ABSTRACT
Aspasia was born in Miletus, sometime between 470 and 460 BC apparently, she was educated in music and conversation as a hetaira, a high-class paid companion. In fact, the name 'Aspasia' means 'greeting with affection'or 'welcome' and may have been a 'professional'name. As a hetaira, Aspasia was allowed to interact with men more freely than most Athenian women. Some point around 445 BC, the leader Pericles fell in love with Aspasia. Much has been made of Aspasia's connection with Pericles. In his Lives, Plutarch blames Aspasia for convincing Pericles to start a war and tells how Pericles saved Aspasia when she was on trial. According to several sources, Socrates called on her wisdom and Plato used Aspasia as a character in his dialogue Menexenus. There have even been claims that Aspasia was in some sense Socrates' teacher and that she was the ghost writer for some of Pericles' speeches. Plato uses the character of 'Aspasia' to criticize rhetoric.
