Satyricon, vol 7, Marchena Notes | Page 4

of the century of Louis XIV, and Clairon, the first
who realized all the grandeur of her art; such an one art thou, C-----,
French Thalia, who commands attentions, I do not say this by way of
apology but to share the opinion of Alceste.
A courtesan such as I have in mind may have all the public and private
virtues. One knows the severe probity of Ninon, her generosity, her
taste for the arts, her attachment to her friends. Epicharis, the soul of
the conspiracy of Piso against the execrable Nero, was a courtesan, and
the severe Tacitus, who cannot be taxed with a partiality for gallantry,
has borne witness to the constancy with which she resisted the most
seductive promises and endured the most terrible tortures, without
revealing any of the details of the conspiracy or any of the names of the

conspirators.
These facts should be recognized above that ascetic moral idea which
consists of the sovereign virtue of abstinence in defiance of nature's
commands and which places weakness in these matters along with the
most odious crimes. Can one see without indignation Suetonius'
reproach of Caesar for his gallantries with Servilia, with Tertia, and
other Roman ladies, as a thing equal to his extortions and his
measureless ambitions, and praising his warlike ardor against peoples
who had never furnished room for complaint to Rome? The source of
these errors was the theory of emanations. The first dreamers, who
were called philosophers imagined that matter and light were co-eternal;
they supposed that was all one unformed and tenebrous mass; and from
the former they established the principle of evil and of all imperfection,
while they regarded the latter as sovereign perfection. Creation, or, one
might better say co- ordination, was only the emanation of light which
penetrated chaos, but the mixture of light and matter was the cause of
all the inevitable imperfections of the universe. The soul of man was
part and parcel of divinity or of increased light; it would never attain
happiness until it was re-united to the source of all light; but for it, we
would be free from all things we call gross and material, and we would
be taken into the ethereal regions by contemplation and by abstinence
from the pleasures of the flesh. When these absurdities were adopted
for the regulation of conduct, they necessarily resulted in a fierce
morality, inimical to all the pleasures of life, such, in a word, as that of
the Gymnosophists or, in a lesser measure, of the Trappists.
But despite the gloomy nonsense of certain atrabilious dreamers, the
wonderful era of the Greeks was that of the reign of the courtesans. It
was about the houses of these that revolved the sands of Pactolus, their
fame exceeded that of the first men of Greece. The rich offerings that
decorated the temples of the Gods were the gifts of these women, and it
must be remembered that most of them were foreigners, originating, for
the most part, in Asia Minor. It happened that an Athenian financier,
who resembled the rest of his tribe as much as two drops of water,
proposed once to levy an impost upon the courtesans. As he spoke
eloquently of the incalculable advantages which would accrue to the
Government by this tax, a certain person asked him by whom the
courtesans were paid. "By the Athenians," replied our orator, after

deliberation. "Then it would be the Athenians who would pay the
impost," replied the questioner, and the people of Athens, who had a
little more sense than certain legislative assemblies, hooted the orator
down, and there was never any more question about a tax upon
courtesans.
Corinth was famous for the number and beauty of its courtesans, from
which comes the proverb: "It is not given to every man to go to
Corinth"; there they ran the risk of losing their money and ruining their
health. The cause of this great vogue of courtesans in Greece was not
the supposed ugliness of the sex, as the savant Paw imagined, and
contradicted by the unanimous evidence of ancient authors and of
modern travellers; but rather, the retired and solitary life which the
women of the country led. They lived in separate apartments and never
had any communication with the streets or with the residences of men
"the inner part of the house which was called the women's apartments,"
said Cornelius Nepos (preface). Strangers never visited them; they
rarely visited their nearest relations. This was why marriage between
brothers and sisters was authorized by law and encouraged by usage;
the sisters were exposed to the attacks of their brothers because they
lived separated from them.
With the Romans, as with us, the virtuous women corrupted somewhat
the profession of the courtesans. The absolute seclusion of