LHMP #520 Blondell & Boehringer 2014 Revenge of the Hetairistria

This article considers the position that Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans, and in particular the 5th dialogue, should be read as satire of philosophical literature. Or perhaps, satire as philosophical literature, specifically, the Platonic dialogue as comedy due to being assigned to non-elevated characters. Though, as the authors note, Plato himself drew on comedic elements. In Lucian, the dialogue format itself is one cue to the audience to look for philosophical resonances.

One aspect of Lucian’s dialogues that isn’t always emphasized in articles discussing them is that they are a form of “historical fiction.” Lucian, writing in the 2nd century CE, set his dialogues within an imagined demimonde of Plato’s time (5-4th c BCE). That is, they are intended as a fictional low-culture mirror to the symposiums that Plato depicted. The current article argues that this is essential context for understanding the purpose of the Dialogues. To do this, it begins by reviewing ancient understandings of same-sex desire especially as depicted by Plato, then there is an exploration of the role of “philosophical eros” as depicted in the 10th Dialogue, finally the article returns to the 5th Dialogue and draws thematic parallels with Plato’s Symposium.

The first section points out that the paiderastic relationships presented in the Symposium was itself an idealized debating ground for his philosophical theories, rather than reflecting actual everyday practice in Athens. For example, the symposium features a celebration of age-matched adults and downplays physical eroticism in favor of philosophical bonds. Indeed, within the context of philosophical study, the Symposium depicts Socrates as being simultaneously erastes and eromenos: the older mentor and at the same time the courted, desired object. In the speech assigned to Aristophanes about the “other half” origins of human desire, the philosophical structure that the story proposes again does not map to actual Athenian culture. (E.g., it depicts fixed gender-based orientations, rather than the hierarchical active/passive role-based structure that prevailed.)

One unusual connection between Plato and Lucian is that Plato’s dialogues are the only classical Athenian texts that reference sex between women, and the earliest record of the word hetairistria, which it is generally believed that Plato invented—the next known occurrence being the 5th Dialogue. Due to the word's rarity, it’s difficult to determine its intended meaning. (Boehringer 2021 has a detailed analysis of the possibilities.) One strong theory is that it means “a woman with immoderate desire for a woman” rather than any and all same-sex desire. [Note: If true, this would imply that there was a concept of "a woman with moderate and appropriate desire that included women" as a contrast. An interesting possibility to ponder.]

This brings us back to the Dialogues. First we look at Dialogue 10, in which one courtesan complains to another that her lover has been forbidden to visit her by his philosophy teacher who considers their relationship to be incompatible with “the pursuit of virtue.” A different explanation for the prohibition is offered: that the philosopher sexually desires his student and wants to warn off female competition. The dialogue is packed with allusions to themes from Plato. But what Lucian’s philosophy teacher desires is very different from the supposedly high-minded relations depicted in Plato. Excluding women of any sort from the sphere of philosophy is one thing (and “normal”) but the courtesan can get her revenge by spreading the gossip that the teacher is ”corrupting” his pupil. The dynamics of philosophical instruction are satirized by viewing them from the point of view of outsiders with whom we are led to identify.

The Platonic connections of the 5th dialogue are more complex. It, too, involves a conversation between two courtesans about a sexual relationship one experienced (that appears to be ongoing), initiated at a party where she was hired to entertain two women who revealed that they were “married” and had a sexual relationship. The courtesan was drawn into a three-way with them and describes details of the experience to her friend, stopping just short of specific sexual techniques. The depiction of the couple doesn’t correspond to any known Athenian demographic. They are not courtesans themselves but rather hire courtesans. They are rich, though no occupation or source of the wealth is noted. This article considers the scenario to be utterly fictional and intended to be unbelievable.

The “Platonic dialogue” aspect of the story is in the structure of how the one courtesan attempts to elicit details of the encounter from her friend by asking a series of questions and offering hypothetical framings for understanding the events. Because of the rarity of references to sex between women in classical sources, a great deal of scholarly weight has been put on this depiction, but this article points out that even taken at face value it doesn’t present a clear or coherent picture. One could view Megilla/us as representing a hierarchical, active/passive, heteronormative model of sex between women (or some subset of these features), but each interpretation is contradicted by other elements of the scenario. (More on this below.) Instead, it is proposed that it represents a parody of a philosophical debate regarding what makes someone “manly” without ever providing a conclusive answer.

But aside from the specific content, the structure of Dialogue 5 mimics that of the Symposium in using a conversational framing narrative that encloses an inner story. Furthermore, an unconventional drinking party (symposium) is a key setting. But Lucian’s all-female symposium features multiple elements that Plato’s specifically excludes: women, music, drunkenness, and sex. Like Dialogue 10, it involves those normally excluded from philosophy engaging with the forms and topics of philosophy and claiming their right to do so. And in Dialogue 5, women are doing this in a way that shows men to be irrelevant to the experience.

Perhaps the final key connection between Plato’s Symposium and Lucian’s Dialogue 5 is the appearance of the word hetairistria, but unlike Plato, whose character provides no clear definition for it, Lucian’s character explains that there are such women in Lesbos who aren’t willing to have sex with men but prefer to associate with women as men do. This is part of a speculative explanation by the friend, rather than a description of the symposium couple by the courtesan they hired, so the word isn’t definitively applied to the couple.

Contrary to some interpretations of Megilla/us as transmasculine (which is supported by some of the things she says) the dialogue doesn’t depict her as presenting as masculine. The courtesan doesn’t perceive her as masculine until she removes her wig showing an “athlete-like” shaved head. Further, her partner Demonassa is not described as being either physically or behaviorally “masculine” and yet also engages in sex with the courtesan, contradicting a heteronormative framing. The sexual encounter—to the extent that it is described—doesn’t consistently follow a hierarchical active/passive model. And the intensity of pleasure experienced by Megilla/us aligns more with stereotypes of feminine excess than masculine experience. Overall, the sexual scripts involved here are not coherent with the expected models for Greek (or Roman) society. As it cannot be read as a simple gender role reversal, it also cannot serve as an answer to the question “what makes someone manly?”

The article ends by reiterating that neither Plato’s Symposium nor Lucian’s Dialogues present a realistic or coherent picture of sexual practices and categories of the time (in Lucian’s case, either his time or that of his setting), but rather are using the forms of philosophical discussion in a satiric way to provide entertainment.