Types of Women women to different animals in the poem is not an invention of Semonides, but seems to have been based on a pre-existing folk tale. Aesop's fables were attributed in ancient Greece to the sixth-century BCE slave of that name, but many of them are likely to be much older than that; one of these fables, that of Zeus and Prometheus, has a similar premise to Semonides' poem, and may have been known to him. Later poets tell similar stories, probably also inspired by these folktales. An elegiac fragment by Phocylides describes women as having originated from one of four different
Prostitution in ancient Greece significant proportion of prostitutes were reduced to plying their trade in the mud. Certain authors have prostitutes talking about themselves: Lucian in his "Dialogue of courtesans" or Alciphron in his collection of letters; but these are works of fiction. The prostitutes of concern here are either independent or hetaera: the sources here do not concern themselves with the situation of slave-prostitutes, except to consider them as a source of profit. It is quite clear what ancient Greek men thought of prostitutes: primarily, they are reproached for the commercial nature of the activity. The acquisitiveness of prostitutes is a running theme