Phryne
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Phryne (, before 370 – after 316 BC) was an ancient Greek
hetaira 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 ...
(courtesan). Born Mnesarete, she was from
Thespiae Thespiae ( ; ) was an ancient Greek city (''polis'') in Boeotia. It sits at the foot of Mount Helicon and near right bank of the Thespius River (modern name Kanavari River). Thespiae was a Boeotian state sporadically involved in the military fe ...
in
Boeotia Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinisation of names, Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia (; modern Greek, modern: ; ancient Greek, ancient: ), is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the modern regions of Greece, region of Central Greece (adm ...
, but seems to have lived most of her life in Athens. Apparently, she grew up poor but became one of the richest women in Greece. Phryne is best known for her trial for impiety, in which she was defended by the orator
Hypereides Hypereides or Hyperides (, ''Hypereidēs''; c. 390 – 322 BC; English pronunciation with the stress variably on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable) was an Athenian logographer (speech writer). He was one of the ten Attic orators inc ...
. According to legend, she was
acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal means that the criminal prosecution has failed to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charge presented. It certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an o ...
after baring her breasts to the jury, though the historical accuracy of this episode is doubtful. She also modeled for the artists
Apelles Apelles of Kos (; ; fl. 4th century BC) was a renowned Painting, painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom much of modern scholars' knowledge of this artist is owed (''Natural History (Pliny), Naturalis Historia'' 35.36.79–97 and '' ...
and Praxiteles: the Aphrodite of Knidos was said to be based on her. Phryne was largely ignored during the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
, but artistic interest in her began to grow from the end of the eighteenth century. Her trial was depicted by
Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (; 11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academic painting, academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living art ...
in the 1861 painting '' Phryne Before the Areopagus'', which influenced many subsequent depictions of her, and according to Laura McClure made her an "international cultural icon".


Sources

The most substantial contemporary source about Phryne's life was
Hypereides Hypereides or Hyperides (, ''Hypereidēs''; c. 390 – 322 BC; English pronunciation with the stress variably on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable) was an Athenian logographer (speech writer). He was one of the ten Attic orators inc ...
' defence speech from her trial. In the ancient world this was a major influence on Phryne's biographical tradition, but it is now lost, except for a few fragments. The surviving ancient sources about Phryne are mostly from the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
, based on earlier Greek literature. The most important of these is
Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...
, who was from Roman Egypt in the second century AD. His ''
Deipnosophistae The ''Deipnosophistae'' (, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. , where ''sophists'' may be translated more loosely as ) is a work written in Ancient Greek by Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of Greek literature, literary, Ancient history, h ...
'' ("The Scholars at Dinner") is the source of the vast majority of extant ancient writings about Phryne. Other authors of the first, second and third centuries AD, including
Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...
, Pausanias, and
Diogenes Laertius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek phi ...
, also tell anecdotes about Phryne. Athenaeus' main source was fourth-century comedy BC. By the mid-fourth century BC, Athenian comedy had moved away from the mythological subjects popular in earlier periods, and more often satirised real people. Phryne featured in several of these plays. In Timocles' ''Orestautokleides'' and Anaxilas' ''Neottis'' she is named in lists of
hetaira 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 ...
i, Timocles' ''Neaira'' makes a joke about her early life, and Posidippus' ''The Ephesian Girl'' describes her trial. Two other plays, Antiphanes' ''The Birth of Aphrodite'' and Alexis' ''The Woman from Knidos'', might have alluded to her association with the artists
Apelles Apelles of Kos (; ; fl. 4th century BC) was a renowned Painting, painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom much of modern scholars' knowledge of this artist is owed (''Natural History (Pliny), Naturalis Historia'' 35.36.79–97 and '' ...
and Praxiteles.


