Note 169 — Chapter XLVIII · FROM THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

Plutarch, Periklês, c. 24. Respecting Aspasia, see Plato, Menexenus, c. 3, 4; Xenophon, Memorab. ii, 6, 36; Harpokration, v, Ἀσπασία. Aspasia was, doubtless, not an uncommon name among Grecian women; we know of one Phokæan girl who bore it, the mistress of Cyrus the younger (Plutarch, Artaxer. c. 26). The story about Aspasia having kept slave-girls for hire, is stated by both Plutarch and Athenæus (xiii, p. 570); but we may well doubt whether there is any better evidence for it than that which is actually cited by the latter, the passage in Aristophanês, Acharn. 497-505:—

Athenæus reads the latter, but the reading πόρνα δύο appears in the received text of Aristophanês. Critics differ, whether Ἀσπασίας is the genitive case singular of Ἀσπασία, or the accusative plural of the adjective ἀσπάσιος. I believe that it is the latter; but intended as a play on the word, capable of being understood either as a substantive or as an adjective—ἀσπασίας πόρνας δύο, or Ἀσπασίας πόρνας δύο. There is a similar play on the word, in a line of Kratinus, quoted by Plutarch, Periklês, c. 24.

At the time, if ever, when this theft of the Megarian youth took place, Aspasia must have been the beloved mistress and companion of Periklês; and it is inconceivable that she should have kept slave-girls for hire then, whatever she may have done before.

That reading and construction of the verse above cited, which I think the least probable of the two, has been applied by the commentators of Thucydidês to explain a line of his history, and applied in a manner which I am persuaded is erroneous. When the Lacedæmonians desired the Athenians to repeal the decree excluding the Megarians from their ports, the Athenians refused, alleging that the Megarians had appropriated some lands which were disputed between the two countries, and some which were even sacred property,—and also, that “they had received runaway slaves from Athens,”—καὶ ἀνδραπόδων ὑποδοχὴν τῶν ἀφισταμένων (i, 139). The Scholiast gives a perfectly just explanation of these last words—ὡς ὅτι δούλους αὐτῶν ἀποφεύγοντας ἐδέχοντο. But Wasse puts a note to the passage to this effect—“Aspasiæ servos, v, Athenæum, p. 570; Aristoph. Acharn. 525, et Schol.” This note of Wasse is adopted and transcribed by the three best and most recent commentators on Thucydidês,—Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold. Yet, with all respect to their united authority, the supposition is neither natural, as applied to the words, nor admissible, as regards the matter of fact. Ἀνδράποδα ἀφιστάμενα mean naturally (not Aspasiæ servos, or more properly servas, for the very gender ought to have made Wasse suspect the correctness of his interpretation,—but) the runaway slaves of proprietors generally in Attica; of whom the Athenians lost so prodigious a number after the Lacedæmonian garrison was established at Dekeleia (Thucyd. vii, 28: compare i, 142; and iv, 118, about the ἀυτόμολοι). Periklês might well set forth the reception of such runaway slaves as a matter of complaint against the Megarians, and the Athenian public assembly would feel it so likewise: moreover, the Megarians are charged, not with having stolen away the slaves, but with harboring them (ὑποδοχὴν). But to suppose that Periklês, in defending the decree of exclusion against the Megarians, would rest the defence on the ground that some Megarian youth had run away with two girls of the cortège of Aspasia, argues a strange conception both of him and of the people. If such an incident ever really happened, or was even supposed to have happened, we may be sure that it would be cited by his opponents, as a means of bringing contempt upon the real accusation against the Megarians,—the purpose for which Aristophanês produces it. This is one of the many errors in respect to Grecian history, arising from the practice of construing passages of comedy as if they were serious and literal facts.