Naucratis - Minor Points of Interest

Minor Points of Interest

  • Herodotus tells us that the prostitutes of Naucratis were "peculiarly alluring" and relates the story of Charaxus, brother of the poet Sappho, who traveled to Naucratis to purchase (for a "vast sum") the freedom of one Rhodopis, a bewitchingly beautiful Thracian slave and courtesan. After obtaining her freedom, she set up a house of ill-repute, built up a thriving business and amassed a small fortune. As a measure of thanks she commissioned an expensive votive offering to the gods, eventually placed at Delphi and which could be seen still in the historian's day.
  • An Athenian cup found in one of the sanctuaries has a dedication inscribed from a worshipper named "Herodotus" and dates from the time the great historian was known to have visited there.

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