Talk:Aspasia

"Influential"

Fronticla, it is not POV to call someone "influential." I am not sure why you cannot seem to grasp this. Calling Pythagoras, for instance, "influential" in no way implies that I like or dislike him; it just means that his teachings impacted a lot of people. It is important that we note Aspasia's historical impact in the first sentence. Otherwise, the sentence just tells us she was "an immigrant" and that she was "the lover and partner of the statesman Pericles," which fails to explain why she even has an encyclopedia article in the first place. --Katolophyromai (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes it is POV in the context of the first sentence of an article here. Anyone who has influenced even one person can be considered "influential", depending how one looks at it. It's best to keep the intro sentence simple and stick to the facts. Fronticla (talk) 22:38, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

First of all, you seem to be misunderstanding what "influential" means; in order to be properly described as "influential" a person must have influenced many people (or at least a noteworthy number of people with high significance), not just a few random people. Second of all, the introduction is simple and factual the way it is already stated; I do not understand why you seem to think that calling Aspasia "influential" is somehow opinionated, because it is not. Calling someone "famous" is not opinionated either; it just means that a large number of people have heard of the person and has no implication whatsoever of how the writer feels about him or her. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:49, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Meaning of the name "Aspasia"

The text says, "Her name, which means "the desired one . . . ." I think we need a source for this, or a breakdown into the component elements. Is it Greek? The Perseus encyclopedia interprets it as "Warmly Welcomed," but again without a source or support. NotkerQ (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2020 (UTC)NotkerQ

WP:URFA/2020 notice

Reviewing this old featured article as part of WP:URFA/2020, I am concerned that it may not meet the modern FA criteria. Most significantly, the article relies heavily on ancient writers – Plutarch, Xenophon, Thucydides, etc. – outdated nineteenth-century books, and sources of questionable reliability (e.g. a bachelor's degree thesis). By contrast, more modern sources – for example, this book (and its many reviews), this book, this article, this book, this article, and others – are cited only sparsely or not at all. This is particularly problematic since modern scholars seem to be skeptical of the traditional accounts of Aspasia's life, as the article explains. Some text lacks citations altogether. The lead is short, and the sections on literature and art need expansion. Verification may also be a problem: for instance, a scholarly consensus claim that "these statements are generally regarded as false" doesn't seem to be backed up by the cited source, and the same is true for the claim that "It is apparent that she belonged to a wealthy family" due to her education. If these concerns are not addressed, the article may be taken to featured article review, where editors will consider whether to delist it. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that there's a need to bring this article up to scratch if it is to remain featured. I think I can get access to Madeleine Henry's Prisoner of History, which looks like the obvious starting point. Aside from the sourcing issues, I have structural questions about why we relatively uncritically give a biography of Aspasia first and only afterwards point out that the ancient sources are almost entirely unverifiable, frequently written long after Aspasia's life, and generally pretty dubious. And I suspect the "modern literature" and "in contemporary art" sections can be amalgamated into some sort of more structured "Reception" section. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I've now started making notes on Prisoner of History. Next on my list is Rebecca Futo Kennedy's Immigrant Women in Athens, which has a chapter devoted to Aspasia. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 19:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Redrafting Aspasia

Following Extraordinary Writ's notice above about reassessing this article in light of the modern interpretation of the featured article criteria, I started doing some reading and pretty soon decided that while most of the actual content of the article is pretty solid, I have enough issues with the structure and sourcing that it might be easier(?!) to redraft it from scratch. Broadly my concerns with the article as it stands are:

• Sourcing:
  • Use of primary sources – as observed by EW, there are several citations to primary sources which are, uh, questionable.
  • Outdated/non-specialist secondary sources – is there any good reason to cite an 1857 "Cyclopedia of Female Biography"?! What about a 1934 commentary on Plato's Symposium?
  • Lack of use of the best available sources – the only book-length academic treatment of Aspasia is Madeleine Henry's Prisoner of History, which is cited a grand total of five times. Nicole Loraux's 2003 paper is cited once. Rebecca Futo Kennedy includes a chapter on Aspasia in her 2014 Immigrant Women in Athens – one of the most recent substantial treatments of Aspasia – which is uncited.
• Structure:
  • What ancient sources we have about Aspasia, and whether or not we can trust what they say, is pretty crucial to understanding her biography. Given that there's a section on it, I don't understand why we're sticking it down the bottom, after we've already discussed her biography and ancient reception
  • On the topic of ancient reception, we hear about "Personal and judicial attacks" - which, given the article is (I think correctly!) skeptical of the historicity of the judicial attacks, is effectively "reception in ancient comedy" - then "later years and death", and then "references in philosophical works". I understand why the article was written like this, but I think it would make more sense to fully treat Aspasia's life, and then move on to discussing her ancient reception.
  • The discussion of A's modern reception is split over two sections ("Modern literature" and "In contemporary art"); it isn't clear to me that it's useful to separate literature and art like this
• Content:
  • We discuss A's ancient reception, and her 19th century reception; is there anything to say about medieval/early modern treatments? Henry has a dozen pages on the subject!
  • When it comes to the modern reception of A, the article reads like a bunch of disconnected facts to me – it just mentions a load of works which feature her. We should probably try to discuss different strands of how A was portrayed, with relevant examples (as a romantic figure through her relationship with Pericles; as a feminist icon e.g. appearing in Judy Chicago's Dinner Party)

Therefore, I've started to draft an alternative article on Aspasia from scratch which will try to fix these problems here. It's not yet complete – I still need to read at least the second half of Henry's book and Geraths & Kennerly's article "Painted Lady: Aspasia in Nineteenth Century European Art" in order to write up a "modern reception" section, and the lead is kinda minimalist at the moment and will need expanding once that is done – but I figure there's now enough there that interested parties can take a look at my proposed approach and tell me whether or not I'm being completely stupid in even suggesting this. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 10:47, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work on this! Your draft improves immensely on the current article with respect to structure, sourcing, and due weight, and it reads much more coherently as a result. (I'm delighted that one of my FAR notices is actually resulting in improvements to the article: most of the time, they're just ignored and the article gets delisted—hardly a win for anyone.) Feel free to take your time writing the rest of it: there's certainly no rush. By the way, I noticed that Pericles was given an FAR notice recently. The issues are fairly similar (dated sourcing, etc.), so if you're interested in a another (somewhat larger!) project, you might take a look once you're finished here. Best regards, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:02, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Hellos, I came over for a read after seeing the note at WP:WIG. The article seems much improved, although I wonder how much an article can be revamped before it needs to go through a review process again. I added a a couple of wikilinks and had a few brief comments on readability:

•  there's "prominent hetaerae such as Phryne" then later "hetaira ("courtesan")" so the first mention should explain the term
• "two pornai" i'd say it's worth explaining what pornai means
• Honoré Daumier's lithograph of Socrates at the House of Aspasia depicts as an Aspasia identified in its caption as a "lorette", an ambiguous social position which referred to "loose, vulgar or 'liberated' women" -this reads a bit garbled and also who is being quoted?
• "Meanwhile, the authors" - using meanwhile seems strange
• The twentieth century saw both interest in Aspasia separately from her relationships with men, and on the other hand more prurient concern with her sexuality i think that could be rephrased
• thanks for an interesting read, best of luck with the article Mujinga (talk) 21:43, 14 February 2022 (UTC) 

Thanks for the notes! I've fixed the gloss and link to hetairai so it goes with the first mention, and added a gloss to pornai. (It might be worth adding a footnote which goes into a little more detail on the division between pornai, hetairai, and pallakai, actually? I shall have to think on it.)

Regarding your other notes – generally I think the prose in the last few paragraphs could stand a bit of tightening up, with the last sentence you quote being prime example. I will have to take another crack at it when I get the time to go over it properly. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:04, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Extraordinary Writ, Caeciliusinhorto, Mujinga does this article now meet the featured article criteria or is there still more work to do? Z1720 (talk) 23:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@Z1720: I'm pretty much happy with it at this point, though I am of course rather involved as I pretty much wrote the entire article in its current state. I certainly don't have any plans for any more substantial changes Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: If you think the article meets the featured article criteria, can you mark it as satisfactory at WP:URFA/2020A? It's OK that you are involved in the article (we actually encourage those involved in the article to review them) and it lets the URFA/2020 team know who to ping if they have any additional concerns. Z1720 (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

