Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/249

 Among the ancients female flute-players were numerous. One of Alexander's generals wrote that he had captured 329 ladies of the Persian monarch's harem, who were skilled in flute-playing; the biographies of no fewer than 535 fair fautistes are said to have been destroyed in the burning of the Alexandrian Library at Athens. The most celebrated of the ancient flautistes was a very beautiful Egyptian named Lamia, who lived at Athens. She was taken prisoner on the occasion of a battle between Ptolemy Soter (whose mistress she was) and Demetrius Poliorcetes, c. 312 ; whereupon Demetrius conceived so violent a passion for her that, at her instigation, he conferred extraordinary benefits on the Athenians, who in consequence dedicated a temple to her as "Venus Lamia." Her portrait is preserved on an amethyst in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. A sister of the Empress Theodora frequently performed in public. Athenæus mentions one Harmonia as a great female flautiste, and Diodorus Siculus says that Minerva with her flute was present at her wedding in Samothrace. Plutarch mentions Nanno, a beautiful girl flautiste of the sixth century, in whose honour Mimnermus, himself a flautist, composed an elegaic poem.

For many centuries we find no particulars of any female performers on the flute, but doubtless there were many such. The flute-player in the engraving in Spenser's Shepherd's Calender, 1579, is a lady (see p. 33, ante). There is a picture by Philip Mercier