Talk:Prostitution in ancient Greece

Untitled

 * This article was originally translated from the French wikipedia article fr:Prostitution en Grèce antique 22 May 2006 Bridesmill 15:45, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Pornai
The section on pornai states that 'the pornai were found at the bottom end of the scale', and later that 'Independent prostitutes who worked the street were on the next higher level'. It could be clarified whether this refers to subdivisions of status within the pornai, or whether there was some third category between pornai and Hetaerae. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Somnolentsurfer (talk • contribs) 11:57, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Paragrah needing revision
In this paragraph:

Some of these Hetaera were very rich. Xenophon describes Theodota as being surrounded by slaves, richly dressed and living in a grand house. Some distinguished themselves through their extravagant expenditures; Rhodopis, the Thracian courtesan emancipated by the brother of the poetess Sappho, is said to have distinguished herself by having a pyramid built. Herodotus does not believe this in fact he belives that you have the herpilly erapllys and is obsessed with PORN, but describes a very costly epigraph erected by her at Delphi (II, 134–135). The fees of these courtesans varied considerably, but were very much higher than those of the common prostitutes. In the New Comedy, their prices varied from 20 to 60 Minas for an undetermined number of days. In Menander's the Flatterer (v. 128-130), there is mention of a courtesan earning 3 minas per day or more, as much as 10 pornai together. If Aulus Gellius is to be believed courtesans of the classical era could earn up to 10,000 drachmas per night (Noctes Atticae, I, 8),.

This sentence (below) does not make sense; could be mis-spelling, or mis-translation, or vandalized?

Herodotus does not believe this in fact he belives that you have the herpilly erapllys and is obsessed with PORN, but describes a very costly epigraph erected by her at Delphi (II, 134–135). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.45.246 (talk) 03:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Redlinks
Two redlinks - Polemon of Ilion & Artemis Orthis, the former I'm working on, the latter I'll translate from the fr: article.Bridesmill 15:45, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The article does not read correctly in English
Odd phrasing, wrong prepositions, etc. but author wishes no changes. Not interesting topic to me so I will pursue it no more. KarenAnn 01:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Redirects do not work if they are in red. KarenAnn 01:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, redlinks are fully understood. In this article, it points to missing articles, some of which are currently in production & some of which are needed. I am not averse to copyedits if they are required; I am also not the author - just the translator. Nor did I state I did not want changes - I stated that substantive changes need citation & evidence. There is a hufge change between it employed a significant proportion of the population and your uncited prostitutes made up a significant proportion of the population , as there is between Solon's regulated prices and your unsourced standardized prices. Did not condemn prostitutes replaced by did not punish - a significant difference, as you can condemn without punishing, and there is no evidence of this. Prostitution involved both sexes differently was there on purpose as a lead in to the next clauses; you changed this to downplay the gender difference, which I believe to be a significant point. Again, there is a difference between the formal an assembly of citizens  as cited from Ps.Demosthenes and the gaggle represented by your  a group of citizens . Finally, there is a subtle difference between relations with another woman and relationships - the formar implies acts, the latter implies commitments. In all of your edits, there were no grammatical changes, and only one in terms of style ('severly dealt with' versus 'dealt with severely'). If you can provide no explenation or no identification of your purported 'wrong prepositions', I see no need for the copyedit tag.Bridesmill 15:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Daily life
Daily life? Prostitution was a part of '"daily life'"? You mean a man might expect to visit a prostitute every day, or at least often enough to consider it a part of "daily life"? Makes me start reading the article with one eyebrow raised. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:47, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The intro was translated straight from the French version, which I wrote. Daily or everyday life is here meant as ordinary life. While your ordinary citizen might certainly not visit prostitutes daily, you could see them daily in public places: prostitution was not a hidden, covert activity. Flacelière's Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles does contain a paragraph about prostitution. If you feel the current redaction is misleadig, feel free to amend it. I'm not a native speaker, so I dare not do it myself. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 19:55, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Theophrastus and pimping
IP 24.130.201.7 wrote in the 'Pornai' section: "In section VI of Theophrastus's 'Charecters', 'the reckless man' he does not mention pimps. Furthermore, in Theophrastus's 'Characters' the professions of inn-keeper and tax collector are 'disreputable trade[s]' [Also, in comments:] I corrected an erroneous statement about the works of Theophrastus. Whoever wrote the section originally was lying, stupid, or neglected to read the document which he or she cited."

