BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Ladies and gentlemen, today I am standing up for Friney.

Now, Friney is not the most famous person we're going to do in this series, but it is always the way.

I insist on including women, and that means finding people that we don't know anything about

at all, because I find it a challenge. So, Frine was a hitaira. We will translate that tactfully

for Radio 4 as cortisanne.

And she lived in the fourth century.

She was born around 370 BCE in Thespi in Beosha, so sort of central Greece.

And her real name was not Frini, it is a nickname.

Her real name was Mnarsareratair, which means mindful of virtue or remembering virtue,

perhaps not the ideal name for a high-class call girl, let's say. But she swiftly takes up the

name Friney, the nickname Friney, and she is so celebrated, so renowned as an excellent Huitier, that it becomes a kind of go-to nickname for other courtesans and prostitutes and good time girls in general.

So much so that more than 300 years later, Horace will have a girlfriend who he calls Friney in his poetry.

That's how far it goes.

And that's fair enough, right? Because Friney is a poetry. That's how far it goes. And that's fair

enough, right? Because Friney is a pretty name. It's a pretty name. P.H. Obviously not an F. Because

they don't have one in Greek. It's a pretty name. And you hardly ever hear it today. There's

Friney Fisher in the Miss Fisher Mysteries, for those of you who also like niche Australian

historical murder mistress with lovely hats.

I'm pretty sure it's not just me.

And so, you know, you do occasionally hear it,

but you don't hear it very often,

...