PHRYXE BEFORE THE JUDGES 

 Photogravure of the Painting by Jean L6on Gerdme 



Phryne lived in the middle of the fourth century B.C. She was a celebrated 

 Athenian courtesan, and is supposed to have been the model of the picture 

 " Aphrodite Anadyomene," by Apelles, and of the " Cnidian Aphrodite " by 

 Praxiteles. According to the legend her enemies accused her of profaning 

 the Eleusinian Mysteries. Summoned before the tribunal of the Heliasts, 

 she was defended by the rhetorician, Hyperides, one of her lovers, who 

 perceiving that his eloquence failed to convince the judges, threw back her 

 veil, and thus, by a display of her exquisite beauty, not only secured her 

 acquittal, but had her carried in triumph to the temple of Venus. 



