Hetairai

thumb|right|Marble portrait herm (sculpture)|herm identified by an inscription as Aspasia, possibly copied from her grave. Aspasia (after 428 BC) was a metic woman who lived in Classical Athens. Born in Miletus, she moved to Athens and began a relationship with the statesman Pericles. According to the traditional historical narrative, she worked as a courtesan, though modern scholars have questioned the factual basis for this claim, which derives from ancient comedy. Though Aspasia is one of the best-attested women from the Greco-Roman world, and the most important woman in the history of fift

thumb|200px|Greek and her client, approx. 430 BC. The fact that she is on the couch with him is telling, as wives were not allowed into the symposium. A ' (; , ; . , ), Latinized as ' ( ), was a type of highly educated female companion in ancient Greece who served as an artist, entertainer, and conversationalist. Historians have often classed them as courtesans, but the extent to which they were sex workers is a matter of dispute.

thumb|alt=Stone carving of the head of a woman|The Kaufmann Head, a Roman copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos, for which Phryne is said to have been the model, in the [[Musée du Louvre]] Phryne (, before 370 – after 316 BC) was an ancient Greek hetaira (courtesan). Born Mnesarete, she was from Thespiae in Boeotia, but seems to have lived most of her life in Athens. She apparently grew up poor, but became one of the richest women in Greece.

thumb|Thaïs leading the destruction of the palace of Persepolis, as imagined in Thaïs (painting)|Thaïs by Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, 1890. Thaïs (; ; ) was a Greek who accompanied Alexander the Great on his military campaigns. Likely from Athens, she is most famous for having instigated the burning of Persepolis, the capital city of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, after it was conquered by Alexander's army in 330 BCE. At the time, Thaïs was the lover of Ptolemy I Soter, who was one of Alexander's close companions and generals. It has been suggested that she may also have been Alexander's love

thumb|Ill. from De mulieribus claris Leontion (, ; fl. 300 BC) was a notable Greek Epicurean philosopher and student of Epicurus's Garden School. She is known for her authored work against Theophrastus, the head of the Aristotelian school. The manuscript she wrote has been lost over time, but it has been written about by many philosophers over the centuries, including Cicero and Pliny the Elder.

ancient Greek courtesan

thumb|upright=1.3|Philaenis was said to have written a sex manual containing descriptions of various sexual positions. This [[red-figure kylix painting from 480–470 BC depicts a man having sexual intercourse with a hetaira, a kind of ancient Greek prostitute.]] Philaenis of Samos was supposedly the author of a famous ancient sex manual. According to a surviving fragment of a treatise which claims to have been written by her, she was from Samos, and her father was called Ocymenes. However, many modern scholars consider "Philaenis" a fictional character whose persona may have been adopted by a v

Bilistiche (Greek: Βιλιστίχη; born c. 280 BC) or Belistiche was a Hellenistic courtesan of Ptolemy II Philadelphus and winner of the 264 BC Olympic Games in tethrippon and synoris.

ancient Greek heteira

Greek hetaera

hetaera to Demetrius I of Macedon

4th-century BC Greek hetaera

mistress of Mark Antony

thumb|upright|Leaina Before the Judges, by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1517–18

ancient Greek philosopher and/or hetaira

ancient Greek hetaera

thumb|This painting, on the inside of a kylix (drinking cup)|kylix, depicts a hetaira playing kottabos, a [[drinking game played at symposia in which the participants flicked the dregs of their wine at a target.]]

ancient Greek Hetaira

Archidike (also transliterated Archidice, ) was a celebrated hetaera of Naucratis in Egypt. Her fame spread throughout Greece, and was recorded by Herodotus (ii. 136) and Claudius Aelianus (Varia Historia, xii. 63). Herodotus claims that Archidike "became a notorious subject of song throughout Greece", and she is one of only two hetaera mentioned by name in his discussion of the occupation (the other was Rhodopis).

Archeanassa or Archaeanassa (Greek , ), a native of Colophon, was a hetaera or courtesan living in Athens in the late 5th century BC. According to biographical sources about Plato, the philosopher as a young man was deeply in love with Archeanassa and addressed a four-line epigram to her. The poem is quoted by Athenaeus in a survey of famous courtesans, and by Diogenes Laërtius in his biography of Plato: I have a mistress, fair Archeanassa of Colophon, on whose very wrinkles sits hot love. O hapless ye who met such beauty on its first voyage, what a flame must have been kindled in you!