thenian women of
virtuous homes, and remained in retirement in her house, which she kept
closed and silent as a gynaeceum.

The necessity of living, of maintaining the luxury to which she had
become accustomed, of keeping a chariot and slaves and grooms, forced
her, however, to consider her beauty, and the most celebrated hetaerae
became alarmed at the new rival. Covered with a dark red wig to hide the
tonsure of mourning, wrapped in fine veils from which her throat emerged
adorned with pearls, her fresh and alabastrine arms loaded to the
shoulders with bracelets, she showed herself at an upper window of her
house with the grave majesty of a goddess awaiting veneration. The
richest men of Athens paused by night in the Street of Tripods to gaze
at the poet's widow, as the women in the Ceramaeicus sarcastically called
her. Some, more daring, or tremulous with desire, raised the index
finger in mute question; but vainly they awaited her affirmative
reply--the customary sigil of the hetaerae, touching thumb to index finger
as it were an annulus.

Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They
grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door
to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens
of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the
Agora--youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli,
or at most a drachma. On the other hand the rich, who offered golden
stateres or several minae to enter the house, were considered too poor to
win favor. The old courtesans whispered into one another's ears, with a
degree of respect, that a petty Asiatic king, on passing through Athens,
had given Myrrhina two talents for one visit--as much as any republic in
Greece would spend in a year--and that the beautiful hetaera, unmoved by
such a fortune, had suffered his presence only while her clepsydra
emptied itself once, for, tired of men, she measured prurience by her
water-clock.

Fabulously rich merchants, on arriving at the Piraeus, sought access to
Myrrhina's house through the good offices of friends. They heaped
presents upon the vagabond artists who were the courtesan's familiars,
that they might be admitted to her suppers; and more than one, arriving
at the port with a fleet loaded with rich merchandise, hastened to sell
everything without waiting to discharge his cargo, so that he might stay
in the poet's house; and he returned