Lamia (mistress of Demetrios)

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Lamia ( Greek Λάμια Lámia ; * around 340 BC; † after 303 BC), also Lamia of Athens , was a famous Athenian hetaera , aulosplayer and lover of the Hellenistic ruler and Diadochus Demetrios I Poliorketes .

Life

Lamia was the daughter of an unknown Athenian named Kleanor. She first practiced the profession of an aulos player and achieved great fame through the talent she showed. Aulosplayers were also generally active as prostitutes, flute girls being a synonym for this. Not surprisingly, she also pursued the profession of a hetaerae. She is said to have been a lover of the Greek politician and philosopher Demetrios of Phaleron . A stay in Egypt is attested to her, because she was on board the fleet of King Ptolemy I and after his defeat in the sea ​​battle near the Cypriot city of Salamis fell into the hands of the victorious young monarch Demetrios Poliorketes (306 BC. ). Despite her not so young age and appearance, she was able to win the love of the diadochi through her sparkling spirit and maintain it for several years. Some funny sayings of the Lamia that have been handed down show their spirited personality.

Lamia accompanied Demetrios to Athens and was treated like a princess by the inhabitants of the city because of her position of power, which she owed to her great influence on the ruler. This appreciation went so far that the Athenians built her own temple, where she was worshiped as the goddess Aphrodite , and later the Thebans imitated this example. Demetrios is said to have financed his lover's lavish opulence once with 200 talents that he had collected from the Athenians or the Thessalians. She also hosted luxurious banquets that soon became popular. She also accompanied Demetrios to Sikyon when he was in 303 BC. Moved the city on a hill and renamed Demetrias. With part of the wealth given to her by Demetrios, Lamia financed the construction of a magnificent Stoa Poikile (columned hall) to beautify the newly built settlement. When she died is unknown.

A letter from the sophist Alkiphron , who lived in the 2nd century AD and allegedly from Lamia, which she is said to have written to Demetrius, may be false, but was written by people who witnessed the events of that time in Athens themselves had; therefore it is probably an important historical document for the personality of the hetaera and her royal lover.

Phila, a daughter of Lamia and Demetrios Poliorketes, is likely to be identical to that Phila, who allegedly built a temple in Lampsakos by a follower of Demetrios named Adeimantos , in which she received divine honors as Aphrodite. Plutarch does not mention them in his listing of Demetrios' children.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to Plutarch ( Demetrios 16, 6 and 26, 8) Lamia was a little older than Demetrios I Poliorketes, who lived around 336 BC. Was born in BC.
  2. ↑ Athenaios 13,577c.
  3. ↑ Athenaios 3,101e; 4,128b; 13,577e (after the Greek comedy poet Machon ); Plutarch, Demetrios 16, 5.
  4. ^ Favorinus in Diogenes Laertios 5, 76; perhaps a mix-up with Demetrios Poliorketes.
  5. ↑ Plutarch, Demetrios 16, 5f.
  6. ↑ Plutarch, Demetrios 19 and 27.
  7. ↑ Machon at Athenaios 13,577d – f; Plutarch, Demetrios 27; Aelian , varia historia 13.8f.
  8. ↑ Plutarch, Demetrios 24.
  9. ↑ Demochares , fragment 3 in C. Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (FHG) 2,419; Polemon, fragment 15 at FHG 3,120.
  10. ↑ Plutarch, Demetrios 27.
  11. ↑ Athenaios 3,101e; 4,128b; 13,577e; Plutarch, Demetrios 27.
  12. ↑ Polemon, fragment 14 in Athenaios 13,577c; see. Diodorus 20,102; Plutarch, Demetrios 25, 3; Strabon 8, p. 382.
  13. ↑ Alciphron 4, 16
  14. ^ So Geyer, in: RE, Vol. XII, 1, Col. 546f.
  15. ↑ Athenaios 13,577c.
  16. ↑ Athenaios 6,255c; on this Geyer, Sp. 547.
  17. ↑ Plutarch, Demetrios 53, 8.
personal data
SURNAME Lamia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hetaires and lovers of Demetrios Poliorketes
DATE OF BIRTH around 340 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 303 BC Chr.