Pericles

Twice a day, as they say, on going out and on coming in from the market-place, he would salute her with a loving kiss. But in the comedies she is styled now the New Omphale, now Deianeira, and now Hera. Cratinus[*](In his Cheirons, Kock, Com. Att. Frag. i. p. 86. ) flatly called her a prostitute in these lines:—

1. As his Hera, Aspasia was born, the child of Unnatural Lust,
2. A prostitute past shaming.

1. And my bastard, doth he live?

1. Yea, and long had been a man,
2. Had he not feared the mischief of his harlot-birth.

So renowned and celebrated did Aspasia become, they say, that even Cyrus, the one who went to war with the Great King for the sovereignty of the Persians, gave the name of Aspasia to that one of his concubines whom he loved best, who before was called Milto. She was a Phocaean by birth, daughter of one Hermotimus, and, after Cyrus had fallen in battle, was carried captive to the King,[*](Cf. Xen. Anab. 1.10.2.) and acquired the greatest influence with him. These things coming to my recollection as I write, it were perhaps unnatural to reject and pass them by.

But to return to the war against the Samians, they accuse Pericles of getting the decree for this passed at the request of Aspasia and in the special behalf of the Milesians. For the two cities were waging their war for the possession of Priene, and the Samians were getting the better of it, and when the Athenians ordered them to stop the contest and submit the case to arbitration at Athens, they would not obey. So Pericles set sail and broke up the oligarchical government which Samos had, and then took fifty of the foremost men of the state, with as many of their children, as hostages, and sent them off to Lemnos.