Metaneira was an active hetaera

Hetaera

In ancient Greece, hetaerae were courtesans, that is to say, highly educated, sophisticated companions...

 in the Corinth

Corinth

Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...

 and Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 of ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

. She was known for her beauty and shrewdness. As a child, she was purchased by Nikarete of Corinth. She was raised as a daughter, and molded into a hetaera. One of her "sisters" was Neaira

Neaira (hetaera)

Neaira, or Neaera, was a hetaera who lived in the 4th century BC in ancient Greece; there is no reliable data about the exact dates of her birth and death...

. Isokrates and Lysias

Lysias

Lysias was a logographer in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BC.-Life:According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the author of the life ascribed to...

 belonged to their clientele. Lysias was the one who allowed her to be initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusia. Love letters from him to Metaneira are probably not authentic.