Aspasia
5th-century BC partner of Athenian statesman Pericles
- Fame56.7
- Momentum0.1
- Academics rank#224
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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…
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The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.
Fame
Falling56.7
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum0.1
Historical24.6
Now attention16.3
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
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Sources
- WikidataHigh confidencewikidata · wikidata.org
- WikipediaHigh confidencewikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
- Pantheon 2.0High confidencedatabase · pantheon.world
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