Life

Phryne was from
Thespiae Thespiae ( ; ) was an ancient Greek city (''polis'') in Boeotia. It sits at the foot of Mount Helicon and near right bank of the Thespius River (modern name Kanavari River). Thespiae was a Boeotian state sporadically involved in the military fe ...
in
Boeotia Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinisation of names, Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia (; modern Greek, modern: ; ancient Greek, ancient: ), is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the modern regions of Greece, region of Central Greece (adm ...
. She was probably born in the 370s BC, and was the daughter of Epicles. Both
Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...
and
Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...
say that her real name was Mnesarete.Plutarch, ''De Pythiae oraculis'' 14 (''Moralia'' 401A). According to Plutarch she was called Phryne because she had a pale complexion like a toad ( in Greek). She may also have been nicknamed Saperdion, Clausigelos, and Sestus. Phryne seems to have spent most of her life in Athens. She might have come there with her family following the conquest of Thespiae by Thebes in 373 BC, been born in Athens to Thespian refugees following the Theban conquest, or been brought there as a girl to take part in the sex trade, as was Neaira, another fourth-century hetaira. She apparently grew up poor – comic playwrights portray her picking
caper ''Capparis spinosa'', the caper bush, also called Flinders rose, is a perennial plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. The taxonomic status of the species is controversial and unsettled. Species with ...
s – and became one of the wealthiest women in the Greek world. According to Callistratus, after Alexander razed Thebes in 335, Phryne offered to pay to rebuild the walls. She was also said to have dedicated a statue of herself at
Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The A ...
, and a statue of
Eros Eros (, ; ) is the Greek god of love and sex. The Romans referred to him as Cupid or Amor. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is the child of Aphrodite. He is usually presented as a handsome young ma ...
to Thespiae. Phryne probably lived beyond 316 BC, when Thebes was rebuilt; according to Plutarch her fame meant that she could continue to charge high fees to her clients in her old age. Hetairai had a reputation in ancient literature for their wit and learning. The trope of the witty hetaira derives from the ''Memoirs'' of Lynceus of Samos, a comic author of the late fourth century BC, which contained several anecdotes about the wit of the hetaira Gnathaina. Several anecdotes from the ''Deipnosophistae'' relate Phryne's witticisms, though the meaning of many of them is unclear. Very little is known about Phryne's life for certain, and much of her biography transmitted in ancient sources may be invented: Helen Morales writes that separating fact from fiction in accounts of Phryne's life is impossible.