Theophrastus does mention pimping in Characters 6. The Greek text runs: “(5) δεινὸς δὲ καὶ πανδοκεῦσαι καὶ πορνοβοσκῆσαι καὶ τελωνῆσαι καὶ μηδεμίαν αἰσχρὰν ἐργασίαν ἀποδοκιμάσαι, ἀλλὰ κηρύττειν, μαγειρεύειν, (6) κυβεύειν” (ed. Hermann Diels), i.e. “he is apt to keep an inn or a brothel or be a tax collector; he regards no occupation as beneath his dignity, but is ready to work as an auctioneer, hired cook, or gambler” (James Diggle's translation for Cambridge UP). Your translation must have been bowdlerised.

Eva C. Keuls writes: “The ownership and exploitation of whores and brothels was a reputable form of business, practiced by citizens of good standing. Theophrastus, for example, lists ownership as an ordinary trade, along with innkeeping and tax collection (Char, 6, 5)” (The Reign of the Phallus, p.154) Marguerite Johnson and Terry Ryan also write: “Investment in such establishments was deemed an ordinary business outlet (albeit a disreputable one) two centuries later by the philosopher, Theophrastus (Characters, 6.5)” (Sexuality In Greek And Roman Literature And Society: A Sourcebook, p.88). An ordinary trade doesn't mean an honourable one, especially in Ancient Greece. I added the restriction to clarify the point being made, though. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 19:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no evidence that the depicted man is giving money for sex to the boy, and the inscription ΗΟ ΠΑΙΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ actually reads: 'Young boy ethically nice'. Many ancient greek words have their original meaning changed through the ages, so 'pederasty' would by no means mean what we think today, it had ethical meaning for boys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.92.200.227 (talk) 20:39, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Temple prostitution
Currently, the section on temple prostitution in Corinth is... not good. Uncritically quoting ancient sources while making no mention of the fact that whether sacred prostitution or temple prostitution in the ancient Mediterranean existed at all is pretty much the definition of undue weight and a misuse of primary sources. I don't have the time or inclination at the moment to really immerse myself in the historiography here and work out what the consensus actually is, but recent critics of the historicity of temple prostitution appear to be Stephanie Lynn Budin (The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity, "Simonides' Corinthian Epigram", "Pallakai, Prostitutes, and Prophetesses") and Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge ("Something to do with Aphrodite: ta aphrodisia and the sacred" in Blackwell Companion to Greek Religion). Earlier critics of the idea appear to have included Conzelman (in German) and Calame (in French). Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:35, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I've added the opinions of modern scholars such as Daniel Arnaud, Julia Assante and Stephanie Budin to balance the section. --John B123 (talk) 07:57, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Why I tagged it
A reading of the article makes very clear that whoever wrote it seemed to consider themselves a historian. They cite many primary sources - ancient Greek writers - over and over, and make statements that clearly involve interpreting these sources, even though this should be left to scholars who devote themselves to that - secondary sources. As part of this, many of the statements appear not to come from any source.

Some other sources are dubious, such as the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and some are non-English, which makes them near-unverifiable.

Therefore, my tags of more citations needed, OR, and too much reliance on primary sources are fitting. -Crossroads- (talk) 20:28, 12 October 2019 (UTC)


 * It would have been far more useful to anybody wishing to improve the article to have specific inline tags where a problem is seen rather than general comments and tags. --John B123 (talk) 20:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Then many of such tags would be peppered through most of the article. Rather than doing that, a general tag seemed better. What else would such general tags be for? -Crossroads- (talk) 02:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I wrote the original article (on the French-speaking WP) in 2006, using secondary sources. Back then too many scholarly references were considered a burden. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 13:26, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm sure you meant well, but I'm glad it's not considered a burden now. I'm a bit confused however by the statement that you used secondary sources to write it. Are you saying you referred to secondary sources to learn about the topic and then wrote it to cite primary sources? Otherwise, if it had secondary sources when written, how has it since come to be based mostly on primary sources? Crossroads -talk- 07:18, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I wrote it using mainly Kenneth J. Dover's Greek Homosexuality and Eva C. Keuls' The Reign of the Phallus. They base their work on primary sources, which I quoted. What the article lacks is precise references linking statements to those two books. Also the article was expanded since I first wrote it, of course. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 08:08, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I see. Well, since you have a head start on the topic, if you do eventually find the time to add precise references linking statements to those or other secondary sources, that would be much appreciated. Crossroads -talk- 19:49, 9 February 2020 (UTC)