Aspasia

as-pa'shi-a, a celebrated woman of Greece. The dates of her life are not known well, but she flourished during the so-called Age of Pericles. She was a native of Miletus. She appears to have been a woman of talent, education, and beauty. She removed to Athens in her youth. Here she attracted the attention of Pericles. As she was not a citizen of Athens, Pericles could not, under the laws of the city, make her his wife, but he lived with her as such, and made her the mistress of an elegant home. Like Madame de Stael, Aspasia made her home the resort of intellectual people. Anaxagoras, the philosophical friend of Pericles, was a frequent visitor here. Socrates delighted in her wit. Phidias, the wonderful artist, liked to come in and talk about his work. Walter Savage Landor, who never allows a date to interfere with his saying a good thing, intimates that Thucydides read his history to Aspasia for criticism, and that the great playwriters, Sophocles and Aristophanes, were eager for her commendation. However this may be, the home of Pericles and Aspasia may be termed with justice the "intellectual center of Athens." Aspasia is one of the few women of Greece that require mention. In order to understand the intellectual position of Aspasia, it is necessary to hold in mind that the women of Greece were educated for health and household duties only. It will hardly do to say of women who were wont to listen to the masterpieces of the world's greatest tragedians, that they were illiterate; and yet the fact is that the wives of even the most eminent men in Greece were not taught to read and write. By way of exception, Aspasia seems to have been a truly remarkable woman.