Aspasia
Aspasia (/æˈspeɪʒ(i)ə, -ziə, -ʃə/;[2] Greek: Ἀσπασία Greek: [aspasíaː]; c. 470 – after 428 BC[a]) was a metic woman in Classical Athens. Born in Miletus, she moved to Athens and began a relationship with the statesman Pericles, with whom she had a son, Pericles the Younger. According to the traditional historical narrative, she worked as a courtesan and was tried for asebeia (impiety), though modern scholars have questioned the factual basis for either of these claims, which both derive from ancient comedy. Though Aspasia is one of the best-attested women from the Greco-Roman world, and the most important woman in the history of fifth-century Athens, almost nothing is certain about her life.
Aspasia was portrayed in Old Comedy as a prostitute and madam, and in ancient philosophy as a teacher and rhetorician. She has continued to be a subject of both visual and literary artists until the present. From the twentieth century, she has been portrayed as both a sexualised and sexually liberated woman, and as a feminist role model fighting for women's rights in ancient Athens.
Sources
We must make do with the sources that mention her, even when they fundamentally distort reality.
— Nicole Loraux, "Aspasia, Foreigner, Intellectual".[5]
Aspasia was an important figure – and the most important woman – in the history of fifth-century Athens,[6] and is one of the women from the Greco-Roman world with the most substantial biographical traditions.[7] The earliest literary sources to mention Aspasia, written during her lifetime, are from Athenian comedy,[7] and in the fourth century BC she appears in Socratic dialogues.[8] After the fourth century, she appears only in brief mentions of complete texts, or in fragments whose full context is now lost,[9] until the second century AD, when Plutarch wrote his Life of Pericles, the longest and most complete ancient biographical treatment of Aspasia.[10] Modern biographies of Aspasia are dependent on Plutarch,[11] despite his writing nearly seven centuries after her death.[10]
It is difficult to draw any firm conclusions about the real Aspasia from any of these sources: as Robert Wallace puts it, "for us Aspasia herself possesses and can possess almost no historical reality".[12] Aside from her name, father's name, and place of birth, Aspasia's biography is almost entirely unverifiable, and the ancient writings about her are frequently more of a projection of their own (without exception male) preconceptions than they are historical fact.[13] Madeleine Henry's full-length biography covers what is known of Aspasia's life in only nine pages.[14]
Life
Early life
Aspasia was born, probably no earlier than 470 BC,
Life in Athens
According to the conventional understanding of Aspasia's life, she worked as a courtesan and then ran a brothel.
In Athens, Aspasia met and began a relationship with the statesman
Aspasia and Pericles had a son, Pericles the Younger, born no later than 440/39 BC.[e][28] At the time of Pericles the Younger's birth, Pericles had two legitimate sons, Paralus and Xanthippus. In 430/29, after the death of his two elder sons, Pericles proposed an amendment to his citizenship law of 451/0 which would have made Pericles the Younger able to become a citizen and inherit. Though many scholars believe that this was specifically for Pericles, some have suggested that a more general exception was introduced, in response to the effect of the Plague of Athens and Peloponnesian War on citizen families.[35]
According to Plutarch, Aspasia was prosecuted for asebeia (impiety) by the comic poet Hermippus.[36] She was supposedly defended by Pericles and acquitted.[37] Many scholars have questioned whether this trial ever took place, suggesting that the tradition derives from a fictional trial of Aspasia in a play by Hermippus.[12] Vincent Azoulay compares the trial of Aspasia to those of Phidias and Anaxagoras, both also connected to Pericles, and concludes that "none of the trials for impiety involving those close to Pericles is attested with certainty".[38]
In 429 BC, Pericles died. According to ancient sources, Aspasia then married another politician, Lysicles, and gave birth to another son, Poristes.[39] As "Poristes" is not otherwise known as a name – it means "supplier" or "provider",[40] and was a euphemism for "thief"[41] – some scholars have argued that the name comes from a misunderstanding of a joke in a comedy.[40][37][24] Henry doubts whether Aspasia had a child with Lysicles,[40] and Kennedy questions whether she married Lysicles at all.[24] Pomeroy, however, suggests that Poristes' unusual name may have been chosen by Lysicles for political reasons, to draw attention to his providing for the people of Athens.[42] Lysicles died a year after Pericles, in 428, and nothing is recorded of Aspasia's life after this point.[19] It is unknown where or when she died.[1]
Legacy
Ancient reception
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Rhetoric |
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In the classical period, two primary schools of thought developed around Aspasia. One tradition, deriving from Old Comedy, emphasises her influence over Pericles and her involvement in the sex trade; the other, which can be traced back to fourth-century philosophy, concentrates on her intellect and rhetorical skill.[43] Some scholars have also proposed that the portrayal of several female characters in Athenian tragedy commented on Aspasia, including Euripides' Medea[44] and Phaedra,[45] and Sophocles' Jocasta.[46]
Comic tradition
The only surviving ancient sources to discuss Aspasia which were written during her life are from comedy. The surviving comic tradition about Aspasia – unlike her male contemporaries – focuses on her sexuality.
