Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters (Deipnosophistae) 591e · 591e
Her real name was Mnesarete
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Myrtilus — τῇ Φρύνῃ Γρυλλίων εἷς ὢν τῶν Ἀρεοπαγιτῶν, ὡς καὶ Σάτυρος ὁ Ὀλύνθιος ὑποκριτὴς Παμφίλῃ. Ἀριστογείτων δὲ ἐν τῷ κατὰ Φρύνης τὸ κύριόν φησιν αὐτῆς εἶναι ὄνομα Μνησαρέτην. οὐκ ἀγνοῶ δὲ ὅτι τὸν ἐπιγραφόμενον κατ’ αὐτῆς Εὐθίου λόγον Διόδωρος ὁ περιηγητὴς Ἀναξιμένους φησὶν εἶναι. Ποσείδιππος δ’ ὁ κωμικὸς ἐν Ἐφεσίᾳ τάδε φησὶν περὶ αὐτῆς·
Posidippus, quoted by Myrtilus — Φρύνη ποθ’ ἡμῶν γέγονεν ἐπιφανεστάτη πολὺ τῶν ἑταιρῶν. καὶ γὰρ εἰ νεωτέρα τῶν τότε χρόνων εἶ, τόν γ’ ἀγῶν’ ἀκήκοας. βλάπτειν δοκοῦσα τοὺς βίους μείζους βλάβας
…of Phryne was Gryllion, though he was one of the Areopagites, as Satyrus the Olynthian actor also was to Pamphile. Aristogeiton, in his speech against Phryne, says her real name was Mnesarete. I am not unaware that Diodorus the travel writer says the speech against her ascribed to Euthias is Anaximenes'. And Posidippus the comic poet says this about her in The Ephesian Woman: “Phryne once, in our day, became by far the most famous of the courtesans. For even if you are younger than those days, you have heard of the trial at least. Seeming to harm lives with greater harms…
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The setting
A hanger-on on the Areopagus, Phryne's real name, a disputed speech, and a comic poet's verdict on her trial. Grapevine: Aristogeiton, an orator of the 320s BC, who prosecuted her or wrote against her.
A note on this passage
A judge of the Areopagus, Athens' oldest and most solemn court, eating at a courtesan's table is the kind of detail Athenaeus collects. Then he settles a fact: her real name was Mnesarete, which means something like “mindful of virtue,” and Phryne, “Toad,” was what everyone called her.<br><br>The quarrel over who wrote the prosecution speech shows Athenaeus as a scholar checking his sources. Posidippus, writing a generation after the trial, assumes his audience still knows about it: the case was that famous.
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