Athen. xiii. 50. Footnote 124: Athen. xiii. 56.—Diog. Laert. v. 12. Footnote 125: Diog. Laert. iii. 31. ----- Of all these ladies, however, not even excepting Phryne, or the Sicilian Laïs,[126] Aspasia[127] has obtained the most widely extended fame. This illustrious woman, endowed by nature with a mind still more beautiful than her beautiful form, exercised over the fortunes of Athens an influence beyond the reach of the greatest queen. Her genius, unobserved for some time, by degrees drew around her all those whom the love of letters or ambition induced to cultivate their minds. Her house became a sort of club-room, where eloquence, politics, philosophy, mixed with badinage, were daily discussed, and whither even ladies of the highest rank resorted to acquire from Aspasia those accomplishments which were already beginning to be in fashion. From her Socrates professed to have in part acquired his knowledge of rhetoric, and it is extremely probable that he could trace to the habit of conversing with one so gifted by nature, so polished by rare society, something of that exquisite facility and lightness of manner which characterize his familiar dialectics. No doubt, we may attribute something of the reputation she acquired to the desire to disparage Pericles. It was thought that by appropriating many of his harangues to her they could bring him down nearer their own level. She was, in influence and celebrity, the Madame Roland of Athens, though living in times somewhat less troubled. ----- Footnote 126: She was a native of Hyccara, but taken prisoner in childhood, and carried to Corinth, whence that city has generally the honor of being regarded as her birthplace.—Athen. xiii. 54.—Cf. Thucyd. vi. 62. Sch. Aristoph. Lysist. 179. Footnote 127: Of the younger Aspasia, who had the reputation of being the loveliest woman of her time, we have the following sketch in Ælian:—“Her hair was auburn, and fell in slightly waving ringlets. She had large full eyes, a nose inclined to aquiline, (ἐπίγρυπος) and small delicate ears. Nothing could be softer than her skin, and her complexion was fresh as the rose; on which account the Phoceans called her Milto, or ‘the Blooming’. Her ruddy lips, opening, disclosed teeth whiter than snow. She, moreover, possessed the charm on which Homer so often dwells in his descriptions of beautiful women, of small, well-formed ankles. Her voice was so full of music and sweetness, that those to whom she spoke imagined they heard the songs of the Seirens. To crown all she was like Horace’s Pyrrha, simplex munditiis, abhorring superfluous pomp of ornament.”—Hist. Var. xii. 1. Some persons, however, would not have admired the nose of Milto:—thus, the youth in Terence (Heauton, v. 5. 17. seq.) “What? must I marry” “Rufamne illam virginem Cæsiam, sparso ore, adunco naso? Non possum, pater.”