Trial

The most famous event in Phryne's life was the prosecution brought against her by Euthias. Little is known of Euthias, except that he was supposedly a former lover of Phryne, and was accused of being a
sycophant In modern English, sycophant denotes an "insincere flatterer" and is used to refer to someone practising sycophancy (i.e., insincere flattery to gain advantage). The word has its origin in the legal system of Classical Athens, where it had a d ...
– a person who habitually brought prosecutions for personal gain. The prosecution speech delivered by Euthias – which, according to Athenaeus, was composed by
Anaximenes of Lampsacus Anaximenes of Lampsacus (; ; 320 BC) was a Greek rhetorician and historian. He was one of the teachers of Alexander the Great and accompanied him on his campaigns. Family His father was named Aristocles (). His nephew (son of his sister), was also ...
on his behalf – does not survive. Phryne was defended by
Hypereides Hypereides or Hyperides (, ''Hypereidēs''; c. 390 – 322 BC; English pronunciation with the stress variably on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable) was an Athenian logographer (speech writer). He was one of the ten Attic orators inc ...
, a well-known and wealthy orator who had a reputation for associating with hetairai. Six of the speeches attributed to him relate to hetairai, and in a surviving fragment of his defense of Phryne, he admits to being her lover. Hypereides' defence speech survives only in fragments, though it was greatly admired in antiquity. The date of the trial is uncertain. If Anaximenes did compose the speech for the prosecution, it must have been before he moved to Macedon, and therefore was perhaps between 350 BC and 340 BC. Alternatively, Craig Cooper argues that the trial was likely after the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, while Eleanora Cavallini suggests that it was after 335 BC. Phryne was charged with , a kind of blasphemy. An anonymous treatise on rhetoric, which summarises the case against Phryne, lists three specific accusations against her – that she held a "shameless " or ritual procession, that she introduced a new god, and that she organised unlawful thiasoi or debauched meetings. The charge of introducing a new god had previously been used in the
trial of Socrates The Trial of Socrates (399 BCE) was held to determine the philosopher's guilt of two charges: ''asebeia'' ( impiety) against the pantheon of Athens, and corruption of the youth of the city-state; the accusers cited two impious acts by Socrat ...
; that of organising thiasoi is also known from the trial of Ninos. According to
Harpocration __NOTOC__ Valerius Harpocration ( or , ''gen''. Ἁρποκρατίωνος) was a Greek grammarian of Alexandria, probably working in the 2nd century AD. He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus (''Life of Verus'', 2) as ...
, the new god introduced by Phryne was called Isodaites; though Harpocration describes him as being "foreign", the name is Greek and other sources consider it an epithet of
Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...
,
Helios In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; ; Homeric Greek: ) is the god who personification, personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") an ...
, or
Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...
. According to an ancient tradition, Euthias' case against Phryne was motivated by a personal quarrel rather than Phryne's alleged impiety. Craig Cooper suggests that the trial of Phryne was politically motivated. He observes that Aristogeiton, to whom Athenaeus attributes a speech against Phryne, was a political enemy of Hypereides and prosecuted him for illegally introducing a decree after the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. Phryne's own provocative behaviour – for instance her offer to restore the walls of Thebes, on the condition that an inscription attributing the rebuilding to "Phryne the hetaira" be displayed – may also have partially motivated the prosecution. Konstantinos Kapparis suggests that the trial might have been seen as a response to "the uppity alien woman who did not know her place". Phryne was said to have been acquitted after the jury saw her bare breasts –
Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician born in Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quin ...
says that she was saved "not by Hypereides' pleading, but by the sight of her body". Three different versions of this story survive. In Quintilian's account, along with those of
Sextus Empiricus Sextus Empiricus (, ; ) was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician with Roman citizenship. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism, and because of the argument ...
and
Philodemus Philodemus of Gadara (, ''Philodēmos'', "love of the people"; – prob. or 35 BC) was an Epicurean philosopher and poet. He studied under Zeno of Sidon in Athens, before moving to Rome, and then to Herculaneum. He was once known chiefly for h ...
, Phryne makes the decision to expose her own breasts; while in Athenaeus' version Hypereides exposes Phryne as the climax of his speech, and in Plutarch's version Hypereides exposes her because he saw that his speech had failed to persuade the jury. Christine Mitchell Havelock notes that there is separate evidence for women being brought into the courtroom to arouse the sympathy of the jury, and that in ancient Greece baring the breasts was a gesture intended to arouse such a compassionate response, so Phryne's supposed behaviour in the court is not without parallel in Greek practice. Ioannis Ziogas observes that it particularly recalls
Clytemnestra Clytemnestra (, ; , ), in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the half-sister of Helen of Sparta. In Aeschylus' ''Oresteia'', she murders Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan p ...
's plea to
Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; ) was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and the brother of Electra and Iphigenia. He was also known by the patronymic Agamemnonides (), meaning "son of Agamemnon." He is the subject of several ...
in
Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...
' play '' The Libation Bearers'', and the story of Helen appealing to
Menelaus In Greek mythology, Menelaus (; ) was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre- Dorian) Sparta. According to the ''Iliad'', the Trojan war began as a result of Menelaus's wife, Helen, fleeing to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. Menelaus was a central ...
for mercy after the fall of Troy. However, this episode probably never happened. It was not mentioned in Posidippus' version of the trial in his comedy ''Ephesian Woman'', quoted by Athenaeus. ''Ephesian Woman'' was produced , and the story of Phryne baring her breasts therefore probably postdates this. In Posidippus' version, Phryne personally pleaded with each of the jurors at her trial for them to save her life, and it was this which secured her acquittal. The story of Phryne baring her breasts may have been invented by the Hellenistic biographer Idomeneus of Lampsacus, who wrote a treatise on Athenian demagogues. Though all of the ancient accounts assume that Phryne was on trial for her life, was not necessarily punished by death; it was an , in which the jury would decide on the punishment if the accused was convicted. Phryne's trial is, along with those of Ninos and Theoris of Lemnos, one of three known from the fourth century in which a
metic In ancient Greece, a metic (Ancient Greek: , : from , , indicating change, and , 'dwelling') was a resident of Athens and some other cities who was a citizen of another polis. They held a status broadly analogous to modern permanent residency, b ...
woman was accused of a religious crime. Due to her wealth and connections, hers was the only one in which the accused was acquitted. A Hellenistic biographer, Hermippus of Smyrna, reports that after Phryne's acquittal, Euthias was so furious that he never spoke publicly again. ''FGrH'' 1026 F 46a, in Athenaeus, ''Deipnosophistae'' 13.59 = 13.590d. Kapparis suggests that in fact he was disenfranchised, possibly because he failed to gain one fifth of the jurors' votes and was unable to pay the subsequent fine. The trial of Phryne also supposedly led to two new laws being passed governing courtroom behaviour: one forbade the accused being present while the jury considered their verdict; the other forbade lament in the courtroom.


