I HAD NOT SEEN my sister or brother-in-law since the day of the Grand Procession. After my reading with Diotima, I was feeling optimistic, so I decided to stop by their house on my way home. I dreaded coming face-to-face with Alkibiades after he had burst in on our party, but I wanted to share with my sister the news of my pregnancy. I had not told anyone yet, not even Perikles, but it seemed appropriate for a motherless girl to reveal her first pregnancy to the woman who raised her before revealing it to the man who got her into the condition. Besides, Alkibiades was undoubtedly at Pheidias’ trial, snooping around with the rest of the old men.
After returning from exile, Alkibiades had moved into his family’s house in the city. The house was already occupied by his mother, one of her widowed sisters, and several female relatives. Some of the younger women were also widowed, and their children, along with Kalliope’s children, ran through the house at all times. I remembered how delighted I was when Perikles moved me into his house. Though I had been insecure as to my place in his life and whether he would keep me for a long time or throw me out after he tired of me, at least, at his quiet home, I could think, read, and write.
Two female slaves who remembered me from my tenure at the house were sprinkling buckets of ash from the kitchen fires around the garden plants to fertilize them when they saw me coming. “Please tell my sister that I have come to visit her,” I said.
Both women hurried inside the courtyard as if it would take two to make known one guest. But that was the way with slaves, always trying to get out of work by any means possible, no matter how obvious. They did not return, nor did my sister. I waited, and then I heard the voice of Alkibiades announcing his hostile mood.
“Where is that woman? How does she have the audacity to come to this house where respectable women reside?” His bark was like that of an old dog who could no longer attack on behalf of his master, but was left only with the ability to growl. He had been in the middle of his meal and had not bothered to put down the bread he was eating. He came at me, shaking the loaf in his hand as if it were a weapon.
“You will not enter this house! You will not corrupt my wife as you have corrupted other ladies of Athens!”
Truly, he did look like one of the mangy old dogs that haunted the marketplace.
“What inane things are you going on about, Alkibiades?” I asked. “I have come to see my sister, whom I love. I know that she wishes to see me.”
Kalliope came running out of the house, catching up with him and grabbing his arm, making him drop his bread.
“See what you’ve made me do?” he said to his wife. “Now pick it up and go inside. I will deal with Aspasia.”
“But she is my sister!” Kalliope protested. More slaves and other women of the house came into the courtyard to see what the excitement was about.
“And you will never see her again!” he yelled, casting her off of his sleeve. She stumbled backwards, and I was afraid he was going to hit her.
“Go inside, Kalliope,” I said. “I will talk to Alkibiades. Everything will be fine.”
She backed out of the courtyard, taking the other women with her. When they were inside, Alkibiades turned to me, snarling. “I saw what happened at your house with my own eyes. I always knew that you were a troublemaker, but I never dreamt that you would ply your trade to corrupt innocent women!”
“You must explain yourself. I have no idea what you are talking about. I shall have to assume that you have finally gone insane, a fate that I predicted for you long ago,” I said. “Or is it merely old age?”
He wanted to strike out at me, but he dared not for fear of Perikles’ wrath. That was all that stood between a black eye and me.
“You invited married women of Athens into your home to turn them into prostitutes for Perikles’ pleasure. Pheidias siphoned off gold for him, and you procured women for him. All of Athens is being made to serve the needs of your lover. It is out of hand, and it is going to stop.”
“How have you invented this story out of what you saw? No women were serving the needs of Perikles. He was in his own bed, fatigued with company,” I said. Would I actually have to refute these fantasies of his in order to visit with my sister? “Come now, I have come to share some personal news with my sister. It is family business, women’s business. You needn’t concern yourself with our mundane conversation.” I tried to placate him so that I could have a few words with Kalliope and go home, but he was not backing off.
“You gave the women bowls of wine to subvert their judgment, such as it is, and you staged acts of fornication to excite them so that you could send them into the bedroom to please your lover. Some of your guests witnessed everything. It’s an outrage, but it does not surprise me that you cannot satisfy the man and that his need for other women grows. What man wants a woman like you? You will leave my premises and never return. We are done with you, Aspasia.”
His accusation was so outlandish that I could not respond. I had to go home to try to sort it all out. Would he really keep my sister from me? For the rest of our lives? I did not want to irritate him further, because whenever I did, Kalliope paid the price, often with a bruise to her arm or her face. I would have to let his ire fade. Perhaps in a few weeks I would be able to see her again.
I did have one question for him, however. It baffled me that he was at home on this day.
“Why are you at home and not gloating at the trial of Pheidias?” I asked.
“The trial is over,” he said, snickering. “It did not take long.”
“And the outcome?”
“I won’t give you the satisfaction, Aspasia. You will have to find out for yourself. But let me make myself clear. You won’t get off so easy. You defiled the goddess. You defiled the women of Athens. You are a dirty, evil girl. If left to run loose, you will turn the world upside down. Never show your face at my house again.”
SAYING GOODBYE TO PHEIDIAS, just one week after the outcome of his trial, was one of the saddest things I have ever had to do. Once the gold was removed from the statue of Athena and weighed, and the evidence presented at his trial, he was easily acquitted. His accusers tried to argue that he had mixed a worthless material in with the gold to make the weight appear to be correct.
