Part 1 (2/2)
The following is the summary of her various excellences, given by one of the popular organs of this amiable but fallacious theory: ”In Sappho, a warm and profound sensibility, virgin purity, feminine softness, and delicacy of sentiment and feeling, were combined with the native probity and simplicity of the aeolian character; and, although endued with a fine perception of the beautiful and brilliant, she preferred genuine conscious rect.i.tude to every other source of human enjoyment.”
ASPASIA OF PERICLES.
[B.C. 470.]
GROTE.
Aspasia, daughter of Axiochus, was a native of Miletus, beautiful, well-educated, and ambitious. She resided at Athens, and is affirmed, though upon very doubtful evidence, to have kept slave-girls to be let out as courtesans. Whatever may be the case with this report, which is probably one of the scandals engendered by political animosity against Pericles, it is certain that, so remarkable were her own fascinations, her accomplishments, and her powers, not merely of conversation, but even of oratory and criticism, that the most distinguished Athenians of all ages and characters--Socrates among the number--visited her, and several of them took their wives along with them to hear her also. The free citizen-women of Athens lived in strict and almost Oriental recluseness, as well after being married as when single: everything which concerned their lives, their happiness, or their rights, was determined or managed for them by male relatives; and they seem to have been dest.i.tute of all mental culture and accomplishments. Their society presented no charm nor interest, which men accordingly sought for in the company of the cla.s.s of women called Hetaerae, or courtesans, literally female companions who lived a free life, managed their own affairs, and supported themselves by their powers of pleasing. These women were numerous, and were doubtless of every variety of personal character; but the most distinguished and superior among them, such as Aspasia and Theodote, appear to have been the only women in Greece, except the Spartan, who either inspired strong pa.s.sion or exercised mental ascendancy.
Pericles had been determined in his choice of a wife by those family considerations which were held almost obligatory at Athens, and had married a woman very nearly related to him, by whom he had two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus. But the marriage, having never been comfortable, was afterwards dissolved by mutual consent, according to that full liberty of divorce which the Attic law permitted, and Pericles concurred with his wife's male relations (who formed her legal guardians) in giving her away to another husband. He then took Aspasia to live with him; had a son by her, who bore his name; and continued ever afterwards on terms of the greatest intimacy and affection with her. Without adopting those exaggerations which represent Aspasia as having communicated to Pericles his distinguished eloquence, or even as having herself composed orations for public delivery, we may well believe her to have been qualified to take interest and share in that literary and philosophical society which frequented the house of Pericles, and which his unprincipled son Xanthippus, disgusted with his father's regular expenditure as withholding from him the means of supporting an extravagant establishment, reported abroad with exaggerated calumnies, and turned into derision. It was from that worthless young man, who died of the Athenian epidemic during the lifetime of Pericles, that his political enemies and the comic writers of the day were mainly furnished with scandalous anecdotes to a.s.sail the private habits of this distinguished man. The comic writers attacked him for alleged intrigues with different women; but the name of Aspasia they treated as public property, without any mercy or reserve: she was the Omphale, the Dejanira, or the Here, to the great Heracles or Zeus of Athens. At length one of these comic writers, Hermippus, not contented with scenic attacks, indicted her before the dikastery for impiety, as partic.i.p.ant in the philosophical discussions held, and the opinions professed, in the society of Pericles by Anaxagoras and others. Against Anaxagoras himself, too, a similar indictment is said to have been preferred, either by Cleon or by Thucydides, son of Milesias, under a general resolution recently pa.s.sed in the public a.s.sembly at the instance of Diopeithes. And such was the sensitive antipathy of the Athenian public, shown afterwards fatally in the case of Socrates, and embittered in this instance by all the artifices of political faction, against philosophers whose opinions conflicted with the received religious dogmas, that Pericles did not dare to place Anaxagoras on his trial. The latter retired from Athens, and a sentence of banishment was pa.s.sed against him in his absence. But Pericles himself defended Aspasia before the dikastery: in fact, the indictment was as much against him as against her. One thing alleged against her, and also against Pheidias, was the reception of free women to facilitate the intrigues of Pericles.
