Athenian Prostitute on Trial for Marrying Politician

Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003), by Debra Hamel, tells the story of a brothel prostitute's run-ins with the law in the mid-fourth century B.C. In addition to telling the story of a remarkable woman, the book serves as a lively introduction to the larger world of ancient Greece, and of Athens in particular, in which Neaira's drama played itself out.

North Haven, CT (PRWEB) January 17, 2004 --Neaira (pronounced "neh-EYE-ruh") grew up in a brothel in Corinth in the early fourth century B.C and became one of the city-state's higher-priced courtesans while still a teenager. In the next decade she served as the sex slave of two former clients and endured an abusive relationship with a party-hopping Athenian. Finally, while barely supporting herself in a sex industry depressed by the war then raging in Greece, she met Stephanos, an Athenian citizen, whom she would live with for the next thirty years or more.

Neaira's life with Stephanos was not tranquil: it was riddled with legal threats and lawsuits. On one occasion Neaira herself was dragged into court. She was charged with breaking the law by living in a marriage relationship with an Athenian citizen--an offense because Neaira was not a citizen herself but only an alien resident in Athens. The stakes in the case were high: if Stephanos, who spoke in her defense, did not prevail, Neaira would be sold into slavery. Trying Neaira: A Courtesan's Life on Trial in Ancient Athens (Yale University Press, 2003) tells the story of Neaira's life and her family's experiences, culminating in her prosecution in the late 340s.

The story of Neaira and her appearance in court in the mid-fourth century is well known to classicists and Greek historians. But Trying Neaira is the first book to tell Neaira's story to a non-specialist audience. The book provides the background needed to make Neaira's story fully comprehensible to lay readers. It serves also as a lively introduction to the larger world of fourth-century Greece, and of Athens in particular, in which Neaira's drama played itself out.

WHAT REVIEWERS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT TRYING NEAIRA:

A "gripping story of politics, sex and sleaze in ancient Athens...."
--The Sunday Telegraph

"It is an extraordinary tale, with more than an echo of Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, and Hamel, unusually for a classicist, is not afraid of a good narrative. Nor of racy detail: from street-walkers imprinting come-hither messages in the dust with their sandals, to outraged cuckolds shoving radishes up adulterers' bottoms, there is plenty here to delight the most prurient reader."
--The Daily Telegraph

"As told by Debra Hamel, this true-life story offers an extraordinary window on a civilisation that wasn't half so rarefied in its interests or affections as we tend to assume."
--The Scotsman

"Hamel...provides a charmingly written, nicely illustrated, and generally convincing analysis of the lurid Athenian speech "Against Neaira."
--Choice

"Describing, challenging, and fleshing out the text, the scholar sends the reader on a tour of Greek culture and custom linked to the case and the feud. Among the stops are the demimonde hierarchies of prostitution, a raucous Greek jury system, the ancient and very different meaning of sycophant, and a vivid description of how seducing a respectable Athenian's wife or daughter could lead to a fine, death, or correctional intimacy with a root vegetable."
--The Chronicle of Higher Education

"Hamel's treatment of this complicated story is outstanding not only for its comprehensive (yet remarkably concise) presentation of the social and historical context of fourth-century Athens, but also, perhaps supremely, for its tact. ....She brings out both the sordid exploitation of Neaira's circumstances and the genuine strength of the bond that linked this former prostitute with Stephanos and his family, piecing together a plausible account from what is often minimal evidence, managing to explore her human characters without idealizing them, and judiciously staying just shy of a historical novel."
--The New Republic

"...Hamel can write, she can think, and she is, accordingly, published by Yale. She turns one of antiquity's more fibrous epochs into a lively and witty slice of history, and gives us a story of cupidity, greed and obduracy, spiced with sexual morsels."
--Erotic Review

"...the end result is a little gem of a book from which everyone will profit. "
--Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Hamel provides her own snappy translations of extracts from Apollodorus.... She generally writes with great verve and humour, which makes the footnotes interesting reading (and how often can one say that!): her husband is thanked for his familiarity with Dutch prostitution (p. 164, n. 5); she seems to think that some readers may be interested in the 'logistics of mid-trial dicastic excretion' (p. 182, n. 26).
--Scholia Reviews

For additional information, visit the book's website at http://www.tryingneaira.com. Trying Neaira (ISBN 0300094310) is available online and in major bookstores.