Editor Hana Conte - 7
Aspasia
Treasurer Nora Donovan (Seven Hills)
Aspasia was born in the Greek city of Miletus sometime around 460 BC where, unlike Athenian women of the time, she was able to achieve a high level of education. Despite being a foreigner, she held a high position in Athenian society as Pericles’ mistress (he was not allowed to marry a foreigner) from 445 until he died in 429. They had a son, also named Pericles, who wan an exception to his father’s law that one could only be an Athenian citizen if both parents were also citizens, and he went on to become a general.
Although her position as a non-citizen restricted Aspasia in some ways, it also gave her more freedom than Athenian women. Since she was a foreigner, Aspasia was not bound by the legal constraints that typically confined married women and could participate freely in public affairs. And though her contemporaries Aristophanes, Plato, and Plutarch have varying accounts of the ancient woman (most often as a scapegoat for various wars during her time), they all agree on her cunning, politically-inclined intelligence. None of her writings or works still exist or are able to be credited to her, but Aspasia’s influence over the most powerful men of the time is confirmed by those same writers that condemn her.
In baseline history, Aspasia is known as a harlot and Pericles’ mistress, but if you look past the biased reports that claim this, you learn that she had an incredible political mind and unparalleled freedom for a woman of that time period.
(Photo from Britannica)