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28 was entertained of the brightest wits and the wisest and bravest of Athens; and she was knit to Pericles with ties of most ardent affection, far stronger than any bonds fastened by a forced contract, and she was honoured and treated as were the consorts of noble Greeks in olden times, and not regarded merely as a nurse for her husband's children.

And Daphne had determined, in like manner, to enter into no forced marriage, but to form a fitting connection with some man whom she loved and honoured, if chance so willed it, in marriage, but if not, even as Aspasia with Pericles. And what may perhaps to some seem strange, whilst she had constantly asserted for herself the truest freedom, she had preserved also the strictest virtue. Many Athenian youths had loved her, and some men of good standing, but none had touched her fancy. Like Aspasia, she had been carefully trained in poetry, rhetoric,