The classical profession of the hetaira, or paid female companion, is as enigmatic as it is alluring. Despite increasing interest in the roles of women in classical antiquity, the role of the hetaira has evaded definition by contemporary scholars. (In fact, one perspective on the hetaira holds that she is necessarily indefinite.) Accordingly, in this article, I will address one central question: How did the Greeks perceive and understand the classical profession of the hetaira? Although she has often been described as a ‘prostitute’, I will argue that, in contrast, the Greeks had a very clear understanding of the hetaira as a versatile female entertainer whose service of ‘companionship’ encompassed flirtation and intimacy but not necessarily sex.

Most classical scholars of the twentieth century have associated the hetaira with prostitution. Sometimes the term hetaira is viewed as a direct euphemism for ‘prostitute’.Footnote ¹ At other times, the hetaira is described as a ‘courtesan’, a vague term which implies a ‘high-class prostitute’.Footnote ² Another view of the hetaira characterizes her as necessarily indefinable, but this supposed indefinability is actually founded upon explicit references to prostitution. For instance, Leslie Kurke asserts that ‘the category of the hetaira seems at times to entail a deliberate mystification of status’ and James Davidson states, ‘The difficulty involved in defining a hetaera, then, is all part of the hetaera's plan. A hetaera remains a hetaera only so long as she can foil attempts to pin her down.’Footnote ³ Despite these assertions of indefiniteness, Kurke and Davidson also characterize the hetaira as a prostitute. For instance, Kurke refers to Hetärentum as ‘the particular form of prostitution associated with the hetaira’ and, later, speaks of the ‘discourses of prostitution’.Footnote ⁴ Similarly, Davidson titles his book Courtesans & Fishcakes and writes of the ‘courtesan or hetaera’.Footnote ⁵ These underlying references to prostitution reveal the contradictory nature of the indefinability argument, which first defines the hetaira as a ‘high-class prostitute’ or ‘courtesan’ in order to then explicate her essential lack of definition. One work which offers a glimpse of an alternate perspective on the hetaira is Daniel Garrison's Sexual Culture in Ancient Greece, in which Garrison writes: ‘The hetaera's work was a refined form of erotic entertainment like that of a Japanese geisha’.Footnote ⁶ Yet, in other places, Garrison seems to again identify the hetaira with prostitution, writing that ‘hetaeras belonged to the most well trained elite of their profession’.Footnote ⁷

In contrast to the prostitution perspective, I will argue that the hetaira was a female entertainer whose service of companionship emphasized intimacy rather than sexual intercourse. First, I will describe and define the English term ‘prostitute’ in order to explicate the consequences of associating the hetaira with prostitution. Next, I will explore the etymology of the classical Greek term hetaira, transitioning from this etymology into an analysis of the services provided by the hetaira. Finally, in order to substantiate my analysis, I will explore the depiction of the hetaira as an entertainer in the classical sources.

To evaluate the connection between the profession of the hetaira and the practice of prostitution, it is important to define the term ‘prostitute’. When used as a noun, the contemporary English word ‘prostitute’ primarily refers to someone who offers sex in exchange for payment. Derived from the Latin verb prostituere, which literally means ‘to set forth in public’ (pro ‘before’ + stato ‘set up, place’), the English term still has the connotation of ‘offering to the public something that should be kept private’. The Classical Greek equivalent to the English ‘prostitute’ is the pornē (πόρνη), a term which is derived from the verb πέρνημι (‘to sell’) and which evoked a woman explicitly merchandising her sexual favors.Footnote ⁸ Ultimately, both the prostitute and the pornē are associated with the idea of ‘indiscriminately making an offering to the public’.

Just as the public offering of sexuality made by the pornē is suggested etymologically, the service provided by the profession of the hetaira is encapsulated in the Classical Greek ἑταίρα, which literally means ‘companion’ with a feminine grammatical gender. Sometimes, this word simply indicated a ‘female friend’; for instance, Athenaeus quotes a fragment of Sappho and explains that, even in his time, women refer to their friends as hetairai (Ath. 13.571c-d). Yet this word was also used by the Greeks to describe a woman who provided her ‘companionship’ for payment. (By contrast, the masculine variant, hetairos, was always used for a ‘male friend’.)

