en,
who were attracted to this calling because of dissatisfaction with the
restraint of home and longing for the ease and independent life which it
seemed to offer. Frequently, the daughters of citizens, through the
poverty or greed of their parents, or their own wilfulness, were driven
to a life of shame. Usually, they changed their names, to bring
forgetfulness of their former standing, and they sought by outward
splendor to make up for the loss of virtue. To us in this day such a
change seems most disgraceful; but to the Greeks it appeared to be in
many instances nothing more serious than a change of patron goddess.
Thus the maiden transferred herself from the protection of one of the
austere virgin goddesses, Artemis and Athena, to that of the gracious
and seductive Paphian goddess; or the widow, who with the death of her
husband had lost her means of subsistence, would renounce Hera, the
goddess of wedded love, for the frivolous and light-minded Aphrodite.
This transfer was usually accompanied with solemn religious ceremonies,
Greek epigrammatists frequently give us a poetical treatment of such
life histories, and we thereby gain glimpses into the woes of many a
feminine heart; thus we have a pathetic genre picture of a maiden, who,
weary of the spindle and the service of Athena, betakes herself to the
patron goddess of the hetaerae and pledges to her for her protection a
tithe of all her earnings in her new calling.

The giving of votive offerings to Aphrodite for successes and rich gains
in their dealings with men was a customary act of "pious" hetaerae. Toilet
articles which enhance beauty, and costly gifts, such as statues, were
frequently dedicated to the goddess. The hetaerae who followed in the wake
of the Athenian army led by Pericles to Samos built a temple to
Aphrodite from the tithes of their gains. This giving of votive
offerings is frequently the subject of Greek epigrams.

The daughters or widows of citizens constituted but the smaller number
of hetaerae of this class. The larger number were stranger-women, chiefly
from Ionia, who came to Athens, attracted by its prominence in politics
and the arts, that they might play their role on a larger and more
brilliant stage. In the various cities of Asia Minor, there were groups
of freeborn women who had broken away from the conventional bonds and
had devoted themselves to intellectual and artistic pursuits and to the
cultivation of every personal grace and