Likely from Athens, she is most famous for having instigated the burning of Persepolis, the capital city of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, after it was conquered by Alexander's army in 330 BCE.

She came to the attention of history when, in 330 BC, Alexander burned down the palace of Persepolis, the principal residence of the defeated Achaemenid dynasty, after a drinking party.

Cleitarchus claims that the destruction was a whim; Plutarch and Diodorus assert that it was intended as retribution for Xerxes' burning of the old Temple of Athena on the Acropolis in Athens (the site of the extant Parthenon) in 480 BC during the second Persian invasion of Greece.

Female musicians were present at the banquet, so the king led them all out for the comus to the sound of voices and flutes and pipes, Thaïs the courtesan leading the whole performance.

It was remarkable that the impious act of Xerxes, king of the Persians, against the acropolis at Athens should have been repaid in kind after many years by one woman, a citizen of the land which had suffered it, and in sport.It has been argued that Thaïs was at this time Alexander's lover.

She "said once to a boastful lover of hers, who had borrowed some goblets from a great many people, and said that he meant to break them up, and make others of them, 'You will destroy what belongs to each private person'."

[6] In the Divine Comedy, a character called Thaïs is one of just a few women whom Dante Alighieri sees on his journey through Hell (Inferno, XVIII, 133–136).

She is located in the circle of the flatterers, plunged in a trench of excrement, having been consigned there, we are told by Virgil, for having uttered to her lover that she was "marvellously" fond of him.

Thaïs is mentioned as one of the famous historical beauties in François Villon's "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" (1461).