Talk:Phryne

Mark Twain & Phryne

The "arts of Phryne" was a phrase used by Mark Twain to delicately describe prostitution. Nowadays few people would understand the reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.29.68.117 02:33, 19 April 2005 (UTC)

Phryne and Diogenes

Does anyone know what the original source material is from which we know that Phryne slept with Diogenes? I'd be interested to learn more about their affair, especially considering that Diogenes isn't well-known for his sexual nature. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.111.160.186 (talk) 08:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Now that I've looked into this some more, are you guys sure it was Phryne and not another hetaera who was involved with Diogenes the Cynic? This document by Athenaeus seems to indicate it was Lais of Hyccara, not Phryne, who dallied with Diogenes without exacting any payment: http://members.aol.com/heliogabby/deipnon/deipnon2.htm. 156.111.160.186 11:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Suspense is killing me

Well, did they take her up on her offer to pay for the walls of Thebes? Clarityfiend 21:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, No. They thought the condition she made -- that there be an inscription "Destroyed by Alexander, rebuilt by Phryne the Courtesan" was a bit much. Tom129.93.17.135

My favorite Phryne anecdote

The public all liked the nude statue of Aphrodite, which was made by the famous sculptor Praxitiles using Phryne as a model. But the joke was that when the goddess Aphrodite saw the statue she exclaimed, "Oh, no! Where did Praxitiles see me naked?" 129.93.17.174 03:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

External link

I would like to add a link to the MythiMedia research project (Bologna University, Italy) http://www.mythimedia.org/. The project explores the presence of Greek mythology in today's culture, and contains an article entitled "Phryne in Modern Art, Cinema, and Cartoon" (http://www.mythimedia.org/phrine_in%20_modern_art.html) [this is the address that should be linked]. The site is written in English. Fallingdrapery 00:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Phryne and the King of Lydia

I'm not so sure that this bit is accurate. The Book of Lists has a similar incident, but this occurring between Lamia and Demetrius Poliorcetes (page 358). --Auric (talk) 02:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Removed unreliable information

I removed the sentence about Phryne adjusting her prices, and sleeping with the King of Lydia, because I could find no information about this. In fact this information was the original uncited page created by 24.252.69.24 in 2004:

Phryne was a famous courtesan of ancient Greece who adjusted her prices for customers depending upon how she felt about them. When the King of Lydia wanted her favors she named a truly absurd price because she considered him loathsome; he paid the price and then levied a tax on his subjects to raise the sum. On the other hand, she gave herself to the philosopher Diogenes for free because she admired his mind.

I also removed the line about Diogenes. Tertullian (Apology 46) does actually say that "The harlot Phryne gratified the lust of Diogenes," but Athenaeus (xiii. 588) refers to Lais gratifying Diogenes. Singinglemon (talk) 18:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Then I'll update the disambiguation page, which still references Phryne's price adjustments. Tokland (talk) 19:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Large addition and cleanup done

Fellow editors, I have just added a section with sheds some light on the doubtful authenticity of the description of Phryne’s trial. Also I have done some cleanup. The other sections need some more work obviously. I intend to get my hands on the title Ancient Supplication which I added to the section for further reading because it might contain information about Phryne which could be useful for the article. I also added a citation referring to Athenaeus as a source for the story about the walls of Thebes, but Athenaeus doesn’t mention that offer was not accepted. I’d appreciate it if a source can be given for information that the offer was declined. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 15:00, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Small modification to text and conversion of references to templates

I just moved Pliny and Aelianus from the "Further reading" to the "References" by mentioning them as sources for the claim that Phryne is the model for the Aphrodite of Knidos. Also, I converted all references to use the templates. This did give me some issues, such as entering the first and last name of Pliny the Elder (typed his whole name as last name to solve it) and more importantly that I can't enter the line numbers of Athenaeus without getting them displayed as page numbers. Is there anyone who has solutions for these issues with the templates? One way to solve this would be to simply have one reference to chapter 13 of Athenaeus, would that be okay with everyone?

One more issue is that User:Stvfetterly added a link to the List of female adventurers, where Phryne isn't even listed. Would anyone mind if I'd remove this link? I also intend to do some more research on this article so that we can replace the reference to Chisholm with more appropriate (original) sources. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 20:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I was wondering about that too. Please do remove the link. Lt. Waaxe (talk) 20:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Hyperides or Hypereides?

I have noticed that the article uses both spellings. On Hypereides it says that both spellings are correct, but I think this article should have a uniform spelling. I personally prefer the latter spelling, as it matches the page on him Hypereides) but does anyone think otherwise? Lt. Waaxe (talk) 20:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The article of Cooper in the references uses the spelling "Hyperides", but I agree that we should follow the spelling of the Wikipedia article on him. I just changed it.

