[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.”
Aristotle (Rhet. i. 2) does not undervalue the slightly aquiline nose; and Plato appears rather to have admired it in men.—Repub. v. § 19. t. i. p. 392.—Stallb. where the philosopher calls it the Royal Nose.
[128]. Poseidip. ap. Athen. xiii. 60.
[129]. Honest old Burton, whom few anecdotes of this description escaped, imagines this artifice to have been the only defence he made.—Anatomy of Melancholy, ii. 222.
[130]. Athen. xiii. 59. seq.
[131]. Athen. xiii. 59.—In the apprehension of Lucian, too, they were anything but mercenary; and stripped themselves cheerfully of all their personal ornaments to bestow them, like so many sisters, on the person they loved.—Diall. Hetair. vii. 1.
[132]. Athen. xiii. 64.