Aspasia

5th-century BC partner of Athenian statesman Pericles

  • Fame56.7
  • Momentum0.1
  • Wikipedia23.4K
Source-basedFalling
Lived -470–-400, aged 70Turkey
  • Wikipedia
    56 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    -470–-400
    Aged 70
Summary
Updated 2026-06-08

A woman from Miletus who became Pericles's partner and the most important woman in fifth-century Athens — though almost nothing about her life is certain. Ancient comedians called her a courtesan and blamed her for controlling the statesman; philosophers cast her as a rhetorician sharp enough to have inspired Plato's Diotima.

Biography

About

Aspasia was born in Miletus around 470 BC and moved to Athens as a metic — a resident without citizenship. Sometime between 452 and 441 BC she began a relationship with Pericles, the city's leading statesman; they had a son, Pericles the Younger, and ancient sources suggest he may have defended her against a charge of impiety, though modern scholars suspect that story came from comic theater rather than court record. After Pericles died in 429 BC, she is believed to have married the politician Lysicles; after his death a year later, she vanishes from the record. What survives are two competing…

Where to find them

Platforms

No platforms connected yet.

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Falling
56.7
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum0.1
Historical24.6
Now attention14.5
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
Global rank
Country rank
Category rank
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence