ASPASIA, born at Miletus, was the most famous of the Ionian courtesans who settled at Athens. She became Pericles' mistress, for by his own law of 451 she could not, as a foreigner, be his legal wife, and her charm and talents seem to have won her an important place in the intellectual society of the time. The comic poets represent her as the political adviser of Pericles, and as the cause of the Samian and Peloponnesian wars (Plutarch, and Aristoph. Ach. 497), but this is probably mere caricature. Shortly before the Peloponnesian war she was accused of impiety, and only the tears and entreaties of Pericles secured her acquittal (see Cambridge Ancient History, vol. v., note 8). After the death of his two legitimate sons, he procured the passing of an enact ment legitimizing his son by Aspasia.