Rhodopis (hetaera)
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Rhodopis or Rodopis (Greek: Ῥοδῶπις), real name possibly Doricha (Δωρίχα), was a celebrated 6th-century BCE hetaera, of Thracian origin.[1] She is one of only two hetaerae mentioned by name in Herodotus' discussion of the profession (the other is the somewhat later Archidike).[2]
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According to Herodotus, she was a fellow-slave of the fable teller Aesop, with whom in one version of her story she had a secret love affair; both of them belonged to Iadmon of Samos. She afterwards became the property of Xanthes, another Samian, who took her to Naucratis in Egypt, during the reign of Amasis II, where she met Charaxus, brother of the poet Sappho, who had gone to Naucratis as a merchant. Charaxus fell in love with her, and ransomed her from slavery with a large sum of money, so that henceforth all the money she made from her profession would be her own.[3] Sappho later wrote a poem accusing Rhodopis of robbing Charaxus of his property.[4]: 189 She also ridiculed her brother in one of her poems for getting himself entangled with Rhodopis.[5]
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