h them erotic sophisms." Some of Glycera's letters to her
poet lover Menander, still extant, show how warm a sympathy existed
between the two, and how delicate a sentiment could characterize such a
union.

One of the names of hetaerae famous in both ancient and modern times is
that of Lais, which belonged to two Greek women celebrated for their
extraordinary beauty, who are differentiated by being known as Lais the
Elder and Lais the Younger.

The elder and indisputably more famous of the two was the daughter of
that hetaera, Timandra, who remained faithful to Alcibiades in his evil
fortunes. As a seven-year-old maiden, Lais was taken captive by the
Athenians during the sack of her birthplace, Hyccara in Sicily, and was
brought as a slave to Corinth. Here she was early initiated into the
arts of gallantry and was given a thorough training in the culture of
the day.

The physical charms of Lais developed into a beauty rarely witnessed.
Her bosom was of such indescribable perfection that sculptors and
painters took it as a model in their creations of the ideal female
form. She was regarded as surpassing not only all her contemporaries,
but also all the famous beauties of earlier times; and later ages
regarded her as the prototype of womanly beauty, and delighted in giving
lengthy and minute descriptions of her charms, as, for example, that by
the sophist Aristaenetus in the first of his fifty erotic epistles.

Soon after her first appearance, Lais was talked of, was celebrated, was
deified, in all Hellenic lands. It was considered good fortune, as a
Greek poet expressed it, that Lais, the most beautiful of her sex,
adopted the hetaera life; for were she not accessible to all, there would
have been in Greece a conflict comparable only to that over Argive
Helen.

The reputation of her beauty occasioned in a short time a formidable
immigration to Corinth of the most wealthy and distinguished men, partly
to enjoy her favor, partly to gaze in wonder at her charms, and partly
to study this paragon of female beauty for imitation in works of art.
From the homage that she received, and especially the wealth that was
poured at her feet by her lovers, she was soon rendered so proud and
selfish that she secluded herself from all except the richest. Her proud
heart, however, was not entirely closed to emotions of love. She took a
fancy to the Cynic philosopher Diogenes, in spite of his filth and
brusqueness; and AElian tells the