Outside of Aristophanes, mentions of Aspasia are known from the surviving fragments of
Philosophical tradition
In the fourth century, four philosophers are known to have written Socratic dialogues which feature Aspasia. Those by
Modern reception
Aspasia's earliest post-classical portrayal is in the letters of
In the late medieval and early modern periods, Aspasia appeared in several catalogues, a fashionable genre at the time. She was included in three "medallion books", with an imagined portrait and a brief biography. The first of these was
By the eighteenth century, Aspasia was widely enough known to be included in dictionaries and encyclopedias, where depictions of her were largely based on Plutarch.[67] In 1736, Jean Leconte de Bièvre published the Histoire de deux Aspasies, also based on Plutarch's depiction, which portrayed Aspasia as an educated woman and Pericles' teacher as well as his wife.[69] The eighteenth century also saw the first known image of Aspasia to be created by a woman, Marie Bouliard's Aspasie.[70] The painting depicts Aspasia with one breast bared, looking into a handheld mirror and with a scroll in her other hand. Though the bare breast references the eroticised traditions surrounding Aspasia, Madeleine Henry argues that the portrait differs from more pornographic depictions of women, with Aspasia looking into the mirror rather than out at the viewer, and holding a scroll rather than a cosmetic object such as a comb.[71]
In the nineteenth century, Plutarch's narrative dominated the interpretation of Aspasia in both novels and paintings.[72] In the visual arts, the sexualised side of Aspasia was represented by Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting Socrates Seeking Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia, but this pornographised representation was relatively uncommon.[73] Honoré Daumier's lithograph of Socrates at the House of Aspasia depicts Aspasia as a "lorette", an ambiguous social position which referred to "loose, vulgar or 'liberated' women".[74] Other artists of the period depicted an Aspasia active in public life, and interacting with the most renowned men of the period. In Henry Holiday's painting of Aspasia on the Pnyx, she is shown with another woman at the site of the Athenian assembly, the center of male public space in the city,[75] while in two paintings by Nicolas-André Monsiau she is shown at the centre of discussions with celebrated Athenian intellectuals and politicians.[76] In Socrates and Aspasia, she converses with Socrates and Pericles; in Aspasia in Conversation with the Most Illustrious Men of Athens, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, and Xenophon are also among those included.[77] In both of these paintings, Aspasia is speaking and commanding the attention of these men.[78] Melissa Ianetta argues that Germaine de Staël's novel Corinne models its heroine after Aspasia, placing her in the same tradition of feminine rhetorical skill.[79]
An alternative nineteenth-century representation of Aspasia positioned her as a respectable wife. The authors
The twentieth century saw on the one hand increasing interest in Aspasia separately from her relationships with men, and on the other more prurient concern with her sexuality.
Notes
- ^ Aspasia's date of birth and death are uncertain. Her birthdate is inferred to be c. 470 BC based on the birthdates of her children;[3] nothing is known of her life after her supposed relationship with Lysicles (429–428 BC).[4]
- ^ This date is derived from the birthdates of Aspasia's two sons: Pericles the Younger between 452 and 440, and Poristes in 428 BC.[15] However, some scholars doubt the existence of Aspasia's second son; in that case, Aspasia could have been born some time earlier than 470.[12]
- Heraclides of Pontus as saying that Aspasia came from Megara; this apparently derives from a misunderstanding of Aristophanes' Acharnians.[17]
- hellenotamias.[29]
- ^ Pericles the Younger was at least 30 in 410/9, when he was hellenotamias, and therefore was born no later than 440/39.[34]
- ^ Alternatively, Loraux suggests that Aristophanes based his joke on an unknown earlier comic author, who had already implicated Aspasia in starting the Samian War.[50]
References
- ^ a b Henry 1995, p. 17.
- ^ Collins English Dictionary, "Aspasia"
- ^ Bicknell 1982.
- ^ Henry 1995.
- ^ Loraux 2021, p. 14.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 3.
- ^ a b Henry 1995, p. 6.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 29.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 57.
- ^ a b Henry 1995, p. 9.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 68.
- ^ a b c d Wallace 1996.
- ^ Azoulay 2014, pp. 104–105.
- ^ Pomeroy 1996, p. 648.
- ^ Bicknell 1982, pp. 244–245.
- ^ a b Bicknell 1982, p. 245.
- ^ a b Kennedy 2014, p. 75.
- ^ Azoulay 2014, p. 104.
- ^ a b c d e Nails 2000, p. 59.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 132, n. 1.
