ze of the eyes, with their sweet,
joyous expression.

Phryne, with a modesty one would not expect in a woman of her class, was
very careful to keep her beautiful figure concealed, avoiding the public
baths and having her body always enveloped in a long and graceful tunic.
But on two occasions the beauty-loving Greeks had displayed to them the
charms of her person. The first was at the solemn assembly at Eleusis,
on the feast of the Poseidonia. Having loosened her beautiful hair and
let fall her drapery, Phryne plunged into the sea in the sight of all
the assembled Greeks. Apelles, the painter, transported with admiration
at the sight, retired at once to his studio and transferred to canvas
the mental image which was indelibly impressed upon his fancy; and the
resulting picture was the _Aphrodite Anadyomene_, the most celebrated of
his paintings.

The second exhibition was before the austere court of the Heliasts.
Phryne had been cited to appear before the tribunal on the charge of
profaning the Eleusinian mysteries, and Hyperides, the brilliant young
orator, was her advocate. Failing to move the judges by his arguments,
he tore the tunic from her bosom and revealed to them the perfection of
her figure. The judges, beholding as it were the goddess of love
incarnate, and moved by a superstitious fear, could not dare to condemn
to death "a prophetess and priestess of Aphrodite." They saw and they
pardoned, and, amid the applause of the people, Phryne was carried in
triumph to the temple of Aphrodite. To us in this day such a scene
appears highly theatrical, but Aphrodite is no longer esteemed among
men, and the Greek worship of beauty is something not understood in this
material age.

Phryne's life was by no means free from blame, and as the result of her
popularity she acquired great riches. She is said to have offered to
rebuild the walls of Thebes, which had been torn down by Alexander, on
condition that she might place on them the inscription: _Alexander
destroyed Thebes; but Phryne, the hetaera, rebuilt it;_ but the offer was
rejected, showing that though the times were corrupt, yet shame had not
altogether departed from men.

One cannot emphasize in too trenchant terms the demoralizing influences
of hetairism on the social life of the Greeks, or fail to see in the
gross immorality of the sexes one of the paramount causes of the
downfall of the Greek peoples.

Yet it is a truism that feminine shamelessness was m