Thaïs

Thaïs
Queen of Ptolemaic Dynasty

Greek hetaera

For other uses, see Thaïs (disambiguation).

Thaïs or Thais (

hetaira who accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns. Likely from Athens, she is most famous for instigating the burning of Persepolis. At the time, Thaïs was the lover of Ptolemy I Soter, one of Alexander's close companions and generals. It has been suggested that she may also have been Alexander's lover, on the basis of Athenaeus's statement that Alexander liked to "keep Thaïs with him", but this may simply mean he enjoyed her company, as she is said to have been very witty and entertaining. Athenaeus also says that after Alexander's death Ptolemy married Thaïs, who bore three of his children, and may also have become a Queen of Egypt.^[1]

Burning of Persepolis

Thaïs supposedly came from

Persian Wars

.

When the king [Alexander] had caught fire at their words, all leaped up from their couches and passed the word along to form a victory procession in honour of

Diodorus of Sicily

(XVII.72)

It has been argued that Thaïs was at this time Alexander's lover. T. D. Ogden suggests that Ptolemy took her over at some later point, though other writers believe she was always Ptolemy's companion.^[2]

Later life

Thaïs's subsequent career is uncertain. According to Athenaeus (who lived more than five centuries later), she married her lover Ptolemy, who became king of Egypt, after Alexander's death.^[3] Even if they were not actually married, their relationship seems to have acquired "quasi-legal status".^[4] She gave Ptolemy three children, two boys and a girl:

• Lagus, who is known from a reference to his victory in a chariot race in the Lycaea, an Arcadian festival, in 308/307.
• Alexander Leontiscus, who appears to have been in Cyprus with his sister, as he recorded there as a prisoner taken by
  Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307 or 306 after his invasion of the island. He was later sent home to Ptolemy.^[4]
• Eirene, who was given in marriage to Eunostos, king of Soloi in Cyprus.^[1][5]

Whatever the legal status of their relationship, Thaïs’ role in Egypt is unclear. Ptolemy had other wives, first Eurydice of Egypt, and later Berenice I of Egypt, who became his principal consort and mother of his heir.

The date of Thaïs's death is unknown.

Appearances in literature

Her larger-than-life persona has resulted in characters named Thaïs appearing in several literary works, the most famous of which are listed below. In the post-classical period she is commonly portrayed in literature and art as Alexander's rather than Ptolemy's lover.

Classical

In Terence's play Eunuchus, there is a female protagonist who is a courtesan named Thaïs after the historical figure. Thaïs' words from the play are quoted in Cicero's essay De Amicitia.

In Ovid's Remedia Amoris (383), Thaïs is contrasted with Andromache, Andromache being the epitome of the loyal wife, while Thaïs is taken to be the epitome of sex. Thaïs, says Ovid, is the subject of his art.

Athenaeus's book The Deipnosophists records a number of remarks attributed to Thaïs. She "said once to a boastful lover of hers, who had borrowed some goblets from a great many people, and said that he meant to break them up, and make others of them, 'You will destroy what belongs to each private person'." Another time, when asked who she was visiting she said "To dwell with Aegeus, great Pandion's son," - a witty way of describing an unknown patron as a smelly goat (Aegeus Sea, or Goat Sea, was named after Aegeus the smelly goat son born of Pandion from a bestial relationship).^[6]

Post-Classical

In the Divine Comedy, a character called Thaïs is one of just a few women whom Dante Alighieri sees on his journey through Hell (Inferno, XVIII, 133-136). She is located in the circle of the flatterers, plunged in a trench of excrement, having been consigned there, we are told by Virgil, for having uttered to her lover that she was "marvellously" fond of him. Dante's Thaïs may or may not be intended to represent the historical courtesan, but the words ascribed to her derive from Cicero's quotations from Terence.

Thaïs is mentioned as one of the famous historical beauties in François Villon's "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" (1461).

Thaïs and Alexander the Great are conjured by Faustus in Christopher Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus for the amusement of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Thaïs appears as Alexander's mistress in

Thaïs is a supporting character in two novels by Mary Renault about Alexander the Great: Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy, as well as in Renault's biography of Alexander, "The Nature of Alexander." She is also a supporting character in Stealing Fire, a novel by Jo Graham about the immediate aftermath of Alexander's death.

Thaïs is the heroine of a 1972 novel by the Russian author

Other literary figures named Thaïs are references to Thaïs of Alexandria, a Christian saint of a later period, about whom a French novel and an opera were written.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thaïs.