Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History / Aspasia of Miletus: The Woman Behind Pericles
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, around the Mediterranean and especially Athens, you've probably noticed a pattern: the names we talk about are almost all men. But every so often, a woman slips through the cracks of the record, and when she does, she's extraordinary. Luna: You're thinking of Aspasia, aren't you? Lucas: Exactly. Aspasia of Miletus. She's one of the most famous women of classical Athens, and also one of the most obscure. We know she was the companion of Pericles, that she was from Miletus in Ionia, not Athens, and that she ran some kind of intellectual salon. But beyond that, almost everything is contested. Lucas: The sources we have are mostly from men who either admired her or despised her. Plutarch, writing centuries later, says she was a clever conversationalist who could advise politicians. But comic playwrights like Aristophanes depicted her as a madam or a warmonger. So the real Aspasia is hard to pin down. Luna: Why was she so controversial? Lucas: Three reasons. First, she was a woman in public life, which in Athens was almost unheard of for a respectable citizen woman. Second, she was a metic, a foreign resident, so she had no political rights but still influenced powerful men. Third, she was Pericles' partner, not his wife, and he divorced his Athenian wife to be with her. That scandalised the city. Lucas: There were rumours that she was a hetaera, a high-class courtesan, and that her house was a brothel. But other sources suggest she was simply an educated woman who attracted intellectuals. Socrates, according to Plato, admired her and even credited her with teaching him rhetoric. Luna: So she might have been a philosopher in her own right? Lucas: It's possible. Plato wrote a dialogue called the Menexenus, where Socrates recites a funeral oration that he claims Aspasia taught him. Some scholars think Plato was being ironic, but others believe Aspasia really did write speeches. There's also an ancient tradition that she wrote Pericles' famous Funeral Oration, the one Thucydides records. Lucas: If that's true, then one of the most celebrated speeches in Western history — the one that defines Athenian democracy — was written by a foreign woman. That would have been deeply unsettling to many Athenians, and it might explain why the comedians attacked her so viciously. Luna: Did she face any legal consequences? Lucas: She was put on trial for impiety, or asebeia, around 432 BCE. The comic poet Hermippus prosecuted her, accusing her of corrupting Athenian women and harbouring free-thinking ideas. Pericles spoke in her defence and got her acquitted, but it was a close thing. The trial was probably a political attack aimed at him through her. Lucas: After Pericles died in the plague of 429 BCE, Aspasia's fate is uncertain. Some sources say she married another Athenian general, Lysicles, and helped him rise to prominence. But we don't know when or where she died. She disappears from history. Luna: It's frustrating how little solid information we have. Lucas: It is. But that gap also makes her a fascinating puzzle. She was clearly a woman of exceptional intelligence and influence, operating in a society that tried to keep women invisible. The fact that we're still talking about her 2,500 years later says something. Luna: What do you think she was really like? Lucas: I think she was sharp, witty, and politically savvy. She had to be to survive in Athens as a foreign woman. She probably ran a salon where ideas were exchanged freely — something like the symposia but more intellectual. And I think she genuinely loved Pericles and was a key adviser to him. Lucas: But we have to be careful not to project modern ideas onto her. She wasn't a feminist in our sense; she was a woman making the best of her circumstances in a rigid patriarchal society. Luna: That's a good point. We should see her in her context. Lucas: Exactly. And speaking of context — making this show, digging into these lives, it takes real resources. A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these episodes. It keeps us ad-free and allows us to spend time on figures like Aspasia who aren't always in the textbooks. Luna: It's a small community, but it's what keeps the show going. We're grateful for that. Lucas: Anyway, back to Aspasia. One of the most telling anecdotes comes from Plutarch. He says that when Pericles went out, he would kiss Aspasia goodbye every morning and hello every evening. That kind of intimacy, publicly acknowledged, was remarkable in Athens. It suggests a genuine partnership, not just politics. Luna: That's actually really sweet. It humanises him. Lucas: It does. And it reminds us that behind the grand narratives of democracy and empire, there were real people with real relationships. Aspasia's story is a window into that private side of Athenian history, a side we rarely see. Lucas: So when you think of Pericles, think of the man who gave the Funeral Oration — and maybe think of the woman who helped him write it. Aspasia of Miletus, the foreigner who shaped Athens. Luna: I'll never think of the Parthenon the same way again. Lucas: Maybe that's the best we can do — to keep remembering, even when the record is fragmentary. And that's what history is, after all.