Schiave, etere e prostitute nella Grecia antica. La vicenda emblematica di Laide

Abstract

The ancient sources on Lais are misleading: apparently they concern only one hetaira, but actually they must refer to two or even three “courtesans” of the same name. This naturally reduces the possibility of writing the biography of a single hetaira called Lais, but on the other hand allows us to trace a genre biography, true, in its main lines, for more than one “courtesan” of Antiquity. “Lais”, the second, for whom we dispose of more individualised historical details, was a hetaira of brilliant erotic and social success, but she was at the beginning of her life a prisoner of war, sold as a slave in Sicily and then moving to Corinth.

Keywords: prigionieri di guerra, schiave, prostitute, etere; prisoners of war, slaves, prostitutes, courtesans.