@Z1720 – I've done as you suggested, and noted that I rewrote the article. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:34, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Aspasia plays a very important role in the AAA game Assassin's Creed Odyssey. A franchise which is known for it's storytelling. Should this be mentioned in the section on modern reception? The title of the section doesn't quite fit the contents of the section which focusses a lot on modern representations. Here's two sources (with potential spoilers): link 1, link 2. PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 21:03, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

When I wrote that section I did look for sources discussing how Aspasia is represented in Assassin's Creed, as I imagine many of this article's readers are most familiar with her portrayal there. I wasn't really able to find any sources which really discussed her portrayal, though. Of the two you link, the first doesn't really say much about her representation; the second is the personal website of someone who doesn't appear to have any particular expertise and therefore is not a reliable source for this article. If you can come up with sources which do discuss Aspasia's representation in AC, especially in the context of the history of her representation more generally, I would be delighted to see them! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:24, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

How about this [1]. 2001:4455:30B:6C00:FC40:12EE:915F:4BC4 (talk) 11:55, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

There's also this Screenrant article, this Gamerant article, and this Mashable article which predated the release of AC: Odyssey but speculated on the inclusion of Aspasia. But from all of that, there's really no there there; we can summarise the characterisation of Aspasia in Assassin's Creed from that (the usual tropes of relationship with Pericles, association with courtesans, involvement in politics, plus a good throwback to the old comedy "she's the one behind all the wars"), but the sources don't link any of that to the historic traditions of Aspasia's portrayal, so we can't do any of that for WP:SYNTH and WP:OR reasons, and reliable sources about Aspasia haven't yet discussed this, so there's also a potential WP:WEIGHT problem. I just can't think of a way to incorporate it other than just tacking "Aspasia featured as a character in the video game Assassin's Creed: Odyssey" onto the end of the article, in a way which is completely unsatisfying and seems totally disconnected from the rest, or doing some seriously questionable original research/synthesis of sources.

I have no doubt that the next time someone publishes anything academic on the recent reception of Aspasia, Odyssey will get discussed, so it's just a question of waiting for the reliable sources on this to catch up to modern popular culture. In the meantime, if anyone has any better ideas I'm all ears! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:15, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Ah, this book looks slightly better, though the apparently crucial pages (p.39-40) are not available to me through GBooks' preview. If it does go on to talk about Aspasia and how she is characterised in the game, there might be enough to justify a brief mention. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:28, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Replying to myself 8 months on: turns out that Classical Antiquity in Video Games that I linked above hasn't got any more coverage of Aspasia than a passing mention, but since then Women in Classical Video Games has been published, with two chapters on AC: Odyssey, including "Prostitution and Power in Assassin's Creed Odyssey" which discusses the representation of Aspasia in some depth. Will draft up a way to work this into the last paragraph... Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:24, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: History of Science to Newton

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2022 and 12 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Patt0400 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Patt0400 (talk) 18:04, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Rhetoric sidebar

@Trakking: I really continue to think that the rhetoric sidebar is not helpful in this article. The sidebar denotes the article as "part of a series on rhetoric", but this article is not "on rhetoric", even if the topic of rhetoric comes up in it. You say in your edit summary that "Aspasia's connection to rhetoric is mentioned SEVEN times" in the article, which is true but that doesn't suggest a strong connection to the subject to me – that's seven uses of the word "rhetoric" in 2699 words. By comparison Quintilian, whose connection to rhetoric is clear, uses the word or its derivatives 22 times in the body text in only 2232 words, and Isocrates has 32 mentions in an even shorter article. On the other hand Aspasia uses the word "courtesan" six times, "hetaira" three (once overlapping with "courtesan"), and "prostitute"/"prostitution" four times, and yet we do not use any template connecting Aspasia to prostitution.

So much for the case for the sidebar. Against the sidebar we have WP:NPOV and WP:V. The sidebar uncritically lists Aspasia as a rhetorician: modern scholarship on Aspasia recognises that Aspasia has historically been associated with rhetoric, but does not call her a rhetorician without qualification. Madeleine Henry, for instance, discusses how e.g. Plato makes Aspasia the author of the funeral oration in Menexenus but does not say at any point that she was herself a rhetorician. In writing the article I was careful not to call Aspasia a rhetorician in wikivoice because the sources do not support that. Additionally, we have the fact that almost none of the links here are relevant to readers of this article. Other than the ancient figures already mentioned and linked in the body text of the article, I have a hard time imagining which of the links in this enormous template are going to be relevant to people reading about Aspasia. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:14, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Being a hetaira is not something that will give a person historical significance. Aspasia is identified as a rhetorician and a teacher in Rhetoric throughout the article, if you haven't noticed. And she is mentioned as a prominent rhetorician several times in the main article on Rhetoric as well, validating her status in the discipline. And, of course, there is additional authoritative literature to cite on this point. (I have studied Rhetoric at university for one year: I know.)

