"We are told, unreliably, that a cult to Aphrodite Kallipygos grew up at Syracuse after two peasant sisters began bickering as to which of them possessed the fairer behind, and eventually asked a passer-by to adjudicate (the passer-by not only fell violently in love with one of the girls, but despatched his younger brother along to inspect the other: double nuptials ensued); and we are told that hetairai might stage, among themselves, bottom competitions (philoneikia hyper tes pyges), though admittedly, the source for this is a late writer called Alciphron, who composed imaginary letters. The bottom competition is described, perhaps with an input of male fantasy, in the fourteenth of his Epistolai Hetairikai, or 'Letters of Courtesans'. What is significant about the account is not so much what determines a lovely bottom (there is talk of buttocks 'quivering like jelly', and marvelous rippling motions, and so on), but that Aphrodite is invoked as patroness, and this is explicitly Aphrodite's world..."
(This piece comes from an article on Greek art whose title and author I have unfortunately not been able to find. The passage is so absurd, though, that I figured it was worth sharing anyways.)
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