Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters (Deipnosophistae) 591d · 591d
Alexander tore it down
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Myrtilus — συνόντας αὐτῇ, τὴν δὲ Θεσπικήν. ἐπλούτει δὲ σφόδρα ἡ Φρύνη καὶ ὑπισχνεῖτο τειχιεῖν τὰς Θήβας, ἐὰν ἐπιγράψωσιν Θηβαῖοι ὅτι ‘ Ἀλέξανδρος μὲν κατέσκαψεν, ἀνέστησεν δὲ Φρύνη ἡ ἑταίρα’, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Καλλίστρατος ἐν τῷ περὶ Ἑταιρῶν. εἴρηκεν δὲ περὶ τοῦ πλούτου αὐτῆς Τιμοκλῆς ὁ κωμικὸς ἐν Νεαίρᾳ— πρόκειται τὸ μαρτύριον— καὶ Ἄμφις ἐν Κουρίδι. παρεσίτει δὲ
…who were with her; the other was called the Thespian. Phryne was very rich, and she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes if the Thebans would inscribe: “Alexander tore it down, but Phryne the courtesan rebuilt it”, as Callistratus reports in his book On Courtesans. Timocles the comic poet has spoken of her wealth in his Neaera (the quotation has been given above), and Amphis in his Hairdresser. And … was a hanger-on…
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The setting
Phryne's wealth, and the most famous boast told about her: an offer to rebuild the walls of Thebes, which Alexander had razed in 335 BC. Grapevine: Callistratus, a later scholar of courtesans.
A note on this passage
Alexander destroyed Thebes in 335 BC as a warning to the rest of Greece, and the city was rebuilt about twenty years later without her help. The offer, as Callistratus tells it, was a bargain for fame: her money for a wall that would carry her name beside the king's, and outlast him.<br><br>Athenaeus also lets us see his own workshop here. “The quotation has been given above” refers back to an earlier book, where he quoted Timocles; he expected readers to remember, or to turn back.
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