Model

Phryne was the model for two of the great artists of classical Greece, Praxiteles and
Apelles Apelles of Kos (; ; fl. 4th century BC) was a renowned Painting, painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom much of modern scholars' knowledge of this artist is owed (''Natural History (Pliny), Naturalis Historia'' 35.36.79–97 and '' ...
. She is most famously associated with Praxiteles' Aphrodite of Knidos, the first three-dimensional and monumentally sized female nude in ancient Greek art. However, the only source for this association is Athenaeus. The sixth-century rhetorician
Choricius of Gaza Choricius of Gaza () was a Gaza-based Greek sophist and rhetorician of Late Antiquity. With writings dating to the early sixth century, he flourished in the time of Anastasius I (AD 491–518) as a scholar and public orator. He is considered as p ...
also says that Praxiteles used her as a model for a statue of Aphrodite, though according to him it was one commissioned by the Spartans. It is not mentioned by other ancient authors who discuss both Phryne and the Aphrodite of Knidos, such as
Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...
, and
Clement of Alexandria Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria (; – ), was a Christian theology, Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A ...
names the model not as Phryne but Cratina. Praxiteles also produced a golden or gilt statue of Phryne which was displayed – according to Pausanias dedicated by Phryne; according to Athenaeus by the Thespians – in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. This may have been the first female portrait ever dedicated at Delphi; it is the only known statue of a woman alone to be dedicated before the Roman period. One of Praxiteles' sculptures of Eros was said to have been inspired by his desire for Phryne; this was displayed in Thespiae alongside two other sculptures by Praxiteles, one of Aphrodite and one of Phryne herself. According to Pliny, Phryne was also the model for Praxiteles' sculpture of a smiling courtesan, which may have originally been displayed in Athens. Like Praxiteles, Apelles used Phryne as a model for Aphrodite. According to Athenaeus, he was inspired by the sight of Phryne walking naked into the sea at Eleusis to use her as a model for his painting of Aphrodite Anadyomene (Aphrodite rising from the sea). This was displayed at the sanctuary of Asclepius on the Greek island of Kos before being taken to Rome by the emperor
Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...
; by the first century AD it appears to have been one of Apelles' best-known works.