“I fear that Pheidias will be brought to trial again, Aspasia,” Perikles said, the evening after the verdict came in. “This is Athens, and Athenians love nothing more than exercising their right to prosecute fellow citizens. Pheidias’ acquittal has done nothing to quiet the vicious tongues. I am sending him off to Olympia on a commission to make another ivory and gold colossal figure, this time of Zeus, at the temple. Of course we shall miss him, but it is for his own good.”
Once Perikles made up his mind, there was little anyone could do to sway his thinking.
“And my good too?” I suspected that in sending Pheidias away, Perikles was trying to protect me. If someone succeeded in bringing him to a second trial, on charges of impiety, the name on everyone’s lips would be mine.
“Yes, and yours too,” he answered. “I have already discussed it with Pheidias. He is not overjoyed at leaving Athens, but he sees the wisdom in my decision, and he hopes that you will come to see him before he leaves.”
The next day, I found Pheidias in his studio packing his personal belongings. He looked miserable.
“Are you not happy to have another lucrative commission, Pheidias?” I asked.
“I am being sent away from the very city I rebuilt,” he said. “Ironic, no?
“But the gods are ironical in nature, Pheidias. We do not have to attend the theatrical presentations of the great tragedians to know that.”
“The gods are mocking me, Aspasia,” he said bitterly. “Look at Agoracritus!”
The young lover was surrounded by a dozen of Pheidias’ students, showing them, with great animation, some drawings.
“He is so happy that I am leaving him with the commission of the statue of Nemesis at Rhamnous that he’s not even paying attention to t
he fact that I am leaving him.”
I looked at the drawings that Agoracritus was holding up for the students, who would become his assistants on the project. Everyone in Athens had awaited the statue of Nemesis that Pheidias was to create out of the huge piece of marble from Paros that the Persians had arrogantly brought with them to Marathon, intending to create from it their victory statue. The colossal figure of the goddess of vengeance was to go into the temple to Nemesis up the coast from the site of the battle.
“You cannot do everything,” I said, knowing that his sorrow was less in leaving the commission than in learning that his lover wanted the commission more than he wanted Pheidias. But what did these older men expect when they took ambitious underlings into their beds?
“I must tell you,” I added, “that the image he is holding does not resemble Nemesis.” The drawing showed a serene female without any aberrations such as wings. She held an apple branch in her hand, and on her head sat a crown with a small deer and an image of Victory. “I have seen the goddess. She is fearsome, with great wings and a frightening countenance, and is always accompanied by her griffins, the monsters that do her bidding, as she does the bidding of Athena.”
“Agoracritus, come here!” Pheidias called, glad to have a reason to talk to his lover. “Aspasia says that the image of Nemesis does not fit the goddess. Tell him, Aspasia, what your Nemesis looks like.”
I explained to Agoracritus that I had had a vision of Nemesis, which no less an authority than Diotima assured me was accurate. I described it to him in detail, and he smiled. “Oh, I am certain that your description is correct, Aspasia. But no one wants to spend enormous amounts of public funds to make an ugly or frightening image.”
“But why should anyone fear Nemesis when she looks as if she would not harm the smallest creature? How is that fitting?”
“So as not to insult the goddess herself, I will make a promise to you. Somewhere in the temple, I will make an image of her that is consistent with what you have described to me. I will even take the sketches for it to Diotima for her approval. But the grand statue of the goddess that will preside over her magnificent temple by the sea must reflect both the beauty of the building and the beauty of the landscape that surrounds it. Don’t you agree, Pheidias?”
“Oh yes,” he answered indifferently. “I see that you were actually listening to me when I talked.”
Agoracritus kissed Pheidias on the cheek, must as one would do to an elderly grandmother, and went back to his new, adoring pupils.
“And thus the torch is passed,” I said. “Come now, Pheidias, you enjoyed his assistance on your projects and his beautiful body in your bed. What more do you want? I never took you for a romantic.”
He sighed. “I suppose you are correct. It’s just that I do not want to leave Athens before my work is complete. My masterpiece is the Parthenon, but I have designed something much more radical, which I will not be able to see to completion.”
He unrolled master drawings for a building, spreading them out on his table and weighting the edges with stones. “This temple will house the holiest of holy icons. It will replace the old temple to Athena Polias and shelter the olive-wood icon of the goddess. This level will house and protect the rock that Poseidon struck with his trident in the contest with Athena, as well as the sacred olive tree that she planted.”
The temple was most unusual. It had many different levels and rooms, and was highly decorated with friezes and rosettes. I found it to be very beautiful, but in contrast to the solemn Parthenon, it appeared almost gaudy.
“Do you recognize this altar?” he asked.
“Should I?”
“Yes, dear, it is where you passed out at the sacrifice to Pandrosos. I am building this part of the temple around that sacred site. The temple is going to be dedicated as the Erechtheion, in honor of Erechtheus, the first earthborn Athenian. On the very site where the goddess fell from the sky, where she fought Poseidon, and where she flung the semen of Hephaestus to the ground to create the first citizen, the most beautiful and sacred of all temples shall be made. I only wish I would be here to see it.”
