- Leaena
Leaena (Λέαινα "lioness" probably from a
Pre-Greek root) was a prostitute and the mistress ofAristogeiton the Tyrannicide , a homosexual lover of tyrant Harmondius. [ [http://members.aol.com/heliogabby/deipnon/deipnon3.htm The Deipnosophists of Athenaeus of Naucratis, Book XIII Concerning Women] ]Life
When
Anaxandridas II was king of Sparta in the 6th century BC,Harmodius and Aristogeiton were compelled to overthrow the tyranny ofHippias andHipparchus . [ [http://www.pos1.info/b/b014w.htm The Death of Hipparchus] ]Among those captured in the plot to murder Hipparchus was Leaena who Aristogeiton was in love with. [ [http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus13c.html Athenaeus: Deipnosophists - Book 13(c)] ] She was tortured to get information about the perpetrators' involvement. [ [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6156/6156-h/vol1.htm Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book I, Chapter 3] ] Leaena then rose to the occasion to be virtuous, in spite of her "occupation", and bit her tongue off so she would not be capable of revealing detrimental information. [ [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_chronicle_03_part2.htm Beginning of the Consuls of the Romans] ]
According to Pausanias, the
Athenians set up a bronze lioness on the Acropolis in her memory. [Pausanias [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus.+1.23.1 1.23.1–2] .]This brass lioness statue at the entrance was without a tongue. [ [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1214&layout=html Plutarch, "The Morals," volume 4.] ]
ee also
*
Hetaera
*Courtesan Footnotes
References
Primary sources
*
Pliny the Elder , "Natural History" VII.23.87, 34.19.72
*Eusebius , "Chronicon 106.1-7"
*Plutarch , "De garrulitate" 505ESecondary sources
* Plutarch, "The Morals," volume 4, trans. William W. Goodwin w/ Introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1878) [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1214&layout=html The Online Library of Liberty]
* The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens By Eva C. Keuls, p. 194, University of California Press (1993), ISBN 0520079299
* Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book II. by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/b010w10.txt Project Guttenberg]
*Eusebius , Chronicon, ed R. Helm (Leipzig, Germany 1913), 106.1-7
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