Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History / Aspasia of Miletus: The Woman Who Shaped Periclean Athens
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Pericles in previous episodes — his Funeral Oration, his building program, the Peloponnesian War. But there's someone who stood beside him, shaped his thinking, and was arguably the most famous woman in classical Athens, yet we know very little for certain about her. I'm talking about Aspasia of Miletus. Luna: Aspasia — she's always felt like a ghost in the historical record. Lucas: Exactly. She was a metic, a foreigner living in Athens, from the Greek city of Miletus on the coast of Asia Minor. She arrived probably in the 450s BCE, and quickly became the companion — some say wife, though Athenian law didn't recognize marriage between a citizen and a foreigner — of Pericles himself. And she was no silent partner. Ancient sources describe her as a skilled rhetorician and intellectual, someone who taught rhetoric and even influenced Pericles' speeches. Lucas: The most famous claim — and it's one we can't prove — is that she actually wrote Pericles' Funeral Oration, that monument of democratic ideology we covered in episode 142. The idea comes from Plato's dialogue Menexenus, where Socrates jokingly says that Aspasia composed the speech. It's satire, of course, but it hints at a real reputation: she was known for her rhetorical skill. Luna: Wait, so Plato is our source for that? That's a bit shaky. Lucas: It is. But Plato wasn't the only one. Plutarch, writing centuries later, tells us that Aspasia was sought out by Athenians for rhetorical training. He says she ran something like a salon — a gathering place for intellectuals, including Socrates himself. And Socrates, according to Plato, claimed to have learned rhetoric from her. Now, how much of that is philosophical fiction and how much is real — we can't disentangle. Lucas: But the fact that these stories survived at all tells us something. In a society where respectable women were expected to be invisible — to stay indoors, to not be spoken of in public — Aspasia was a public figure. And that made her a target. Luna: The comic poets went after her, didn't they? Lucas: Relentlessly. Aristophanes, in his play Acharnians, blames Aspasia for starting the Peloponnesian War — the joke being that some prostitutes from Megara were stolen because of Aspasia's influence. Another comic playwright, Cratinus, called her a 'new Omphale' — that's the Lydian queen who enslaved Heracles — implying she had emasculated Pericles. These were political attacks dressed up as comedy, using her foreignness and her influence over Pericles as ammunition. Lucas: And it wasn't just comedy. There's a story in Plutarch that Aspasia was put on trial for asebeia — impiety — around 440 BCE, possibly as a way to get at Pericles. Plutarch says Pericles broke down in tears during the trial, pleading with the jury to acquit her, and they did. It's a dramatic story, but again, it's from a source four hundred years after the fact. We have to take it with caution. Luna: So she was used as a political pawn because Pericles couldn't be attacked directly. Lucas: Exactly. Athenian democracy had mechanisms like ostracism to get rid of powerful men, but attacking a companion — a foreign woman — was a way to wound him without confronting him head-on. And it worked, in a sense. After Pericles' death in 429 BCE, Aspasia disappears from the record for a while, then reappears as the companion of another Athenian general, Lysicles, according to Plutarch. She supposedly helped him become a better speaker. But again, that story might be a trope — the woman who trains men in rhetoric. Lucas: There's also a philosophical tradition that links Aspasia with Socrates. In Plato's Menexenus, Socrates recites a funeral oration that he claims Aspasia taught him. It's a parody of Pericles' speech, but it places Aspasia at the center of intellectual life. And then there's Diotima, the prophetess in Plato's Symposium who teaches Socrates about love — some scholars think Diotima is a fictionalized version of Aspasia, though that's speculation. Luna: It's frustrating how little we can verify. But it's also fascinating that she left such a mark despite all the erasure. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's the challenge of writing women's history in ancient Greece. We have to read between the lines of sources that are mostly written by men, often hostile, and always limited. Aspasia was clearly exceptional — a foreign woman who achieved prominence in the most misogynistic of democracies. Whether she wrote the Funeral Oration or not, her reputation as an intellectual forced the Athenians to reckon with female intelligence, even as they mocked and slandered her. Lucas: You know, it's funny — we spend so much time on the great men of Athens: Pericles, Socrates, Plato. But without Aspasia, the picture is incomplete. And I think that's true for a lot of history. The women are there, but we have to work to find them. Luna: And speaking of working to find things — I know this show exists because listeners help keep it going. It's ad-free, which means a lot of research goes into every episode, and that takes resources. Lucas: Yeah, it's something I'm grateful for. A small group of listeners already chips in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what makes this possible — no ads, no sponsors, just people who care about history. If you've been enjoying these deep dives, into Aspasia or the Antikythera mechanism or whatever, that's the engine. No pressure, ever. But it's honest to mention it. Luna: It's a good thing. And now back to Aspasia — you mentioned her trial. Is there any contemporary evidence for it, or is it all later? Lucas: It's all later. Plutarch is our only source for the trial, and he's writing in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, about 500 years after the fact. But he claims to be drawing on earlier comic poets and historians. The trial may have happened — it fits the pattern of attacks on Pericles through his associates — but we can't be sure. What we can be sure of is that Aspasia was a real person whose life was politicized, and whose legacy was shaped by the men who wrote about her. Lucas: Some scholars have even questioned whether she was a hetaira — a high-class courtesan — as many ancient sources imply. The word 'hetaira' was often used to slander independent women. But even if she was, that wouldn't diminish her intellectual contributions. In fact, hetairai were often the only women in Athens with access to education and public life. Luna: So she was an anomaly, but also a product of her circumstances. Lucas: Exactly. And she remains a symbol of the invisible women of antiquity — the ones who shaped history from the shadows. Every time we talk about Pericles, we should remember that behind the statesman was a woman from Miletus who might have helped him find the words. Luna: I think that's a good note to end on. Thanks for bringing her story to light. Lucas: Thanks for listening. Next time, we'll look at another figure from the margins — someone who challenged Athens from the inside.