ABSTRACT
According to the BBC, in May 2008, campaigners from the island of Lesbos mounted an attempt to stop gay rights organizations from employing the name Lesbian, claiming that the use of the word to denote sexual orientation violated their human rights. As early as Homer, when Lesbos is mentioned in the catalog of gifts that Agamemnon wants to give Achilles to persuade him back into the fray of battle, the way in which the island and its inhabitants are evoked is significant. Pherecrates' fragment brings together the thematics of courtesan, music, and geography. Pherecrates implies, as does the depiction in Frogs of Euripides' muse, that the intersection of Athenian and East Greek music are responsible for the degradation of music. The association of the courtesan with lesbiazein is an important strand in the discursive web in which people see shifting combinations of Lesbos, Sappho, the courtesan, and muse.