Despite the fact that the Greeks used the previously discussed term pornē for a woman who performed sexual piecework, the hetaira’s ‘companionship’ has often been interpreted as a euphemism for sex. Yet hetairic ‘companionship’ emphasized feminine intimacy rather than the act of sex. In particular, James Davidson writes:

The ‘feminine intimacy’ and ‘unaccustomed female intercourse’ described by Davidson were central to the tradecraft of the hetaira. She did not sell sexual favors; instead, she sold flirtation and intimacy with a cultivated woman. This behavior is evident in the classical discourse on the hetaira, which depicts her as a glamorous entertainer instead of a purveyor of sexual favors. Indeed, the following sources characterize the hetaira as ‘lovely’ and repeatedly stress her power as a master of erōs, indicating that the hetaira satisfied emotional desires as well as (or even instead of) physical ones.

In the sources of classical antiquity, Herodotus is the first author to use the term hetaira to describe a specific profession, and his writing provides evidence for this figure's status as an entertainer:

In describing these hetairai, Herodotus characterizes them with the term ἐπαφρόδιτος, meaning ‘lovely’ or ‘charming’. This word clearly evokes the goddess of love Aphrodite (cf. the Latin venustus) and is an appraisal of overall desirability rather than sexual proficiency. Herodotus's use of ἐπαφρόδιτος is more appropriate for a glamorous entertainer than a talented prostitute, and, indeed, in the following lines he describes the renown of the hetairai Rhodopis and Archidice throughout Greece. Accordingly, this line from Herodotus suggests that the hetaira is an entertainer rather than a prostitute.

Another relatively early (fifth century BCE) reference to the hetaira comes from Euripides’ satyr play Cyclops:

In this passage, the fortunate young man anticipates the charms of his hetaira, who does not seem to be characterized as a type of prostitute. Instead, I believe that the term hetaira is used here in the more general sense of ‘female companion’. This evidence from Euripides demonstrates that at least some uses of the term hetaira in heterosexual relationships were not references to prostitution, thereby weakening the equivalency between hetaira and prostitute.

A clearer example of the hetaira as a versatile entertainer is drawn from the Politics of Aristotle:

This passage refers to tyrants spending extravagantly on three types of people: hetairai, xenoi, and craftsmen. The third term, τɛχνίτης, refers to a ‘craftsman’ or ‘skilled workman’, and covers a wide range of professions. The second term, ξένος, is applied to a ‘foreigner’ but also to a ‘guest’ (particularly in opposition to a ‘host’), again encompassing many potential visitors to the tyrant's court. Accordingly, the first term, hetaira, should have a similarly broad meaning. I believe that, given the wide scope of the other two terms, the term hetaira has the broad sense of ‘female entertainers’ rather than ‘mistresses’ or ‘prostitutes’.

The hetairic provision of flirtation and intimacy is also evident in Socrates’ visit to the enigmatic Theodote in Xenophon's Memorabilia. In Book 3 of the Memorabilia, Xenophon writes: ‘At one time there was in Athens a beautiful [καλός] woman named Theodoté, who was ready to keep company with anyone who pleased her’.Footnote ⁹ This periphrastic introduction is used by Xenophon to emphasize Theodote's service of providing companionship to those who persuade her. Interestingly, Xenophon uses the word καλός to describe her beauty instead of κάλλος. The former word refers to a wide range of possible beauties and often possesses the sense of ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, for example, a ‘beautiful gesture’ or a ‘beautiful throw’. The latter word refers specifically to physical beauty, and it is used by Xenophon later in the passage when Socrates is describing Theodote's good looks.Footnote ¹⁰ The use of καλός is significant because it suggests that Theodote is a cultivated or excellent woman instead of just a good-looking one. Similarly, the broad emphasis on Theodote's companionship suggests that she is a versatile entertainer instead of a musician, dancer, or prostitute.

