Leaena

Leaina Before the Judges, by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1517–18

Leaina (Greek: Λέαινα, "lioness") was a hetaera and the mistress of Aristogeiton the Tyrannicide.[1]

When Anaxandridas II was king of Sparta in the 6th century BC, Harmodius and Aristogeiton were inspired to overthrow the tyranny of Hippias and Hipparchus at Athens.

Hipparchus was murdered, but Hippias escaped, and seized the surviving conspirators. Among those captured was the hetaera Leaina, lover of Aristogeiton, or Harmodius, or both. Leaina was tortured to get information about the conspiracy.[2]

According to Pausanias, the Athenians later set up a statue of a bronze lioness on the Acropolis in her memory: "When Hipparchus died, Hippias tortured Leaena to death, because he knew she was the mistress of Aristogeiton, and therefore could not possibly, he held, be in ignorance of the plot. As a recompense, when the tyranny of the Peisistratidae was at an end, the Athenians put up a bronze lioness in memory of the woman, which they say Callias dedicated and Calamis made."[3]

Leaina was commemorated on account of her stubborn resolve under the torture of the tyrant. Athenaeus (who believed Leaina's lover was Harmodius) says: "There was also a courtesan named Leaena, whose name is very celebrated, and she was the mistress of Harmodius, who slew the tyrant. And she, being tortured by command of Hippias the tyrant, died under the torture without having said a word." [4]

According to Jerome, Leaina rose to the occasion even further; to preserve her silence, and to frustrate her torturers, she bit her tongue off, and so died: "Harmodius and Aristogiton killed the tyrant Hipparchus, and the courtesan Leaena their friend, when compelled with torments, lest she betray her companions, she amputated her tongue with her teeth." [5]

Therefore, the brass lioness statue at the entrance to the Acropolis was without a tongue: "And Leaena also has a splendid reward for her self-control. She was a courtesan belonging to the group led by Harmodius and Aristogeiton and shared in the conspiracy against the tyrants — with her hopes, all a woman could do; for she also had joined in the revels about that noble mixing-bowl of Eros and through the god had been initiated into the secrets which might not be revealed. When, therefore, the conspirators failed and were put to death, she was questioned and commanded to reveal those who still escaped detection; but she would not do so and continued steadfast, proving that those men had experienced a passion not unworthy of themselves in loving a woman like her. And the Athenians caused a bronze lioness without a tongue to be made and set up in the gates of the Acropolis, representing by the spirited courage of the animal Leaena's invincible character, and by its tonguelessness her power of silence in keeping a holy secret. "[6]

The statue was made by not by Calamis but by the Athenian sculptor Amphicrates, according to Pliny.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Polyaenus, Stratagems, 8.45
  2. ↑ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Volume I, Book II, Chapter III, Section III
  3. ↑ Pausanias 1.23.1–2.
  4. ↑ Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 13.596.f
  5. ↑ Beginning of the Consuls of the Romans
  6. ↑ Plutarch, On Talkativeness, Moralia 505.E
  7. ↑ Entry Amphicrates at the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

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