Aspasia

Aspasia of Miletus was an influential metic woman in Classical-era Athens who, according to Plutarch, attracted the most prominent writers and thinkers of the time, including the philosopher Socrates, to her house, which became an intellectual centre in Athens. Socrates described her as a skilled teacher of rhetoric. She was the companion of the statesman Pericles, with whom she had a son, Pericles the Younger, but the full details of the couple's marital status are unknown. Aspasia is mentioned in the writings of Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon, and others. Although she spent most of her adult life in Greece, few details of her life are fully known. The ancient sources about her life are scant, of often of questionable reliability and contradictory, with some portraying her as an intellectual luminary, rhetorician, and philosopher and others portraying her as a brothel keeper or hetaera. Her role in history provides crucial insight into understanding the women of ancient Greece. Very little is known about women from her time period. One scholar stated that, "To ask questions about Aspasia's life is to ask questions about half of humanity."