ASPASIA, (Gk. (c.440 p.c.). A celebrated woman of ancient Greece, noted for her genius, beauty, and political influ ence: daughter of Axiochus, and born at .Aliletus. The circumstances of her removal to Athens are unknown. but the beginning of her con nection with Pericles dates from about B.C. 460. Pericles finally divorced his first wife by her own consent, and married Aspasia, by whom he had a son, also called Pericles. The real status of Aspasia in Athenian society has been a subject of much difference of opinion. The fact that at Athens marriage with any woman of foreign birth was held to be incomplete, and the offspring of such a union illegitimate, may have contributed to the notion that Aspasia was a vourtesan. She was without doubt a woman of intelligence and wit; and this fact, combined with her freedom from the restraints which regularly confined the activity of women at Athens, naturally gave her prominence, and brought upon her not a little obloquy. After her
marriage with Pericles, her house became the rendezvous of men of learning and distinction. The comic writers found her a convenient butt for their satire. Pericles is said to have been greatly influenced by her, but we can hardly consider as serious the charge that she was the cause of the Saurian and Peloponnesian wars. On one occasion the comic poet, Dermippus, charged Aspasia with impiety, but she was suc cessfully defended by Pericles himself. When the two sons of Pericles by his first marriage died, Pericles obtained from the State the rights of full citizenship for his son by Aspasia. After the death of Pericles, Aspasia married a sheep owner, with whom she lived but a single year. and by whom she had one son. further career is unknown, but she continued to live at Athens, and died there.