Large overhaul of content on Life, Fame and Trial

First of all User:Lieutenant_Waaxe, Athaeneus and Pesudo-Plutarch don't mention full nudity, only exposure of the breasts. Not sure about other sources, but I suspect any later sources telling something different are probably inventing details, as is explained in the article now.

I worked hard yesterday and today for the whole today to rework the article heavily to have everything referenced and to remove the reference to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I hope any other editors would be prepared to check my changes for any errors, or improve the writing style if necessary. All the books I used for references have the relevant pages visible on Google Books. If there are any other comments I'd like to hear it. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 16:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, all right then! I thought it was just later sources that emphasize the breasts because most paintings I've seen have her fully nude. I apologize for a bad assumption on my part. Lt. Waaxe (talk) 20:43, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

No problem, I'm "guilty" myself as well. I actually wrote a bachelor's thesis about nudity in Classical Antiquity and stumbled on Phryne's case. When I was required to give a preliminary presentation on my thesis, I decided to mention it and assumed the version given on Wikipedia – that it really happened, without mentioning the controversy – was accurate :x Later I found Cooper's article when I was finishing my thesis, so I did mention the doubts in my finished thesis. But still I'm a bit embarrassed that I took the information that was present in this article for granted at the time :) AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 09:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

”Mr. Roark pulled a Phryne in court and didn’t get away with it. We never believed that story in the first place.”

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/24334-roark-pulled-a-phryne/

There is good reason to believe that Ellsworth Toohey was comparing Howard Roark's presentation of his Cortlandt photographs in his trial (from Ayn Rand's novel 'The Fountainhead') as his only defense to Hypereides' disrobing of Phryne as a 'last resort'.65.49.241.99 (talk) 20:54, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Phryne/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 17:53, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll review this one. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 17:53, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

This is a well-written and thoroughly researched article that does a good job of handling a topic which must largely be assembled from disparate evidence. In particular, it does an excellent job of showing the reader the great deal of less-than-certain primary source information, and the conflicting versions of Phryne's story, while hedging its own editorial judgements appropriately.

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   Unquestionably - impeccably copyedited, clearly written and does a good job of making complex ideas accessible.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   I checked a sample of the references, which checked out straightforwardly.

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   I have posted a very nit-picky CN tag - a passage of Hermippus is alluded to, but not directly referenced.

   C. It contains no original research:

   Referencing to secondary sources is excellent - all factual statements in the editorial voice are sourced to academic secondary literature, and primary sources are used appropriately.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   I ran a sample of excerpts through Google and Google Books, and found no significant areas of similarity outside Wikipedia mirrors.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Excellent on both the ancient history and the post-Classical reception.

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   Concise but judiciously composed.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   See particularly the sections on the charge against Phryne and the conflicting accounts of the trial.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   Substantially stable, with incremental improvements, since at least Feb 2022.

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   All copyright checks out.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   The side-by-side of Kauffmann and Boulanger's portraits, with the caption, is particularly impressive. Other illustrations are well captioned and complement the text significantly.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Sails through the criteria — should certainly hold GA status.

@UndercoverClassicist: thanks for your comments. I dug up the Hermippus ref you asked for Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:01, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Great stuff. Congratulations on the GA! UndercoverClassicist (talk) 22:38, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Not mentioned?

"However, this episode probably never happened. It was not mentioned in Posidippus' version of the trial in his comedy Ephesian Woman (produced c.290 BC)". But according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posidippus_(comic_poet) only fragments of the Posidippus' plays survive. If this is true and the full text of Ephesian Woman does not survive, how can one confidently say that the scene wasn't included? Perhaps the fragments covering the trial, or at least its climax, survive? I think we need more information though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.138.36.64 (talk) 07:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

• Though Posidippus' play survives only in fragments, one of the fragments is the account of the trial of Phryne, quoted by Athenaeus (13.591e-f). I've expanded on the article text slightly to hopefully make this clearer. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Small corrections to citations of ancient sources

I've made a few corrections to the old citations of ancient sources and updated them to bring them into line with current practice in classical scholarship:

• Citations of Plutarch's Moralia require Stephanus page numbers (the ones with the letter suffix); this is separate from the chapter numbers cited within the individual essays (like De Pyth. or.) gathered under the Moralia umbrella title.
• Athenaeus requires Casaubon page numbers (the ones with the letter suffix), since that is the standard system of reference in contemporary scholarship; I have added these, but I have also retained the chapter numbers from Kaibel's edition, for readers who consult Gulick's older Loeb translation, which is online at the Perseus Project.
• Both citations in note 49 (Hermippus on Euthias) were incorrect: in Athenaeus, this is Kaibel chapter 13.59, not 13.60; and in Muller's FHG the fragment number is 66, not 50 (50 is the page number). But for most historical fragments Muller has been superseded by Jacoby's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, so I've replaced the FHG citation with a ref to FGrH 1026 F 46a. I've also given Hermippus a little gloss in the text, to distinguish him from the homonymous Athenian comic poet and the Roman guy who wrote the book about the interpretation of dreams.
• It is perhaps worth noting that Athenaeus does not report the name Mnesarete on his own authority; his stated source was Aristogeiton's speech against Phryne, so I've added that information to the relevant footnote. (Plutarch doesn't state his source, but it was presumably Aristogeiton as well.)

— Choliamb (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Pre-FAC comments

By request: I hope these are helpful. I still check back at this article from time to time to remind myself of how to do a multiple image template.

