Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/95

Rh general delighted. Some say that Pericles made his court to Aspasia only on account of her wisdom and political abilities. It was even believed by the most intelligent Athenians, and, among them, by Socrates himself, that she composed the celebrated funeral oration pronounced by him in honour of those that were slain in the Salamian war. (It is well known he used to write down all his speeches before he pronounced them). It is probable enough that Pericles undertook that war to avenge the quarrels of the Milesians, at the suggestion of Aspasia, who was their countrywoman, and is said to have accompanied him in this expedition, and to have built a temple to perpetuate the memory of his victory.

Plutarch relates that Pericles and his wife living very unhappily together, they parted; she was married to another, and he to Aspasia, for whom he had the tenderest regard. This connection was not likely to escape satire. She was called, on the public stage, the Omphale of her time, the Dejanira, and even the Juno. Many circumstances of the administration were malevolently attributed to her influence, and much gross abuse and improbable calumny vented against both of them.

Hermippus, a comic poet, prosecuted Aspasia for impiety, which seems, in their idea, to have consisted in disputing the existence of their imaginary gods, and introducing new opinions about celestial appearances. But she was acquitted, though much against the tenor of the law, by means of Pericles, who, (according to Eschines), shed many tears in his application for mercy in her behalf.

After the death of Pericles, at the age of 70, 1429, B. C. we hear nothing of her, but that Lysicles, a Rh