Nikarete of Corinth

Who is Nikarete of Corinth?

Nikarete was a madam from Corinth, who lived in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Nikarete operated a "bettering" establishment in Corinth, a city famous in antiquity for its prostitution trade. From Corinth and Greek literature comes the verb korinthiazein, which loosely translated means "to fornicate". She bought young girls from the Corinth slave market and trained them as hetaera, to let them make their own living. Through this parental relationship Nikarete sought to increase the price her customers had to pay. Nikarete's most famous hetaera was Neaira, whom she bought along with six other girls and treated them as her own. There is a possibility that Nikarete was not a single individual or even a real person. The name Nikarete has either been attributed to artistic interpretation or to an error in referring to different individuals.