• before 370 BC – after 316 BC: could drop the first BC, as she could hardly have been born 650 years after her own death.
  • Done
• Born Mnesarete: perhaps a little unclear at first: how about "[she was] named Mnesarete at birth"?
  • I think "born X" to mean "given the name X at birth" is a common enough construction that it's unlikely to cause major confusion here; MOS:BIO uses the construction in several examples without comment.
• The IPA pronunciation is modern Greek, I think: I'm rubbish with getting the transcriptions right, but I think we want something like Ancient Greek pronunciation: ['pʰry.nɛː] (approximately P^hROO-neh rather than FRY-nee).
  • Oh, IPA my beloathed. I think the current IPA transcription is meant to be the English pronunciation (I have always pronounced it /frɪni/, but as far as I can tell I'm just wrong here and nobody else does) and you are right for the ancient Greek pronunciation, but I'm also fairly rubbish here. I've added the Greek IPA but relegated the pronunciation information to a footnote because the lead sentence was getting unwieldy...
• Phryne is best known for her trial for impiety: some editors push back at "best known" as unverifiable: unless a source actually says this precisely, advise simply "Phryne was tried for impiety..."
  • I think in the case of Phryne, this is defensible: McClure 2014 says "she is best known for her impiety trial"; McClure 2024 says that her disrobing at her trial is "the most famous of her ancient narratives"; Funke calls it "perhaps the most famous story in her biographical tradition".
• Largely ignored during the Renaissance, artistic interest in Phryne: a dangling clause: it's Phryne, not the interest, that was ignored. Easy fix is to push her to the start: "Phryne was largely ignored..."
  • Good point.
• Her trial was famously depicted by Jean-Léon Gérôme : famously gets the same alarm bells as "best known for", as well as possibly being WP:PUFFERY: advise cutting. See also, later, Famously, Phryne was said to have been acquitted.
  • I think the point that Gérôme's painting in particular was famous is worth making and I can provide citations if necessary; I've cut the other.
• The "Sources" section reads as slightly sparse to me: not just in that there aren't very many of those sources, but also that we go only into very small detail as to what these sources are and their background. For FA, I think there's room to be a bit more comprehensive. In particular, we could do with setting out in a little more detail what Athenian comedy was.
• Hypereides' defence speech: I think we've discussed this before, but MOS:' prefers adding the s.
• it is now lost, with only a few fragments surviving.: except for a few fragments or similar?
  • Adopted
• His Deipnosophistae ("The Scholars at Dinner") is the source of the "vast majority" of extant ancient writings about Phryne.: per MOS:QUOTEPOV, lose the quotes on "vast majority": they read as scare quotes and the phrase isn't distinctive or creative enough to need attribution anyway.
  • Yes, done.
• Perhaps not easily fixed, but the Sources section makes a few references to elements of her biography, which we don't get until later. There's a balancing act here: is it more detrimental to read the Life section in ignorance of the sources, or the Sources section in ignorance of the life? I'm not proposing a particular solution, but wanted to raise the problem.
  • Yes, I'd also noticed that issue. I think they are sufficiently minor references, both to things already mentioned in the lead, as to be justifiable, but it's good to keep in mind.
• I have had pushback on pull quotes before, though never really tried to get one through FAC -- there's a WP:DUEWEIGHT concern that pulling them out at the start of a section gives them massive prominence in the article, and it's usually difficult to demonstrate that they hold commensurate prominence in the scholarly literature. Again, I'm not telling you to remove it, but it might be worth considering where you stand on that question, and how much you think would be lost by working it into the prose.
  • I won't die on the hill of that pull quote, so if it's challenged at FAC I'll pull it. no pun intended
• Per the template documentation, don't give publisher locations where it's obvious from the publisher name (e.g. Oxford for OUP, Cambridge for CUP)
  • Has that always been there? Huh. Removed.
• She apparently grew up poor – comic playwrights portray her picking capers: this needs a bit of an explanation, I think.
  • Unfortunately I have not found a source which gives any further explanation; presumably the context is that caper-picking is a undesirable job done by poor people (or simply that doing manual work in your youth is a sign of poverty?) but I don't have a source for that. (Funke notes in an aside that it might instead be a sex joke, but she gives no further explanation and I'm completely in the dark as to what the point of that might be.)
• Hetairai were known in ancient literature for their wit and learning: reading the remainder of this paragraph, I'm unsure of where you stand on this: here, it sounds like it's as close as we can get to a biographical detail, but you then seem to row back and suggest that it might just be a literary stereotype (and indeed a lot of the reading I've done points towards the latter).
  • Yes, I think the sources generally come down on "this is a literary stereotype; we cannot know if it was actually true in Phryne's case". Perhaps s/were known/had a reputation/ would make this clearer?
    • I think the current phrasing of were known to... implies that this was true, so another more ambivalent phrase might be a good idea. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
      • Fair enough, changed. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
• Helen Morales writes that separating fact from fiction in accounts of Phryne's life is "impossible": another MOS:QUOTEPOV case. I would also consider rolling this short paragraph into the one before it.
  • Removed the quotes. I think semantically the paragraph needs to be on its own, though I can see the argument that it's too short and should be joined with the previous one.
• was accused of being a sycophant.: this needs an explanation, as the Athenian meaning (to be honest, I'm not sure I could tell you exactly what the Athenians meant by it) was not the same as the English one, which is the subject of the linked article.
• Phryne was defended by Hypereides, a well-known and wealthy orator who had a reputation for associating with hetairai: I wonder if it would help, a little earlier, to sketch out the reputational implications (or lack thereof) attached to men who associated widely with Hetairai? The next sentence alludes that it was somehow shameful, but then we have a whole bunch of men who were perfectly happy to put their names to it on the Aineta aryballos. Pericles is skulking in the background here somewhere, too...
• Link Esther Eidinow in the biblio?
  • Indeed, may as well link all the authors in the biblio what have wikipedia articles
• If Anaximenes did compose the speech for the prosecution, it must have been before he moved to Macedon, and therefore was perhaps between 350 and 340 BC: begging the question, slightly: perhaps start with "Anaximenes left Athens for Macedon in 340 BC: if he did compose..."?
• I don't totally understand the point of footnote c: are we saying that it's fairly certain that the charge was asebeia, but debated whether the mechanism was the usual graphe asebeias or the more deadly eisangelia?
  • Reviewing this, I'm not sure how necessary the footnote is. The point is that Phillips argues, based on the fact that ancient sources assume that Phryne was liable to be executed if she was convicted, that the mechanism must have been the eisangelia rather than the graphe asebias, but nobody seems to agree with him: Kapparis argues against him at length; Funke says that the charge was a graphe in the text and notes Phillips' eisangelia theory in a footnote; McClure ignores the eisangelia possibility entirely. I've cut it as I suspect it leads to more confusion than it does elucidation.
• According to an ancient tradition: can we be more specific on "ancient": fourth century BCE or sixth century CE?
  • Source says it was Athenaeus, so we can just say that; not sure why I previously was so vague!
• debauched meetings: is it worth pointing out that there's a specifically Dionysiac context here?
• "non Hyperidis actione... sed conspectu corporis": quotes that are italicised for language don't then go into quote marks as well. Is there a particular reason to quote in Latin here -- we haven't quoted everyone else in Greek?
  • You're better at MOS-wrangling than me – does the "quotes that are italicised for language don't go inside quotation marks" rule come from somewhere there? I'm not seeing it. As for why the Latin is quoted at all, I don't recall if I had a particular reason and on reflection it's probably just distracting to the general reader; specialists can look up the Quintilian themselves.
    • Hm -- I'm not sure it actually is in the MoS! I got it from one of my undergraduate supervisors, and it follows established practice in just about every classical HQRS that I've seen (see for instance the Tacitean quote at the top of p. 221 here. You could perhaps read it into MOS:NONENGITALIC, which has plenty of examples of italics used where quote marks would be used for English words, but there are no quote marks on display. It's certainly the house style in all the major classical journals, as far as I know, and the general rule around here is to do as the professionals do, when in doubt. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
      • Well, I'm certainly not qualified to gainsay either your supervisor or the major classics journals' house style, though no doubt I will have forgotten this by the next time it comes up. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

More to follow, I'm afraid. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 18:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks for all of these helpful comments – I've replied inline to a bunch. A couple require more thought! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:27, 24 October 2024 (UTC)