Reception

Phryne was largely ignored during the Renaissance, in favour of more heroic female figures such as
Lucretia According to Roman tradition, Lucretia ( /luːˈkriːʃə/ ''loo-KREE-shə'', Classical Latin: ʊˈkreːtia died ), anglicized as Lucrece, was a noblewoman in ancient Rome. Sextus Tarquinius (Tarquin) raped her. Her subsequent suicide precipi ...
, but interest in depicting her increased in the eighteenth century with the advent of
Neoclassicism Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative arts, decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiq ...
. Early depictions of her by
Angelica Kauffmann Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann ( ; 30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, ...
and
J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbu ...
avoid eroticising her. From the eighteenth century French artists focused on portraying Phryne as a courtesan, particularly depicting her public nudity at religious festivals or during her trial. By the mid-nineteenth century artists such as Gustave Boulanger, rejecting the neoclassical aesthetic of Hellenism, painted Phryne without any reference to the ancient context as an eroticised and Orientalised nude. The most famous nineteenth century depiction of Phryne was
Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (; 11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academic painting, academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living art ...
's '' Phryne Before the Areopagus''. This painting was controversial for showing Phryne covering her face in shame, in the same pose that Gérôme used in several paintings of slaves in Eastern slave-markets. Critics argued that Phryne should be proud rather than ashamed of her beauty, and that Gérôme's portrayal of Phryne was anachronistic. Driven by this controversy, Gérôme's painting was widely reproduced and caricatured, with engravings by Léopold Flameng, a sculpture by Alexandre Falguière, and a drawing by
Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century a ...
all modelled after Gérôme's Phryne. By the end of the century, Gérôme's painting of Phryne and the various works inspired by it had made her an "international cultural icon". The story of Phryne bathing at Eleusis, which according to Athenaeus inspired Apelles to paint the Aphrodite Anadyomene, was also a subject for nineteenth century painters. In Britain,
Frederic Leighton Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British Victorian painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and clas ...
and
Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August 183317 June 1898) was an English painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter. Burne-Jones worked with William Morris as a founding part ...
both painted works on this theme in the 1880s, but the most famous nineteenth century painting of the subject was Henryk Siemiradzki's '' Phryne at the Poseidonia in Eleusis''. In nineteenth century literature, Phryne appears in the poetry of
Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...
and
Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...
. In Baudelaire's "Lesbos", from , she is used metonymically to represent courtesans in general. In Rilke's "", the flamingos are compared to Phryne, as they seduce themselves – by folding their wings over their own heads – more effectively than even she could ("they seem to think / themselves seductive; that their charms surpass / a Phryne’s"). Late nineteenth-century depictions of Phryne in other media included a waltz by Antonin d'Argenton, a shadow-theatre production by Maurice Donnay – where the scene of Phryne's trial was modelled on Gérôme's painting – and a comic opera by
Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (, , 9October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano ...
. In the twentieth century, Phryne made the transition to cinema.
Alessandro Blasetti Alessandro Blasetti (3 July 1900 – 1 February 1987) was an Italian film director and screenwriter who influenced Italian neorealism with the film ''Four Steps in the Clouds''. Blasetti was one of the leading figures in Italian cinema during the ...
's "" ("The Trial of Phryne") adapted the story of Phryne's trial with a contemporary setting, based on a short story by
Edoardo Scarfoglio Edoardo Scarfoglio (26 September 1860 – 6 October 1917) was an Italian author and journalist, one of the early practitioners in Italian fiction of realism, a style of writing that embraced direct, colloquial language and rejected the more or ...
. The following year, the
peplum film Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum (: pepla), is a subgenre of largely Italian-made historical, mythological, or biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget Holl ...
' ("Phryne, the Oriental Courtesan") was released. Both films depict Phryne's disrobing at her trial with an iconography influenced by Gérôme's painting. A third Italian film, ("The Venus of Chaeronea"), focused on the story of the relationship between Phryne and Praxiteles. File:Phryne seduces the philosopher Xenocrates, Angelica Kauffmann 1794.jpg, Angelica Kauffman, ''Phryne Seduces the Philosopher Xenocrates'' 1794 File:Jacques-Louis David - Phryné before the Judges - 2013.249 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Jacques-Louis David, ''Phryne Before the Judges'' 1818 File:Joseph Mallord William Turner 069.jpg, J.M.W. Turner, ''Phryne Going to the Public Baths as Venus: Demosthenes Taunted by Aeschines'' 1838 File:-Standing Female Nude- MET DP263575.jpg, Marie-Christine Leroux as Phryne, photographed by
Nadar Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (; 5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910), known by the pseudonym Nadar () or Félix Nadar'','' was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloon (aircraft), balloonist, and proponent of History of avi ...
for Gérôme's ''Phryne Before the Areopagus'' 1860–61 File:Phryné - opéra-comique en 2 actes ..., musique de C. Saint-Saëns. - affiche - F. Marcotte - btv1b53187307n.jpg, Poster for the comic opera ''Phryné'' 1893, with music by Camille Saint-Saëns


Notes


References


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Authority control 4th-century BC Athenians 4th-century BC Greek women Ancient Athenian women Ancient Boeotians Artists' models of ancient Greece Hetairai