These examples certainly suggest that the role of the hetaira has been misinterpreted, but the most convincing evidence for the status of the hetaira as an entertainer comes from the legal rhetoric of classical Athens. For instance, Andocides describes the profligate behavior of a man who brought hetairai ‘both slave and free’ (καὶ δούλας καὶ ἐλɛυθέρας) into his house.Footnote ¹¹ The specification that some of these hetairai were slaves implies that they were not prostitutes—because their enslavement would largely prevent them from earning money through prostitution—but instead entertainers, or women with skills in the area of entertainment, whom the man had acquired for his own benefit. Similarly, Hyperides describes a woman as the ‘most fearsome of hetairai’ (δɛινοτάτη μὲν τῶν ἑταιρῶν, Hyp. 3). This designation again suggests that the woman in question is a dangerously alluring entertainer rather than a prostitute. Likewise, Aeschines characterizes Timarchus as maintaining ‘flute-girls’ (αὐλητρίδας) and hetairai (Aeschin. In Tim. 1.42 and 1.75). The fact that the hetaira is mentioned together with the aulētris—who entertained with her musical skills—suggests that the hetaira too is a type of entertainer rather than a prostitute. A final example is from the work of Isocrates, who criticizes hetairai that lure men to ‘love’ (ἐρᾶν) and then destroy them (Isoc. 8.103). This remark is significant because while Isocrates clearly adopts a censorious view of the profession of the hetaira, he never associates the figure of the hetaira with prostitution, instead citing her command over the seductive power of erōs. This characterization of the hetaira again suggests that she is an erotic entertainer.

The role of the hetaira as an entertainer is also explicitly confirmed in Demosthenes’ speech against Neaira. In this speech, Demosthenes states:

This assertion occurs late in Demosthenes’ speech, when he is emphasizing the importance of the wife's function in society. Because of its placement and purpose, this statement represents a thoughtful and incisive analysis of women's roles in Athens. Demosthenes’ assertion, which is often quoted in discussions of the hetaira, describes three categories of women in terms of their purposes for men. Specifically, the purpose of the hetaira is ἡδονή, or hēdonē. This word hēdonē means ‘pleasure’ or ‘delight’, and encompasses many forms of enjoyment, including but not limited to sensual satisfaction. By contrast, the ‘concubine’ (παλλακή) offers daily ‘service for the body’ (θɛραπɛίας τοῦ σώματος). This idea of ‘servicing a man's bodily needs’ suggests the regular fulfillment of his sexual desires, which indicates that the hēdonē provided by the hetaira is not limited to sexual pleasure and is, in fact, much broader in scope. (If the hēdonē of the hetaira just referred to sexual pleasure, then the functions of the hetaira and the concubine would be largely overlapping and thus redundant.) Therefore, the hetaira is perceived as providing many varieties of ‘pleasure’ to her clients, indicating that she is not a prostitute (who only provides sexual gratification) but, instead, an entertainer.

One possible counterargument to my thesis is that ancient writings which postdate classical Greece sometimes equate the hetaira and the pornē. For instance, Plutarch explicitly equates the hetaira with the pornē, writing that the former is an Athenian euphemism for the latter (Plut. Sol. 15.3). Yet such comments do not accurately reflect the Athenian attitude toward the hetaira during the classical period. Specifically, the Greek understanding of the hetaira as an entertainer was affected by semantic drift, or change in the meaning of words over time, and is primarily relevant to archaic and classical Greece. The profession of the hetaira originated in archaic Greece and reached its apex in classical Greece, where the cultural icon of the elegant, cultivated entertainer was forged. During the Hellenistic period and even later, women were still referred to as hetairai, but this term meant something different from what it did in classical Greece. For instance, in differentiating Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans from previous writings on the hetaira, Kate Gilhuly states, ‘The economic, social, and political conditions Lucian knew under the Roman empire were worlds away from archaic Greece and classical Athens. The “courtesans” he represents do not have a particular association with gift exchange (and its social and political resonances) versus a monetary economy or with the symposium versus the polis.’Footnote ¹² Often during these later periods, the term hetaira was used to evoke the luster of days gone by. Therefore, I view my description of the hetaira as applying primarily to the entertainers of archaic and classical Greece, and I view later hetairai as claiming and reinterpreting the cultural legacy of these entertainers.

Ultimately, all this evidence demonstrates that the hetaira was regarded as an erotic entertainer rather than a prostitute. In light of this reevaluation, one might ask if there is a preferable one-word translation in English for the classical Greek ἑταίρα. I believe that, when referring to the hetaira as a professional, the best translation is ‘entertainer’.