Next we must delineate her wisdom and understanding. We shall require many models there,
most of them ancient, and one, like herself, Ionic,
painted and wrought by Aeschines, the friend of
Socrates, and by Socrates himself,
In the Aspasia, a Socratic dialogue by the philosopher Aeschines, not extant.
of all craftsmen
the truest copyists because they painted with love.
It is that maid of Miletus, Aspasia, the consort
of the Olympian,
Pericles.
himself a marvel beyond compare.
Putting before us, in her, no mean pattern of
understanding, let us take all that she had of
experience in affairs, shrewdness in_ statescraft,
quick-wittedness, and penetration, and transfer the
whole of it to our own picture by accurate measurement; making allowance, however, for the fact
that she was painted on a small canvas, but our
figure is colossal in its scale.
What do you mean by that?
I mean, Lycinus, that the pictures are not of
equal size, though they look alike; for the Athenian
state of those days and the Roman empire of to-day
are not equal, nor near it. Consequently, although
ours resembles the other exactly, yet in size at least
it is superior, as being painted on a very broad canvas.
The second model and the third shall be
the famous Theano
Wife, or disciple, of Pythagoras, herself a philosophical writer of note.
and the Lesbian poetess,
and Diotima
Diotima, a priestess of Mantinea, probably fictitious, for we hear of her only through Plato in the Symposium (201 p). Socrates says there that she was wise in Love, and ascribes to her the metaphysical rhapsody on Love in which the dialogue culminates.
shall be still another. Theano
shall contribute her high-mindedness, Sappho the
attractiveness of her way of living, and Diotima
shall be copied not only in those qualities for which
Socrates commended her, but in her general intelligence and power to give counsel. There you
have another picture, Lycinus, which may be hung
also.