Cry, the other Little Saltfish. Herodicus, in the sixth book of Comedy's Targets, says the one the orators mention was called Sestos, because she sifted and stripped the men…
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The setting
Myrtilus reads out the inscription, then turns to the scholars who sorted out which Phryne was which, and to her nicknames. Grapevine: three Hellenistic writers on courtesans and comedy, all lost except for quotations like these.
A note on this passage
The placement is the scandal: a courtesan's statue at Delphi between a king of Sparta and Philip of Macedon, Alexander's father. The inscription gives her the dignity of a citizen woman, her father's name and her town.<br><br>Then come the nicknames, which were how Athenians actually talked about courtesans. “Laugh-and-Cry” and “Little Saltfish” were the two Phrynes; the orators' Phryne was “Sestos”, and Herodicus explains the joke himself. Sestos was a town on the Hellespont, but the name sounds like the verb for sifting grain: she sifted her lovers and left them stripped.
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