viii PREFACE 



where Zeno developed his famous system of ethics. In another 

 quarter were the shady walks of the Lyceum, where Aristotle, 

 "the master of those who know," lectured before an admiring 

 concourse of students from all parts of Hellas. Farther afield, 

 on the banks of the Cephissus, was the grove of Academus, 

 where the divine Plato expounded that admirable idealism 

 which, with Aristotelianism, has controlled the progress of spec- 

 ulative thought for more than twenty centuries, and enunciated 

 those admirable doctrines which have become the common her- 

 itage of humanity. 



But where, in this venerable city "the eye of Greece, mother 

 of arts and eloquence" was the abode of Aspasia, the wife of 

 Pericles and the inspirer of the noblest minds of the Golden Age 

 of Grecian civilization? Where was that salon, renowned these 

 four and twenty centuries as the most brilliant court of culture 

 the world has ever known, wherein this gifted and accomplished 

 daughter of Miletus gathered about her the most learned men 

 and women of her time? Whatever the location, there it was 

 that the wit and talent of Attica found a congenial trysting- 

 place, and human genius burst into fairest blossom. There it 

 was that poets, sculptors, painters, orators, philosophers, states- 

 men were all equally at home. There Socrates discoursed on 

 philosophy; there Euripides and Sophocles read their plays; 

 there Anaxagoras dilated upon the nature and constitution of 

 the universe; there Phidias, the greatest sculptor of all time, 

 and Ictinus and Calibrates unfolded their plans for that supreme 

 creation of architecture, the temple of Athena Parthenos on the 

 Acropolis. Like Michaelangelo, long centuries afterwards, 

 who "saw with the eyes and acted by the inspiration" of Vit- 

 toria Colonna, these masters of Greek architecture and sculpture 

 saw with the eyes and acted by the sublime promptings of 

 Aspasia, who was the greatest patron and inspirer of men of 

 genius the world has ever known. 



I felt then, as I feel now, that this superb monument to the 

 virgin goddess of wisdom and art and science was in great 

 measure a monument to the one who by her quick intelligence, 

 her profound knowledge, her inspiration, her patronage, her 

 influence, had so much to do with its erection the wise, the 

 cultured, the richly dowered Aspasia. 



