ASPA'SIA, one of the most remarkable women of antiquity, was the daughter of Axiochus, and born at Miletus. The circumstance that in Athens all foreign women, whatever their character, were equally esteemed, or rather disesteemed, and that their children, even when begotten in wedlock, were held illegitimate, has originated the erroneous notion that A. was a courtesan. She certainly broke through the restraint which confined Athenian matrons to the seclusion of their own homes; for after her union with Pericles, who had parted from his first wife by her own consent, her house became the rendezvous of all the learned and distinguished people in Athens. Socrates often visited her. Her eloquence and knowledge of politics were extraordinarily great. Her husband—though, strictly speaking, the Athenian law would have refused this appella tion to Pericles—was honored with the title of Olmypian Jove, while she herself was dignified with the name of Juno. From the comic writers and others she received much injustice. It was Hermippus, the comic poet, who took advantage of a temporary irritation of the Athenians against Pericles, to accuse A. of impiety; but the eloquence
of the great statesman disarmed the enmity of the judges, and procured her acquittal. Her influence over Pericles must have been singularly great, although this has obviously been exaggerated, and even caricatured. The brilliant but not historically accurate Aristophanes charges her with the origin both of the Samian and Peloponnesian war, the latter on account of the robbery of a favorite maid who belonged to her. Plutarch vindicates her against such accusations; and Thucydides, who details minutely the causes of the Peloponnesian war, does not once mention her name in connection with these. After the death of Pericles, A. married Lys'icles, a cattle-dealer (an important, lucrative, and dignified profession in ancient times), who, through her influence, soon became an eminent man in Athens. The name of A. was, after her death, applied to many women of remarkable accomplishments and amiability.