“Surely you will visit it, Pheidias. You are going to Olympia, not Hades!”
“Yes, but it won’t be the same as being present while it is being built,” he said. “The design is my most intricate yet. I hope the architects will complete it to my specifications and not take the easy way out.”
I pointed to a row of solemn-looking maidens that seemed to be holding up one of the porches. “Who are these ladies?”
“Ah, the Caryatids. My masterpieces. Are they not lovely? For me, they represent the burden of women, who must carry blame for so many things of which they are innocent.” He put his hand on my face and kissed my forehead, and I started to cry. He was old enough to be my father, and I had been deprived of paternal love for so long.
“Please do not cry,” he said. “I was doing so well stifling my emotions, only allowing myself to show a sour face, when I am feeling grave sorrow.”
“May I give you some news that might put a smile on your face?”
“You may try,” he said, his eyes still focused on his triumphant protégé, whose color seemed to rise as he gathered more of the staff around him. He would be a good leader of men, I thought, but I didn’t have the heart to say it to his heartbroken mentor.
“I am going to have a baby,” I said.
What is it about the prospect of new life that brings such gladness? For the first time today, Pheidias let a smile creep across his face. “How I would like to make a statue of you when you are hugely pregnant!”
“Scandalous, Pheidias. You are naturally impious, just like me. A statue of a harlot pregnant with a bastard! That would set the tongues wagging, wouldn’t it?”
“What does the father say?” he asked.
“He doesn’t know yet. I have been waiting for the right time to tell him.”
“Aspasia, do not lose a minute,” he said, hurrying me out of his studio. “Perikles should not be deprived of this happy news for one moment more.”
IN TRUTH I WAS afraid to tell Perikles about the baby. He had gradually forgiven me for posing for the statue of the goddess, and we had even come to refer to it humorously as my “little indiscretion.” He understood that neither Pheidias nor I had meant any harm, and he regarded the furor over the incident as ridiculous. Nonetheless, he had many enemies, and he did not like giving them cause to fan the flames of political opinion against him.
Still, the baby I was carrying was illegitimate; therefore, its fate was subject to the goodwill of its father. Like me, it would be completely dependent on Perikles’ affection, which though it seemed consistent at least in this man, was subject to whimsy in most men. The baby and I had no legal status in Athens. That was the whole truth of the matter. I had to pray to the gods that Perikles’ love for me would extend to the little creature blossoming inside me.
What if it were female? A thousand prayers begged that it was not. A father was more likely to accept a male bastard. The insults and terrible destinies that awaited a female child without a proper family or name were too numerous to entertain, though entertain them I did in my darkest hours.
Perikles was already at home when I arrived. “It is unusual to see you at home so early in the day,” I said. Normally he was kept busy with his duties well into the evenings.
“Did you see Pheidias? How did you find him?” Perikles asked.
His voice had taken on a formal tone. I could see that he was upset with something.
“Why do you ask?”
“I am concerned that he does not agree with my judgment in sending him away,” Perikles said. “That is all.”
“He is more concerned over leaving that blond Adonis he calls his lover,” I said. “He is quite sorrowful, of course, but he will survive. I am sure that the young apprentices of Olympia are as beautiful as Agoracritus.”
“Oh, I am certain that they are even more handsome and manl
y,” he said. “Our Pheidias will be well taken care of.”
“Is something troubling you?” I asked. Lately, the Spartans had been making noise over some of the alliances that Perikles had forged in what they considered Spartan territory. This had been weighing heavily upon him.
His brow furrowed and the corners of his mouth turned downward. “I was hoping to spare you this news until I could get to the bottom of it.”
“What are you talking about? You are not going away again, are you?”
I had had long months of loneliness and worry while he was away at war with the Samians. I did not want to experience that same despondency while pregnant. Besides, with Perikles away, who knows what insults I would be subject to as the pregnancy became more apparent?
“I heard a rumor today, and I hope that it is not true, though I fear that it is.”
“And what rumor is that?” I had heard so many foul things about myself lately that I imagined myself immune to whatever Perikles had heard.
“They say that you are going to be prosecuted by that acerbic bastard, the comic poet Hermippus.”
“Prosecuted! Me? On what charge?”
“As you know, he is a friend of both Elpinike and Alkibiades, as well as many other people who do not like my policies. The man has made a career out of lampooning me in his plays. He is charging you with impiety for defiling the goddess of the city, and for procuring innocent Athenian women for prostitution.”
I did not know how to respond. I stood still, my arms limp at my side, like the cheap dolls for sale in the agora.
“We will survive this, Aspasia. I will not let them do this to you.”
I put my head against his chest. I was too shocked and too weak to cry again. “But they already are doing it to me, my darling. They have been working toward it for a very long time, and it has already begun.” Then I added: “Perikles, I am pregnant.”
He did not reply but looked at me in astonishment.
“Do you have a response to this news?” I asked.
Still he did not reply. I cannot say it was hesitation. He had the same look I have seen many times when he was weighing the pros and cons of an argument presented to him, or when he was surprised with a request.