ABSTRACT
Lucian completed his Dialogues of the Courtesans in 160 ce. The work belongs to the Second Sophistic, a movement that helped legitimize certain genres previously regarded as mere exercises for orators in the making. The structure of dialogue 5 is very different from that of Lucian’s other dialogues: the conversation between Leaina and Megilla is framed within the dialogue between Leaina and Klonarion, and Leaina punctuates it with comments that echo her thoughts, either at the time of the events or at the time of her exchange with Klonarion. In satirical and humorous texts, especially those written by Lucian, geographic origin often functions as a “marker.” However, in the present text, the island of Lesbos is not used, as it usually is, to allude to the inhabitants’ reputation for lustfulness and debauchery, for Klonarion explains her words by speaking of the kind of women who “associate with women as men do” and by using the term hetairistria.
