LIFE OF SAPPHO

Seneca Letters to Lucilius: The grammarian Didy-
mus wrote four thousand books. I should pity him
it he had merely read so many useless works. The
list includes treatises in which he discusses the
birthplace of Homer, the true mother of Aeneas,
whether Anacreon was more of a rake than a sot,
whether Sappho was a prostitute, and other ques-
tions the answers to which vou ought to forget if
you knew them, And then people complain. that
life is short.1

Athenaeus Doeturs αἱ Dinner: Naucratis too was
the home of some famous and extremely beautiful
courtesans, Doricha, who became the mistress of
Sappho's brother Charaxus when his business took
him to Naucratis. is trounced by his sister in a poem
for having fleeced him.’ But Herodotus calls her
Rhodopis,® not understanding that Doricha is not
the same as the woman who dedicated at Delphi
the famous spits mentioned by Cratinus . . .4 The
following epigram was written on Doricha by Posei-
dippus, who speaks of her many times in the .fesopera :
‘’Tis but your bones they adorn now, Doricha, that
band for your dainty hair, that spice-breathing
mantle you wrapped the fair Charaxus in, to lic
breast to breast with you till ‘twas time for the
morning cup; yet the white speaking pages of
Sappho’s dear song abides and ever will, Happy
pyour name, which Naueratis thus will keep for her
own so long as sea-going ship sails up the shallows
of the Nile’ ® Moreover there was ἃ certain

lof. Mart. 7. 69, 10. 35, Apul. Apol. 413, Ov. A.A. 3.
331, Rem. 761 ? cf. Ov. Ep. 15. 63, 117 Fick Str. 17.

* quotation lost ar, steers its way among the
lagoons ; N. was 30 miles from the sea

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