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In this article, Willow will discuss the background of the infamous philosopher, Aspasia, teacher of Socrates.
Aspasia
Aspasia
By Willow
By Willow
Before the influential times of the post-Socratic philosophical movement, a young boy was taught by a woman who traveled from Miletus, Turkey to Athens, Greece. That young boy quickly grew up into the famously known father of philosophy, Socrates, also known as the mentor of Plato, who passed down his generational ideas. Socrates' teacher, however, is not as well-known, despite fanning the flames of his inspirational youth. Anyone could have guessed why, after it was found that Socrates spoke in admiration of a foreign woman who traveled to Greece in 445 BCE named Aspasia, who was also the mistress of the infamous general and politician, Pericles. Although Pericles was never ashamed of his lover, Aspasia, he often felt embarrassed by her own intelligence. As a foreigner, not a resident; a mistress, not a wife; and a woman, not a man, Aspasia was commonly viewed as inferior due to societal norms despite the fact that it was she who proceeded to write many of the generals' speeches and teach righteous ideas to her students.
Treated as second class, Aspasia can be remembered for many of her teachings, which have been passed down over the centuries, branching down as equable time continued, occasionally covering her once heavily influential existence with dust and ash. At present time, none of Aspasia’s own writings have been uncovered, so secondary sources are historians' only source of information about her. However, despite the disappearance of her writings, many famed scholars and philosophers, such as Socrates, featured her in their writings as a wonderful woman and muse. Xenophon, Aeschine, and Socrates' own writings reference how they were always willing to meet with Aspasia for one of her deep conversations, where they would recognize a new aspect of the world.
Although Aspasia was not favored by Socrates' student, Plato, he still wrote about her in a new form named Diotima. In Plato's dialogue The Symposium, Diotima was a (fictional) human who taught young Socrates that there was no such thing as love being completely both beautiful and good. It was to Socrates that she spoke of the genealogy of Eros, that true love to other humans was true love to wisdom-- or philosophy. It was then, according to the dialogue, that Diotima taught Socrates the first-ever concept of platonic love and the love of immortality (which could be created by contributing to the world). Although it is still indeed a thought that Diotima was a real person, the utmost conclusion any educated historian has come to was the indubitable similarities between Diotima's and Aspasia's teachings-- thus meaning that Diotima was based on Aspasia, and not only her close relationship with Socrates, but her philosophical beliefs, as well.
In Greece, Aspasia continued to study the art of observation and charismatic oratory by spreading her teachings while educating herself. It was there that she taught persuasive speaking to both Pericles and Socrates. As such a woman with noticeable intelligence, Aspasia was often blamed for results that were out of her hands. Labeled as controversial and even the reason for the Peloponnesian war (according to playwright Aristophanes), she was often ridiculed by other popular philosophers and writers. Aside from Aspasia and Pericles' formal friends and students, others, along with Aristophanes, dismayed Aspasia’s reputation by claiming that she owned a brothel and was a prostitute herself. “Facts”, they claimed, that were never recovered as true in anyone else's writing except for their own. Her beauty, of course, did not help such rumors, especially since she was known to be one of the most charming and attractive women in all of Athens at the time.
Plutarch, another later contributing philosopher, who wrote over 200 hundred works based on ethics, religion, politics and the physical world, praised Aspasia consistently. He often held her in high favor due to her "rare political wisdom" and that she "had the reputation of being associated with a whole succession of Athenians, who came to her to learn rhetoric" (XXIV.3–4). Plutarch, too, would often question: "What great art or power this woman had, that she managed as she pleased the foremost men of the state, and afforded the philosophers occasion to discuss her in exalted terms and at great length."
However, due to the ridiculous threat of being a woman, Aspasia was often attacked, ridiculed, and criticized among the people of Athens; nevertheless, she continued to spread her ideas about equality, education, human emotions (specifically about relationships), and the importance of reason and persuasion. It is the being of rhetoric that begins the search for Truth, and the ability to persuade someone of anything. Persuasion, reasons, and debates are useless, she thought, if they cannot be used to find truth by majority reason.
Unfortunately, after the death of her lover, Pericles, Aspasia’s activity halted, as she no longer had reason to stay in high society. After his passing, Aspasia married a man named Lysicles and had a son. She built a new family that had a lower status, and was less politically involved, so she disappeared from the spotlight. Any other documentation of her life ends there.
Although the information historians know of Aspasia remains few, the influence she had with her neighboring Athenians raises questions of how impactful Aspasia truly was to bother so many important figures in history; pricking their skin with tiny needles by appearing to them as a threat was a great achievement few women succeeded in during that time. Aspasia managed to provoke just enough people with her ideas that her memory lives on in texts, despite the amount being sparse for millennia. Such an influence on powerful, authoritative trailblazers helped defeat the societal norm that gifted some Athenian people a feeling of worth that, even though it lasted briefly, still existed in such a male-dominated society.
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