- ^ a b Bicknell 1982, p. 247.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 138–139, n. 9.
- ^ Glenn 1994, p. 184.
- ^ a b c d e Kennedy 2014, p. 77.
- ^ Kennedy 2014, pp. 75, 87, n. 1.
- ^ Kapparis 2018, p. 104.
- ^ Kapparis 2018, p. 393.
- ^ a b Henry 1995, p. 13.
- ^ a b Bicknell 1982, pp. 243–244.
- ^ Azoulay 2014, p. 105.
- ^ Kennedy 2014, pp. 17, 77.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 13–14.
- ^ Blundell 1995, p. 148.
- ^ Bicknell 1982, p. 243.
- ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 17.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 15.
- ^ a b Nails 2000, p. 61.
- ^ Azoulay 2014, pp. 124–126.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 9–10, 43.
- ^ a b c Henry 1995, p. 43.
- ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 92, n.52.
- ^ Pomeroy 1996, p. 649.
- ^ Fornara & Samons 1991, pp. 163–164.
- ^ Diamantakou-Agathou 2020, p. 241.
- ^ Vickers 2000, p. 15.
- ^ Vickers 2014, p. 45.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 19.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 25.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 25–26.
- ^ Loraux 2021, p. 26.
- ^ Podlecki 1998, p. 116.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 20–24.
- ^ Cratinus, fr. 259 K-A
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 22–23.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 24.
- ^ Podlecki 1998, p. 112.
- ^ Azoulay 2014, p. 102.
- ^ a b Henry 1995, p. 66.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 30.
- ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 151.
- ^ D'Angour 2019.
- ^ Pentassuglio 2020, p. 5.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 67.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 83.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 83–84.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 87–88.
- ^ a b Henry 1995, p. 89.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 88–89.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 89–90.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 91–92.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 93.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 96.
- ^ Geraths & Kennerly 2016, p. 198.
- ^ Jordan 2012, p. 72, quoted in Geraths & Kennerly 2016, p. 205
- ^ Geraths & Kennerly 2016, p. 206.
- ^ Geraths & Kennerly 2016, pp. 200–202.
- ^ Geraths & Kennerly 2016, p. 202.
- ^ Geraths & Kennerly 2016, pp. 201–202.
- ^ Ianetta 2008.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 99–102.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 103.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 106.
- ^ Henry 1995, pp. 113–114.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 114.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 121.
- ^ a b Henry 1995, p. 117.
- ^ Henry 1995, p. 119.
- ^ Tuplin 2022, pp. 217–218.
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- Azoulay, Vincent (2014) [Published in French 2010]. Pericles of Athens. Translated by Lloyd, Janet. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15459-6.
- Bicknell, Peter J. (1982). "Axiochus Alkibiadou, Aspasia and Aspasios" (PDF). L'Antiquité Classique. 51 (3): 240–250. .
- Blundell, Sue (1995). Women in Ancient Greece. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-95473-1.
- ISBN 978-14-08-88391-4.
- Diamantakou-Agathou, Kaiti (2020). "From Aspasia to Lysistrata: Literary Versions and Intertextual Diffusions of the Feminine Other in Classical Athens" (PDF). Logeion. 10: 238–260.
- Fornara, Charles W.; Samons, Loren J. (1991). Athens from Cleisthenes to Pericles. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Geraths, Cory; Kennerly, Michele (2016). "Painted Lady: Aspasia in Nineteenth-Century European Art". Rhetoric Review. 35 (3): 197–211. S2CID 148042837.
- Glenn, Cheryl (1994). "Sex, Lies, and Manuscript: Refiguring Aspasia in the History of Rhetoric". College Composition and Communication. 45 (2): 180–199. JSTOR 359005.
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- Ianetta, Melissa (2008). "'She Must Be a Rare One': Aspasia, 'Corinne', and the Improvisatrice Tradition". PMLA. 123 (1): 92–108. JSTOR 25501829.
- Jordan, Nicole (2012). "A Very Amusing Bit of Blasphemy": Honoré Daumier's Histoire Ancienne (Thesis). University of Alabama.
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- Tuplin, Roz (2022). "'We do what we must to survive': Female Sex Workers in Assassin's Creed". In Draycott, Jane; Cook, Kate (eds.). Women in Classical Video Games. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-350-24193-0.
- Vickers, Michael (2000). "Alcibiades and Aspasia: Notes on the Hippolytus" (PDF). Dialogues d'histoire ancienne. 26 (2): 7–17. .
- Vickers, Michael (2014). Sophocles and Alcibiades: Athenian Politics in Ancient Greek Literature. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-84465-123-8.
- Wallace, Robert (1996). "Review: Madeleine M. Henry, Prisoner of History". Bryn Mawr Classical Review.