The salon of Aspasia was the first of which we have any record. The stars of the Attic world gathered there, men who were in the advance-guard of Hellenic thought. Reclining on the many-colored cushions beneath the white pillars, with pictured walls and rare tapestries and exquisite statues of Greek divinities about them, they talked of the new temples; of the last word in art; of the triumph of Sophocles, who had just won the prize of tragedy in the theater of Dionysus; perhaps of Æschylus, who had gone away broken-hearted; of happiness, morals, love, and immortality. The thoughtful woman who sat there radiant in her saffron draperies was not silent. Men marveled at her eager intellect, her grasp of Athenian possibilities; they were charmed with her graceful ways and musical speech. We hear of symposia in other houses, where a Theodota dances, the free wit of Lais flashes, and conversation glides on a low and vulgar level, but no wife or daughter ever appears. There is nothing to indicate that the coterie of Aspasia was otherwise than decorous. Music there was, as the accomplished Ionian played the cithara with skill and taste. Wit there must have been, as no company of Athenians was ever without it. But more was said of its serious side. One of the sons of Pericles, angry because his father would not give him all the money he wished, ridiculed this circle of philosophers and the hours they spent in discussing theories or splitting metaphysical hairs. Their learned disquisitions were not at all to the taste of the pleasure-loving youth.
A few men had the courage to bring their wives, and Aspasia talked to them of their duties and the need of cultivating their minds. Nor did she forget the value of manners and the graces. It is said that she wrote a book on cosmetics; but all her teaching, so far as we know it, went to show that personal charm lay not so much in physical beauty as in the culture of the intellect. The few direct words we have from her lips prove that, with a clear sense of values, she was the true child of an age and race that was singularly devoid of sentiment. If she taught Socrates in some things, she was evidently his pupil in others. This is curiously illustrated in an anecdote related by Æschines.
“Tell me,” says Aspasia, one day, to the wife of Xenophon, “if your neighbor had finer gold than you have, whether you would prefer her gold or your own.”
“I should prefer hers,” was the reply.
“Suppose that she had dresses and ornaments of more value than yours; would you prefer your own or hers?”
“Hers, to be sure.”
“If she had a better husband than you have, which would you choose?”
The lady blushed and was silent.
The hostess then turned to the husband with like questions.
“I ask you, O Xenophon, whether, if your neighbor had a better horse than yours, you would prefer your own or his.”