Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History / Aspasia of Miletus: The Woman Who Shaped Athens
Transcript
- Lucas: So today we're going to talk about someone we've mentioned in passing a few times—Aspasia of Miletus. She was the partner of Pericles, but she was far more than just a powerful man's companion. Luna: Right, I've heard her called the most famous woman in Classical Athens. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a big deal because Athenian women were supposed to be invisible—respectable ones barely left the house. But Aspasia was a foreigner, a metic, and she ran in the highest intellectual circles. She taught rhetoric, debated with Socrates, and was so influential that comedians wrote whole plays mocking her as a scheming courtesan who controlled Pericles. Luna: Wait, she taught rhetoric? To whom? Lucas: Well, according to later tradition, she taught Socrates himself. There's a dialogue by Aeschines of Sphettus, called the Aspasia, where Socrates says she taught him the art of rhetoric. And Plato's Menexenus—which is probably a parody—has Socrates reciting a funeral speech that he claims Aspasia wrote. Some ancient writers even believed she composed Pericles' famous Funeral Oration. Luna: So she might have written one of the most famous speeches in history? Lucas: It's possible. Plutarch says it was a common joke in Athens that Aspasia was the real brains behind Pericles. But we have to be careful: most of what we know comes from hostile comic poets or later philosophical dialogues that may not be historical. Still, the fact that she was even discussed this way shows she had real influence. Luna: What do the comedians say about her? Lucas: They're vicious. Aristophanes, Cratinus, Eupolis—they all took shots. Cratinus called her a 'dog-eyed concubine.' Eupolis wrote a play called 'The Demes' where a character says Aspasia was the real cause of the Samian War because she persuaded Pericles to go to war for her hometown of Miletus. There was even a rumor that Pericles started the Peloponnesian War because of Aspasia's influence. Luna: That seems extreme. Lucas: It is. But it shows how Athenians projected their anxieties about democracy onto her. A foreign woman with too much power—it fit a narrative. And there's a kernel of truth: Pericles did rely on her counsel. Plutarch says she was a skilled political advisor. And when Pericles was attacked politically, his enemies went after Aspasia, even prosecuting her for impiety. Luna: She was put on trial? Lucas: Yes, around 432 BCE. The comic poet Hermippus charged her with impiety and with procuring freeborn women for Pericles. But Pericles defended her in court—Plutarch says he wept and begged the jury to acquit her, and they did. This was the same period when Pericles's friends were being attacked—Anaxagoras was also charged with impiety and fled Athens. Luna: So it was a political move to weaken Pericles. Lucas: Exactly. Aspasia was a convenient target. But she survived that, and after Pericles died in the plague, she supposedly married another Athenian politician, Lysicles, and made him into a great orator—according to Aeschines. But that story is probably apocryphal. Luna: So what do we actually know for sure? Lucas: Not much. She was born in Miletus, in Ionia, around 470 BCE. She was a metic—a resident alien—in Athens. She lived with Pericles from about 445 BCE until his death in 429, though they may not have been legally married because Athenian law restricted marriage between citizens and foreigners. Their son, also named Pericles, was initially illegitimate but later granted citizenship by special decree after the plague killed Pericles' legitimate sons. Luna: That's remarkable. They changed the law for her son. Lucas: It was a huge concession. But it shows how much influence Aspasia had. Beyond that, her legacy is largely shaped by the philosophical tradition. In the Socratic dialogues, she appears as a wise teacher—not just of rhetoric, but of love and virtue. Xenophon's Memorabilia has Socrates recommending Aspasia as a matchmaker. And the later Neoplatonists revered her as a philosopher. Luna: So she was a kind of intellectual celebrity. Lucas: Absolutely. And that makes her both fascinating and frustrating—because we have so little reliable information. But what we do have shows that a woman in ancient Athens could, under the right circumstances, transcend the limits placed on her gender and become a shaper of history. Aspasia is a reminder that the Golden Age of Athens wasn't just built by men. Luna: It's amazing that her voice still echoes after all these years. Lucas: It is. And it's a good caution against taking the comic poets at face value. They painted her as a scheming seductress, but the philosophical tradition saw her as a sage. The truth probably lies somewhere in between—a brilliant, ambitious woman who used her wits to navigate a world that was never designed for her. Luna: I'm glad we finally did an episode on her. Lucas: Me too. She deserves to be remembered as more than just a footnote to Pericles.