ierodoules

Ierodoules is the old Greek word, and people still type it. It comes from the temple courtesans of the ancient world and it carries none of the coarseness of the modern alternatives, which is probably why it survives.

Where the word comes from

The ierodoules were attached to temples, most famously the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Corinth. Strabo claims a thousand of them there, which is almost certainly an exaggeration passed between historians until it hardened into fact. The reality was smaller and more ordinary, and it sat inside religious practice rather than outside it.

What the word carried then and still carries now is status. An ierodoule was not a woman working a street. She was educated, she was expected to hold a conversation, and she was paid accordingly.

Why people still search for it

Mostly because the alternatives in Greek are blunt. Someone looking for an evening with a woman who can talk through dinner reaches for a word that suggests exactly that, and the ancient one does the job better than anything coined since.

It is a polite search, in other words, and the expectation behind it is usually a longer booking rather than a short one.

What the modern equivalent looks like

Our roster in Athens covers the range, but the bookings people have in mind when they use this word tend to share a shape. Two hours or more. Often dinner first. Conversation that is not filler.

Languages matter more than usual for these. Most of the roster speaks English, several speak Russian, and a smaller number speak Greek as a first language. That is worth filtering on before you book.

How the booking runs

Outcall to your hotel or apartment across Athens, or to a private studio if you prefer. Tell us the district, the time and how long. For dinner bookings, tell us where, because a table in Kolonaki and a table in Glyfada are forty minutes apart and the difference changes the arrival time.

Longer bookings suit this. An hour is enough for a lot of things but it is not enough for a meal.

Rates and discretion

Rates run by duration and are on each companion’s profile, with no separate charge for the conversation. Nothing is added at the door.

We keep no record beyond what the booking requires. Hotel staff are not told anything, and she arrives alone.

Elsewhere on the site

For the current Athens roster see escorts in Athens. If you are planning an evening around a meal, the dinner date guide covers the practical side, from choosing the restaurant to who handles the reservation.

The word in modern Greek

It has drifted. In everyday speech ierodoules now sounds literary or slightly ironic, the sort of word a newspaper uses when it wants distance from its subject. Nobody says it out loud in a bar.

Typed into a search box it means something more specific: someone who wants the older register, and usually the older shape of the evening with it.

What a longer booking involves

Three hours is the honest minimum for anything that includes a meal. An hour of that disappears into the restaurant before you have ordered.

Athens helps here. Dinner runs late by northern European standards, a nine o’clock table is early rather than late, and nobody in Kolonaki or Psyrri will look twice at a couple arriving at ten. That gives a booking room to breathe in a way it would not in most cities.

Practical notes

Book the restaurant yourself, or tell us and we will. Either works. What does not work is deciding at nine on a Friday, because the places worth going to are full.

Dress matters more than usual for these bookings. Not black tie, but not a t-shirt either. She will have made an effort and the evening reads better if it is mutual.

Pay at the start or at the end, whichever you prefer, but pay in cash and do not make it a moment. It takes ten seconds and then it is done.