Besides displaying physical beauty, they differed from most Athenian women in being educated ( often to a high standard, as in Aspasia's case ), having independence, and Thargelia, another renowned Ionian hetaera of ancient times.
22.
Modern scholars also speculate that she may have been either a foreigner, since women of Athens would not likely have been present, or a Greek " hetaera ", an educated woman who provided companionship and intellectual stimulation to public figures.
23.
Almost five centuries before Strabo, Herodotus ( died c . 424 BC ) told the story of the hetaera Amasis ( 570 536 BC ), and freed there for a large sum by Charaxus of Mytilene, brother of Sappho, the lyric poet.
24.
Despite this, the speech tells us much about the life of an accomplished hetaera, Indeed, it is our most reliable extant source on prostitution in the classical world, and one of our best sources on women's lives and gender relations in general for the period.
25.
According to the disputed statements of the ancient writers and some modern scholars, in Athens Aspasia became a hetaera and probably ran a brothel . { { efn | Henry regards as a slander the reports of ancient writers and comic poets that Aspasia was a brothel keeper and a harlot.
