This note is not concerned with the reliability of this information, but with the lexical singularity παλλ⋯ς, which has won widespread acceptance as an ancient sacral term, though our lexica display an uncommon, and indeed misleading, prudishness as to its meaning: ‘maiden-priestess’ (LSJ s.v. Παλλ⋯ς ii); ‘bei den Griechen in ägypt. Theben noch als sakraler Ausdruck = παρθ⋯νος' (Frisk, GEW s.v. παλλακ⋯); ‘A Thèbes d'Égypte pour désigner une prêtresse = παρθ⋯νος' (Chantraine, Dictionnaire s.v. παλλακ⋯).

Pubescent temple-prostitutes had no place in Hellenic religious life, and it might be thought surprising that there was a Greek word for them; yet Strabo offers the term without explanation or speculation as to derivation or dialectal provenance, apparently confident that it is indeed Greek and not a foreign loan-word. The Greeks who frequented Upper Egypt were not a group of largely homogeneous origin, who might have preserved in quasi-colonial isolation an archaism obsolete elsewhere in the Hellenic world. No such usage is mentioned in ancient discussions of the derivation of Pallas, wide though the etymological net is cast in the attempt to explain Athene's title: see, e.g., sch. Il. 1.199–200 (with Erbse's note), sch. Od. 1.252, P. Oxy. 2260 (early second century a.d.).