Against Neaera
The Archaic Allegory Volume XXVII
Let the dawn of winter welcome you to the twenty-seventh volume of The Archaic Allegory. The evenings are pulling into breezy darkness sooner than before as the wraith of snow stays looming over our heads. Crawl in, gentle readers, assume a quilt and devour a supper, and read of a certain Neaera.
The tragedy of Neaera comes from the ancient city of Athens, where she was put to trial along with her husband for breaching native law. The tale is conveyed to us by one of Athens’ greatest orators, Demosthenes whose numerous speeches have survived to this day.
Allow us to journey to Athens in 343 BC. Neaera and her husband Stephanus are brought before the court for an unlawful marriage. The attack comes from Apollodorus, Stephanus's longtime political and personal adversary, who has discovered just the proper amount of leeway to put down Stephanus.
But who is Neaera, really? Neaera is a courtesan, or if I were to use more harsh a jargon - a prostitute, who serves in the city of Athens and other places around. Mind it, now, that prostitution was no crime in Athens. It was as much a regulated and accepted profession as any orderly trade.
Neaera entered into the business after being bought as a slave by a brothel keeper and forced into prostitution as a young girl in Corinth. In a short period of time, Neaera amassed enormous riches in terms of reputation in numerous towns in Greece, notably Athens, where she often paid trips to cater to a demanded clientele.
Present day, Apollodorus reprimands Neaera and her husband Stephanus for the latter having entered an illegal marriage with Neaera. An illegal marriage, per se, according to Athenian law, is when an Athenian citizen forges marriage with an alien. Alien, again, is a person who is not an Athenian citizen. So is a marriage between an Athenian and a non-Athenian illegal per the law? Precisely yes. Absurd? Truly. Reality? Absolutely.
That being the case, the marriage between Stephanus, an Athenian citizen, and Neaera, a Corinthian and thus an alien, is illegal by Athenian law. The violation attracts the most harsh penalties for both the persons, if proved guilty, with the Athenian defaulter Stephanus being charged a thousand drachmae, which is a grand amount of currency, the estimate of which could be made by knowing the fact that the daily wage of an experienced and skilled worker in ancient Greece is 1 drachma; and the alien Neaera being gruesomely sold into slavery.
But that’s not all yet, apart from the aforesaid there are more grievous allegations that Apollodorus plans to throw against Stephanus and Neaera which he proceeds to present before the jury.
Apollodorus furthers the idea that Neaera offered her services in Athens every festive season and soon mustered a considerable repute. In about 376 BC, she was bought from her pimp by two men as their personal prostitute and slave who exploited her for their pleasure at all times they pleased.
Fate may have been reaching the end of Neaera's ordeal when the two men who had agreed to marry urged Neaera to pay them a set fee in order to buy her release from slavery and servitude to them. Neaera manages to amass money and pay the men to finally be free of their bonds, thanks to presents and other favors from her past patrons.
For if anguish is decided by fate, to find a reason is the lame’s mastery
Neaera was gravely mistaken. Equally mistaken was the idea that she could live a life away from prostitution. Phrynion, a man who helped her buy her freedom, brought Neaera to Athens promising her a life of dignity. And what he performed forthwith, you must know from the words of Apollodorus himself:
When he came back here, bringing her with him, he treated her without decency or restraint, taking her everywhere with him to dinners where there was drinking and making her a partner in his revels; and he had intercourse with her openly whenever and wherever he wished, making his privilege a display to the onlookers.
He gave a feast at Colias [at the temple of Athena, Colias], to celebrate his victory, and in that place many had intercourse with her when she was drunk, while Phrynion was asleep, among them even the slaves.
She was humiliated. Outraged, even. Sooner than later, in 372 BC, Neaera fled from Phrynion’s captivity to the town of Megara where she continued to work as a prostitute since she knew no better a craft to earn her bread. Two years later, she ran upon Stephanus of Athens, who had come to hire her. To Stephanus, she felt home and laid bare her lament and tales of suffering. As a consequence, the man brought Neaera to live with him in Athens. She had brought in a daughter along with Stephanus and had given birth to two boys by now, all as a result of prostitution.
Besides it’s but the almighty who recognizes beyond naivete, beyond gullibility
Turns out, Stephanus had no means to raise the newfound family he had just brought in. He was practically penniless and had no employment and came to the conclusion that Neaera would have to continue with her profession in order to keep the money flowing. Neaera continued the same trade no less than before but sought a greater fee for now her being a respectable woman with a husband.
Stephanus, on the other hand, took one stride forward. He created a scheme with Neaera to trap any client they figured to be sufficiently wealthy, having sexual relationships with her under the guise that Stephanus had caught him in adultery with her, extorting a large sum as bribe to keep silent.
This plan was working well for the two of them. Money was flooding in, rent was no longer due, and wonderful food was served at supper time, until the day Phrynion knocked on Stephanus' door.
Phrynion had tracked Neaera down. As Stephanus protested of Neaera’s rights, Phrynion demanded her status as an alien. A quarrel followed and Phrynion decided to bring suit against Stephanus for his marriage with Neaera but fearing the penalty of a thousand drachmae, Stephanus managed to persuade Phrynion to agree on a truce.
A truce filthy for the gods to be weary of
Phrynion and Stephanus agreed to share Neaera for alternate days of the month and visit the house of whichever of the two had her for the day and dine and drink together, along with Neaera being their collective courtesan for the night.
