Neaira (; ), also Neaera (), was a hetaera who lived in the 4th century BC in ancient Greece. She was brought to trial between 343 and 340 BC, accused of marrying an Athenian citizen illegally and misrepresenting her daughter as an Athenian citizen. The speech made against Neaira in this trial by Apollodorus is preserved as Demosthenes' fifty-ninth speech, though the speech is often attributed to Pseudo-Demosthenes, who seems to have worked on many of the speeches given by Apollodorus. The speech provides more details than any other about prostitutes of antiquity, and consequently a great deal of information about sex trade in the ancient Greek city-states (polis). Speech Against Neaira The speech Against Neaira is the source of most of the details of Neaira's biography. It concerns a case brought against Neaira when she was about fifty by Apollodorus' son-in-law Theomnestus, though apart from a brief introduction of the case given by Theomnestus, Apollodorus delivered the entirety of the speech. The case revolves around the accusation that Neaira, a foreigner, married an Athenian citizen, and that she was attempting to pass off her own children as Athenian citizens. While the speech revolves around the life of Neaira, this is of little importance to the substance of the accusations. The details seem to be part of the speech in the hope that the salacious accusations will hide the weakness of Apollodorus' case. The accuracy of the evidence given in the speech has been questioned, and is known to contain both lies and inaccuracies. Despite this, the speech tells us much about the life of an accomplished hetaera, and is extremely valuable to historians as a source on women's lives in classical Greece. Indeed, it is our most reliable extant source on prostitution in the classical world, and one of our best sources on women's lives and gender relations in general for the period. Biography Life with Nikarete Neaira was probably born in the first decade of the fourth century BC. Her place of birth is unknown, and the earliest event in her life that we know of is her purchase when she was a young girl by Nikarete. Nikarete trained the girls she purchased to be hetaerae, calling them her daughters in order to increase the price her customers would pay, and lived with them in Corinth. Neaira's work as a prostitute started before she reached puberty. She is