Phaon
Φάντων
(Φάντων), the celebrated favourite of the poetess Sappho. He was a boatman at Mytilene, and already at an advanced age and of ugly appearance; but on one occasion he very willingly, and without accepting payment, carried Aphrodite across the sea, for which the goddess gave him youth and beauty. After this Sappho is said to have fallen in love with him. (Aelian, Ael. VH 12.18; Palaeph. 49; Lucian, Dial. Mort. 9; comp. SAPPHO.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.