He defended her successfully, and procured a verdict of acquittal; but we are not surprised to hear that his speech was marked by the strongest personal emotions, and even by tears. The dikasts were accustomed to such appeals to their sympathies, sometimes even to extravagant excess, from ordinary accused persons; but in Pericles, so manifest an outburst of emotion stands out as something quite unparalleled, for constant self-mastery was one of the most prominent features in his character.
XANTIPPE.
[B.C. 390.]
BRUCKER.
The woman who could teach Socrates the virtue of patience deserves to be remembered. Xantippe, concerning whom writers relate so many amusing tales, was certainly a woman of a high and unmanageable spirit. But Socrates, while he endeavoured to curb the violence of her temper, improved his own. When Alcibiades expressed his surprise that his friend could bear to live in the same house with so perverse and quarrelsome a companion, Socrates replied, that being daily inured to ill-humour at home, he was the better prepared to encounter perverseness and injury abroad. After all, however, it is probable that the infirmities of this good woman have been exaggerated, and that calumny has had some hand in finis.h.i.+ng her picture; for Socrates himself, in a dialogue with his son Lamprocles, allows her many domestic virtues, and we find her afterwards expressing great affection for her husband during his imprisonment. She must, indeed, have been as deficient in understanding as she was froward in disposition, if she had not profited by the daily lessons which for twenty years she received from such a master.
News being at length brought of the return of the s.h.i.+p from Delos, the officers to whose care Socrates was committed, delivered to him early in the morning the final order for his execution, and immediately, according to the law, set him at liberty from his bonds. His friends, who came early to the prison that they might have an opportunity of conversing with their master through the day, found his wife sitting by him with a child in her arms. As soon as Xantippe saw them, she burst into tears and said, ”Oh, Socrates, this is the last time your friends will ever speak to you, or you to them.” Socrates, that the tranquillity of his last moments might not be disturbed by her unavailing lamentations, requested that she might be conducted home. With the most frantic expressions of grief, she left the prison. An interesting conversation then pa.s.sed between Socrates and his friends, which chiefly turned upon the immortality of the soul. After a short interval, during which he gave some necessary instructions to his domestics, and took his last leave of his children, the attendant of the prison informed him that the time for drinking the poison was come. The executioner, though accustomed to such scenes, shed tears as he presented the fatal cup.
Socrates received it without change of countenance, or the least appearance of perturbation; then, offering up a prayer to the G.o.ds that they would grant him a prosperous pa.s.sage into the invisible world, with perfect composure he swallowed the poisonous draught. His friends around him burst into tears. Socrates alone remained unmoved. He upbraided their pusillanimity, and entreated them to exercise a manly constancy worthy of the friends of virtue. He continued walking till the chilling operation of the hemlock obliged him to lie down upon his bed. Then, covering himself with his cloak, he expired.
ASPASIA OF CYRUS.
[B.C. 421.]
BAYLE.
This celebrated woman was of Photia, and daughter of one Hermotomus.
According to the portrait left us by aelian, she was very accomplished, both in body and mind. Her name, before she went to Cyrus, was Milto, for which the king subst.i.tuted that of the famous mistress of Pericles.
Her rearing under her father, who lost her mother when the child was born, was proportioned to his limited means; and, when very young, she was the cause of a peculiar grief to him, insomuch as, while she was extremely beautiful, she was rendered almost hideous by a tumour which grew upon her chin. The doctor to whom her father had sent her to get the tumour removed, returned the patient in the same condition in which she went, for the reason that he had got no fee; and Milto was consequently plunged in grief, every now and then examining her face in the mirror. It was said that she discovered in a dream the means of her cure; and when this was accomplished, her features were restored to their natural proportions, so that she became the fairest maiden of her time. She has been represented as having blonde hair, with a natural curl; large eyes; a nose slightly aquiline; small ears; a delicate skin, partaking of the rose and the lily; red lips; pearly teeth; her legs and arms formed in perfection; and a voice so mellifluous as to rival that of the sirens. These qualities, which were the gift of nature, were unadorned by artifice, for neither the inclination nor the ability of her father permitted of extraneous decoration.
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