Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/404

Rh 386 ASPASIA. § 8), and the other a daughter of the river-god Asopus. (Diod. iv. 72.) [L- S.J ASO'PIUS {'hawirios). 1. Father of Phonnion rrhuc. i. 64), called Asopichus by Pausanias. (i. 24. § 12.) 2. Son of Phormion, was, at the request of the Acamanians who wished to have one of Phor- mion's family in the command, sent by the Athe- nians in the year following his father's naval victories, B. c. 428 (the 4th of the Peloponnesian war), with some ships to Nanpactus. He fell shortly after in an unsuccessftil attempt on the Leucadian coast. (Thuc iii. 7.) [A. H. C] ASOPODO'RUS, a statuary, possibly a native of Argos (Thiersch, Epoch, d. bild. Kunst p. 275, Anm.), was a pupil of Polycletus. (Plin. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.) [C. P. M.] ASO'PUS CAo-ftffl-os), the god of the river Asopus, was a son of Oceanus and Tethys, or according to others, of Poseidon and Pero, of Zeus and Eurynome, or lastly of Poseidon and Ce^luse. (Apollod. iii. 12. § 6; Pans. ii. 5. § 2, 12. § 5.) He was married to Metope, the daughter of the river god Ladon, by whom he had two sons and twelve, or, according to others, twenty daughters. Their names differ in the various accounts. (Apol- lod. /. c. ; Diod. iv. 72 ; Schol. ad Find. Ol. vi. 144, Isthm. viii. 37 ; Paus. ix. 1. § 2 ; Herod, ix. 51; Eustath. arf //o;n. p. 2/8.) Several of these daughters of Asopus were carried off by gods, which is commonly believed to indicate the colo- nies established by the people inhabiting the banks of the Asopus, who also transferred the name of Asopus to other rivers in the countries where they settled. Aegina was one of the daughters of Asopus, and Pindar mentions a river of this name in Aegina. {Nem. iii. 4, with the Schol.) In Greece there were two rivers of this name, the one in Achaia in Peloponnesus, and the other in Boeotia, and the legends of the two are frequently confounded or mixed up with each other. Hence arose the dif- ferent accounts about the descent of Asopus, and the difference in the names of his daughters. But as these names have, in most cases, reference to geograpliical circumstances, it is not difficult to perceive to which of the two river gods this or that particular daughter originally belonged. The more celebrated of the two is that of Peloponnesus. When Zeus had carried off his daughter Aegina, and Asopus had searched after her everywhere, he was at last informed by Sisyphus of Corinth, that Zeus was the guilty party. Asopus now revolted against Zeus, and wanted to fight with him, but Zeus struck him with his thunderbolt and confined him to his original bed. Pieces of charcoal which were foimd in the bed of the river in later times, were believed to have been produced by the light- ning of Zeus. (Paus. ii. 5. § 1, &c. ; Apollod. iii. 12. § 6.) According to Pausanias (ii. 12. § 5) the Peloponnesian Asopus was a man who, in the reign of Aras, discovered the river which was sub- sequently called by his name. [L. S.] A'SPALIS ('AonroAjs), a daughter of Argaeus, concerning whom an interesting legend is pre- served in Antoninus Liberalis. (13.) [L. S.] ASPAR, a Numidian, sent by Jugurtha to Bocchus in order to learn his designs, when the latter had sent for Sulla. He was, however, de- ceived by Bocchus. (Sail. Jicg. 108, 112.) ASPA'SIA ('A(r7roo-ia). 1. The celebrated Milesian, daughter of Axiochus, came to reside at ASPASIA. Athens, and there gained and fixed the affections of Pericles, not more by her beauty than b}' her high mental accomplishments. With his wife, who was a lady of rank, and by whom he had two sons, he seems to have lived unhappily ; and, hav- ing parted from her by mutual consent, he attached himself to Aspasia during the rest of his life as closely as was allowed by the law, %vhich forbade marriage with a foreign woman under severe penal- ties. (Plut. Peric. 24 ; Demosth. c. Ncaer. p. 1350.) Nor can there be any doubt that she acquired over him a great ascendancy; though this perhaps comes before us in an exaggerated shape in the statements which ascribe to her influence the war with Samos on behalf of Miletus in B. c. 440, as well as the Peloponnesian war itself. (Plut. Pcric. I.e.; Aris- toph. Jc^rw. 497, &.C.; Schol. arf foe.; comp. Aris- toph. Pax, 587, &c.; Thuc. i. 115.) The con- nexion, indeed, of Pericles with Aspasia appears to have been a favourite subject of attack in Athenian comedy ( Aristoph. ^c/«ir«. /. c; Plut Penp. 24 ; Schol. ad Plat. Menex. p. 235), as also with cer- tain writers of philosophical dialogues, between whom and the comic poets, in respect of their abusive propensities, Athenaeus remarks a strong family likeness. ( Athen. v. p. 220 ; Casaub. ad loc^ Nor was their bitterness satisfied with the vent of satire ; for it was Hermippus, the comic poet, who brought against Aspasia the double charge of im- piety and of infamously pandering to the vices of Pericles ; and it required all the personal influence of the latter with the people, and his most earnest entreaties and tears, to procure her acquittal. (Plut. Peric. 32 ; Athen. xiii. p. 589, e. ; comp. Thirl- wairs Greece, vol. iii. p. 87, &c., and Append, ii.) The house of Aspasia was the great centre of the highest literary and philosophical society of Athens, nor was the seclusion of the Athenian matrons so strictly preserved, but that many even of them re- sorted thither with their husbands for the pleasure and improvement of her conversation (Plut. Peric. 24); so that the intellectual influence which she ex- ercised was undoubtedly considerable, even though we reject the story of her being the preceptress of Socrates, on the probable ground of the irony of those passages in which such statement is m.ide (Plat. Menea: pp. 235, 249 ; Xen. Oecoji. iii. 14, Memor. ii. 6. § 36 ; Herm. de Soc. vnigtsi. et disc, juven.; Schleiermacher's hitrod. to the Menexejius) ; for Plato certainly was no ap- prover of the administration of Pericles {Gorg. p. 515, d. &c.), and thought perhaps that the refine- ment introduced by Aspasia had only added a new temptation to the licentiousness from which it was not disconnected. (Athen. xiii. p. 569, f.) On the death of Pericles, Aspasia is said to have attached herself to one Lysicles, a dealer in cattle, and to have made him by her instructions a first-rate ora- tor. ( Aesch. ap. Plut. Peric. 24 ; Schol. ad Plut. Me?wct. p. 235.) For an amusing account of a sophistical argument ascribed to her by Aeschines the philosopher, see Cic. rfe Invent, i. 31; Quintil. I?iiit. Orat. V. 11. The son of Pericles by As- pasia was legitimated by a special decree of the people, and took his father's name. (Plut. Peric. 37.) He was one of the six generals who were put to death after the victorj-^ at Arginusae. (Comp. Jacobs, Verm. Svhiflen, voh iv. pp. 349—397.) 2. A Phocaean, daughter of Hermotimus, w;i« carried away from her country to the seraglio (.f Cyrus the Younger, who so admired, not her bcauiy