Glycera was a popular name often used for Hellenistic hetaera

Hetaera

In ancient Greece, hetaerae were courtesans, that is to say, highly educated, sophisticated companions...

e, held by:

1. The daughter of Thalassis and the mistress of Harpalus
   Harpalus
   For other uses, see Harpalus Harpalus son of Machatas was an aristocrat of Macedon and boyhood friend of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. Being lame in a leg, and therefore exempt from military service, Harpalus did not follow Alexander in his advance within the Persian Empire but...
   
    and Menander
   Menander
   Menander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...
   
   . (Athen. xiii. pp. 586, 595, 605, &c.)
2. The mistress of Pausias
   Pausias
   Pausias was an ancient Greek painter of the first half of the 4th century, of the school of Sicyon.-Biography:Pausias introduced the custom of painting ceilings of houses. His great merit appears to have lain in the better rendering of foreshortening...
   
   , born in Sicyon
   Sicyon
   Sikyon was an ancient Greek city situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day prefecture of Corinthia...
   
   .
3. A favourite of Horace
   ?
   or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and minuscule forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet and some alphabets based on the African reference...
   
   (?
   ?
   or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and minuscule forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet and some alphabets based on the African reference...
   
   ). (Hor. Carm. i. 19. 30. iii. 19.29.)
4. Nominally, Alcibiades
   Alcibiades
   Alcibiades, son of Clinias, from the deme of Scambonidae , was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War...
   
   's sexual partner
   Sexual partner
   Sexual partners are people who engage in sexual activity together. The sexual partners can be of any gender or sexual orientation. The sexual partners may be in a committed relationship, either on an exclusive basis or not, or engage in the sexual activity on a casual basis...
   
    in Caracci's engravings for I Modi
   I Modi
   I Modi , also known as The Sixteen Pleasures or under the Latin title De omnibus Veneris Schematibus, is a famous erotic book of the Italian Renaissance in which a series of sexual positions were explicitly depicted in engravings. While the original edition was apparently completely destroyed by...
   
   .

Harpalus's mistress

Originating from Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 in the second half of the 4th century BC. After the death of his previous mistress Pythionice (between 329 BC

329 BC

Year 329 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Privernas and Decianus...

 and 324 BC

324 BC

Year 324 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Dictatorship of Cursor...

), Harpalus obtained Glycera using funds derived from his office. In return for her Harpalus sent grain to Athens and guaranteed their citizenship rights.

She accompanied Harpalus in his escape from India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 with Alexander, and later returned to Athens, where she allegedly became the love of the poet Menander.

Sources

"There were other courtesans also who thought very highly of themselves, going in for culture and apportioning their time to learned studies; hence they also were quick in making answers. For example, Stilpo was once accusing Glycera, while they were drinking together, of corrupting the young men, as Satyrus tell in his Lives, when Glycera interrupted: "We both fall under the same charge, Stilpo. For they say that you corrupt all who meet you by teaching them good-for-nothing, eristic sophistries, while I in like manner teach them erotic. It makes no difference, therefore, to people who are ruined and injured, whether they live in the company of a philosopher or of a courtesan." In fact, as Agathon says: "Truly a woman, just because she is inactive in body, need not for that reason carry an inactive mind within her." ........

The poet Menander having met with bad luck entered the house of Glycera, who brought him some boiled milk and urged him to drink it down. But he said, "I don't want it." For there was scum on the top of it. She said, "Blow it off and use what's underneath." .........

Leontion was reclining at dinner with a lover when Glycera came into the symposium later; and when the lover paid more devoted attention to her, Leontion looked downcast. Her friend, turning toward her, asked what pained her. She replied, "The last comer gives me a pain!" ....

Hypereides, again, in the Speech against Mantitheus, in an action for assault, has this to say about Glycera: "Taking with him Glycera, daughter of Thalassis, in a chariot and pair." It is uncertain whether she is the Glycera who lived with Harpalus; of her Theopompus says, in his treatise On the Chian Letter, that after the death of Pythionice Harpalus summoned Glycera from Athens; on her arrival she took up her residence in the palace at Tarsus and had obeisance done to her by the populace, being hailed as queen; further, all persons were forbidden to honour Harpalus with a crown unless they also gave a crown to Glycera. In Rhossus they even went so far as to set up an image of her in bronze beside his own. The like is recorded also by Cleitarchus in his Histories of Alexander. The author of Agen, the little satyric drama, whether it be Python of Catana

Python of Catana

Python of Catana was a dramatic poet of the time of Alexander, whom he accompanied into Asia, and whose army he entertained with a satyric drama, called Agen when they were celebrating the Dionysia on the banks of the Hydaspes. The drama was in ridicule of Harpalus and the Athenians; fragments of...

 or King Alexander himself, say: "A. And yet I hear that Harpalus has sent over to them thousands of bushels of grain, as many as Agen sent, and so was made a citizen. B. This grain was Glycera's, but it will doubtless turn out to be their death-warrant, and not merely a whore's earnest money." ........

That the poet Menander

Menander

Menander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...

, also, was in love with Glycera is a matter of common knowledge. But he became angry at her; for when Philemon fell in love with a courtesan and called her in his play "good," Menander

Menander

Menander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...

 in answer wrote that no woman is good."

Fictional

One of the images of sexual positions in Agostino Carracci

Agostino Carracci

Agostino Carracci was an Italian painter and printmaker. He was the brother of the more famous Annibale and cousin of Lodovico Carracci....

's engravings for I Modi

I Modi

I Modi , also known as The Sixteen Pleasures or under the Latin title De omnibus Veneris Schematibus, is a famous erotic book of the Italian Renaissance in which a series of sexual positions were explicitly depicted in engravings. While the original edition was apparently completely destroyed by...

is entitled 'Alcibiades and Glycera'. This is not meant to be a portrait of any of the historical Glyceras, for the identification is only nominal, acting as a thin classical veneer for the image's erotic or pornographic intent. These engraving's titles usually use a historically verified pair of lovers (e.g. Dido and Aeneas

Aeneas

Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

), but that is not the case here - Glycera is 4th century BC whilst Alcibiades is 5th century BC - making the veneer here even thinner than usual.

Sources

• Post, L.A.; "Woman's Place in Menander's Athens", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 71, 1940, pp. 420–459
• Ancient Library