Zoe Kelly - 25116872

HST2090M: Queering the Past

Assessment 1 – Source Analysis of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans 5

Lucian was born circa 125AD in Samosata, on the Euphrates River, and lived until after the

end of Marcus Aurelius’ emperorship in 180AD.1 He was educated in rhetoric and travelled

widely through the Greco-Roman world teaching and performing his works, many of which

can be categorized as satire or comedy.2 They are highly sarcastic and ironic, mocking

Roman society and philosophical schools, alongside other rhetoricians.3 Lucian’s Dialogues

of the Courtesans is a composition of 15 short conversations between hetairai (female

‘entertainers’) and their various acquaintances, including mothers, other courtesans and

clients. Written during the time in which Lucian lived in Athens, Dialogues combines the

poetic genres of New Comedy and mimos (‘mime’) and explores themes like the power of

lust, and the immorality of ‘deviant’ sexuality.4

Dialogue of the Courtesans 5 is one of the most extensive texts we have on female

relationships after Sappho’s fragments.5 The text gives an insight into attitudes towards

female homosexuality and the associated gender roles. In it, Leaena and another courtesan,

Clonarion, are discussing the evening Leaena spent with a rich foreign couple, Demonassa

and Megillus/a*. Leaena shares how she was hired by Megillus/a for a party and taken to

entertain the couple privately afterwards.

1
Lucian, Keith Sidwell (trans.), Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches, (London, 2004), pg. I.
2
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. X-XIV.
3
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. II.
4
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. 155-6.
5
Errietta Bissa, ‘Man, Woman or Myth? Gender Bending in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans’, Materiali
e Discussioni per l’Analisi dei Testi Classici, 70.1, (2013) 79-100, pg. 79.

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At the end of Dialogues 5, Clonarion is especially interested in how sex between Leaena and

Megillus/a worked, asking ‘What did she do? How?’.6 In Roman culture, sexual intercourse

was defined by the participation of a ‘penetrator’ and a ‘penetrated’, and therefore sex

between women was confusing, as there is no clear definition of these roles.7 Male

homosexuality was much more visible in society - pederasty was a normal experience of

many Roman men. Considering the performance context of Dialogues, Lucian makes one

participant in this relationship an ‘awfully manly woman’, masculinizing female

homosexuality to relate it to relationship dynamics that were more culturally known.89

Megillus/a is indirectly characterized as stereotypically sexually devious due to the

connotations of ‘Lesbian’ in Greek literature (referencing Sappho and the island of Lesbos).10

Additionally, Megillus/a uses a masculine name for themselves but is referred to with the

female form by others. Lucian explores the transition between masculine and feminine roles

by exploring both physical and mental attributes – as ‘Megilla’, this character is female

passing and treated by everyone as a woman, but when they remove their wig to reveal a

shaved head like a ‘really masculine athlete’, they become ‘Megillus’, who acts in every way

like a man. They kiss ‘like men’ and have the same ‘desires’ as men do.1112

Dialogues 5 ends on a note of shame from Leaena – when pressed to share how the

6
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. 166.
7
Luoyao Zhang, ‘26 Case Study: Transgender Men in Lucian’s The Dialogue of the Courtesans’, in Siobhán
McElduff (ed.) Unroman Romans [online source]
https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/unromantest/chapter/567/ accessed 19th November 2021.
8
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. 164.
9
Eve Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World, (New Haven, 1992), pg. 92, referenced in: Bissa, ‘Man,
Woman or Myth?’, pg. 81.
10
 K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality, (New York, 1980), pg. 171, referenced in: Bissa, ‘Man, Woman or
Myth?’, pg. 82. 
11
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. 165.
12
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. 165-6.

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relationship worked physically, she becomes embarrassed and ‘won’t talk’ about the

‘shocking’ details.13 In his other works, Lucian generally does not detail sexual acts

themselves, even with heterosexual sex. However, he does not call these acts shameful or

shocking, like he does with the female homosexuality shown in this text.14 This can be

interpreted as Lucian implying that relationships between women were worthy of shame and

condemnation, a view held even by the women involved.15

Bibliography:

Bissa, Errietta. ‘Man, Woman or Myth? Gender Bending in Lucian’s Dialogues of the

Courtesans’, Materiali e Discussioni per l’Analisi dei Testi Classici, 70.1,

(2013) 79-100.

Lucian. Sidwell, Keith, (trans.). Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches,

(London, 2004).

Roisman, Hannah M. ‘Lucian’s Courtesans: Vulnerable Women in a Difficult

Occupation’, in Hallett, J. P., Foster, E., Clark, C. A., Lateiner, D. (eds.).  Kinesis:

The Ancient Depiction of Gesture, Motion and Emotion: Essays for Donald  Lateiner,

(Ann Arbor, 2015), 188-206. 

Zhang, Luoyao. ‘26 Case Study: Transgender Men in Lucian’s The Dialogue of the

Courtesans’, in McElduff, Siobhán (ed.). Unroman Romans [online source]

https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/unromantest/chapter/567/ accessed 19th November

2021.

13
Lucian, Sidwell, Chattering Courtesans, pg. 166.
14
Hannah M. Roisman, ‘Lucian’s Courtesans: Vulnerable Women in a Difficult Occupation’, in J. P. Hallett, E.
Foster, C. A. Clark, D. Lateiner (eds.), Kinesis: The Ancient Depiction of Gesture, Motion and Emotion: Essays
for Donald Lateiner, (Ann Arbor, 2015), 188-206, pg. 200. 
15
Bissa, ‘Man, Woman or Myth?’, pg. 80.