Apollodorus has conveyed the story and provided sufficient evidence with witnesses in the court that Neaera is indeed an alien. He doesn’t cease here, however. He now moves forth to bring into question the daughter of Neaera, Phano, who has been at the center of numerous more crimes committed by Stephanus.
Stephanus gave a certain Phrastor, says Apollodorus, the hand of Phano in marriage as his own daughter, and a dowry was also provided. Nonetheless, Phano proved to be a shame to Phrastor. After absorbing her mother's methods, Phano started acting out her career at Phrastor's home. She was an obnoxious prostitute who merely could not fit into the virtuous, everyday life.
For all the right reasons, the husband grew enraged. He later discovered that Phano was not the daughter of Stephanus, but of an extraterrestrial named Neaera. A year of adjustments to no avail after, Phrastor returned Phano back to Stephanus and refused to pay back the dowry he had received in marriage.
To avenge the disgrace brought upon him, Stephanus sued Phrastor for his denial to pay back the sum of dowry. Phrastor, on his part, sued Stephanus for deceiving him into betrothing the daughter of an alien woman as though she was his own.
In the meanwhile, Phrastor fell irreversibly ill and could avail no soul to care for him. Overlooking the quarrel, Phano, who had recently given birth to a child of Phrastor at the time, cared to her former husband, and pursuant to naturally being conveyed of her heart, and being on his plausible deathbed without a heir, Phrastor adopted the child as his own.
In the following events, Phrastor marries another Athenian woman and mutually drops charges against Stephanus, to avoid further perjury.
When it rains, it pours
But that is yet not the end of Apollodorus’ insinuations against Stephanus and Neaera. For animosity piles over fatigue and reduces sight to all but vengeance.
Apollodorus now brings forth two more indictments.
Firstly, he makes the jury aware of a certain Epaenetus who he introduces as an old lover and wealthy customer of Neaera. Apollodorus flashes the indiscriminate greed and gluttony of Stephanus and explains the latter’s plot to use his daughter Phano to extort money from Epaenetus.
Stephanus, with the help of Neaera, invited Epaenetus to Athens and managed to induce him into having intercourse with Phano. In the old way of his, Stephanus then trapped Epaenetus as though having found him in adultery with his daughter and extorted more than two thousand drachmae from him to stay shut.
Epaenetus, later having gained cognizance of the duping, threatened to sue Stephanus of deceiving him. And again, Stephanus bend the ways to agree on a truce for he would love anything to befall him but the binding of the court.
The conditions of the truce, on the other hand, were as ludicrous as they come. Stephanus persuaded Epaenetus to pay simply a thousand drachmae towards the expenditures of Phano's marriage, whenever it occurred, in exchange for Stephanus' promise for him to enjoy Phano whenever he visited Athens in the future.
But even now, Stephanus’ debauchery and shamelessness know no bounds and this time he transcends all checks of sanity, says Apollodorus.
Apollodorus now introduces the greatest scandal produced by Stephanus. The most bizarre encounter is nearing to be revealed.
Following the Epaenetus episode, Stephanus had by now managed to become a very successful orator in Athens and could avail access to important personalities of the city, one of them being the king of Athens.
For how manipulative a personality he was, Stephanus found a way to have the king Theogenes of Athens to marry Phano. From the daughter of an alien and prostitute, Phano climbed her way to be the queen of Athens. And as what was bestowed to her, she performed all the duties that were sacredly reserved for the queen.
Phano administered the sacrifices at festivals and precisely conducted all the religious rites that were needed of a queen, all of which was a totally blasphemous act for an alien to do.
Theogenes, later, came of knowledge of the facts of the case and stripped Stephanus of his position as an orator and cast Phano away and ceased to live with her.
It is now that Apollodorus rests his case after cunningly toying with the passion of the jury by trying to induce them into punishing Stephanus and Neaera for certain. He speaks the following to portray so:
I would, then, have each one of you (the jury) consider that he is casting his vote, one in the interest of his wife, one of his daughter, one of his mother, and one in the interest of the state and the laws and of religion, in order that these women may not be shown to be held in like esteem with the harlot, and that women who have been brought up by their relatives with great care and in the grace of modesty and have been given in marriage according to the laws may not be seen to be sharing on an equal footing with a creature who in many and obscene ways has bestowed her favors many times a day on all comers, as each one happened to desire.
I therefore, men of the jury, as an avenger of the gods against whom these people have committed sacrilege, and as an avenger of myself, have brought them to trial and submitted them to be judged by you. It is now your duty to render the verdict which justice demands, knowing well that the gods, against whom these people have acted lawlessly, will not be unaware of the vote each one of you shall cast. It is your duty to be avengers in the first place of the gods, but also of your own selves. If you do this, you will be held by all men to have given an honorable and just decision on this indictment which I have preferred against Neaera, charging that she, being an alien, lives as his wife with an Athenian citizen.
…
Because the sole surviving record of this case is Apollodorus' speech, we cannot reconstruct the jury's decision from historical records. We simply do not know which way the jury gave its verdict.
It is, nonetheless, an important legacy piece for understanding the position and treatment of women in the ancient west, as well as the moral abhorrence of the profession of prostitution.
Well, that was longer than usual, nonetheless exhilarating. And with that we come to the parting door for the twenty seventh time. The Archaic Allegory is growing and we express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who signed up.
Next week, we meet again. Until time, The Archaic Allegory bids adieu. May the weather be gentle to you and knowledge merrier.