The template takes up little space; it is not "enormous" unless a person opens the collapsed lists; and templates are commonly incorporated into articles on all sorts of topics. Sometimes they are out of place, so for instance I just removed a Linguistics template from the article on Rhetoric, because these are separate domains: Linguistics is technical and scientific, Rhetoric is more psychological, passionate, imaginative etc. But in this case the template is highly relevant. Trakking (talk) 16:03, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Being a hetaira is not something that will give a person historical significance. Nonsense. Phryne is the most obvious counterexample.

Aspasia is identified as a rhetorician and a teacher in Rhetoric throughout the article, if you haven't noticed. as I wrote most of the current article, I have in fact noticed that she is not identified either as a rhetorician or as a teacher of rhetoric: we are careful to say that she was portrayed in ancient sources as a rhetorician and teacher of rhetoric.

And she is mentioned as a prominent rhetorician several times in the main article on Rhetoric as well: by my count she is mentioned twice in rhetoric, once without a citation, and the other time qualified as "believed to be". At any rate, wikipedia articles are not a reliable source and when our wikipedia article on rhetoric contradicts the consensus of ancient historians then we should go with the academic consensus. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

If all Ancient authorities on the topic believed Aspasia to be a rhetorician, then I will believe it as well. Trakking (talk) 17:08, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

You can believe whatever you want (though it is far from clear that "all ancient authorities" did in fact believe that) but Wikipedia believes what the consensus of reliable sources believe. WP:SIDEBAR is clear that the threshold for including a "part of a series" sidebar in an article is fairly high and the articles "should be fairly tightly related"; this article does not meet that threshold. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:29, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Aspasia does qualify for representation and she is worthy of that honour. Why else would the literature on Rhetoric mention her as a prominent figure? Trakking (talk) 17:39, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

The question isn't whether Aspasia qualifies for representation in the template – I don't care about that. The question is whether the template qualifies for inclusion in the article on Aspasia. The idea that we should be honouring Aspasia is just a fundamental misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is: see e.g. WP:RGW and WP:PROMO. As for whether the literature on rhetoric mentions Aspasia as a prominent figure: that rather remains to be demonstrated. She doesn't appear, for instance, in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric, or indeed any of the other five or six book length surveys of ancient rhetoric that I just checked at random out of the ones which came up in searches of archive.org. What reliable sources support that Aspasia is an important figure in rhetoric on a level with Quintilian or Isocrates or any of the other figures in this sidebar? And how do you envision this sidebar being of use to readers of this article? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:23, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Scholars and common people alike know Aspasia as a rhetorician: this makes the template relevant. I can cite literature that mentions her. Trakking (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

What specific reliable sources describe Aspasia as a prominent figure in rhetoric? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:33, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Here are several authoritative books that identify Aspasia as a rhetorician:

• Talande kvinnor – kvinnliga retoriker från Aspasia till Ellen Key ["Female rhetoricians from Aspasia to Ellen Key"] by professor emerita in rhetoric Brigitte Mral.
• Retorik för lärare ["Rhetoric for teachers"] by professor in rhetoric Anders Sigrell.
• A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography by Henry Gardiner Adams.
• The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction (p. 45) by James A. Herrick.

The first book even identifies Aspasia as a rhetorician in its very title. This book is included in the curriculum for many different university courses in rhetoric in Sweden. Trakking (talk) 19:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

This is not how it works. Aspasia is not primarily known as a "rhetorician" and this kind of template cannot be thrown in any article on people who practised rhetoric at some point in their life. It's like adding the template War in articles about people who served in the army. T8612 (talk) 13:20, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

@T8612: Let me remind you of the definition of rhetorician, which you put in scare quotes for some unknown reason. It is: "an expert in formal rhetoric." The most authoritative sources on the history of Rhetoric as a formal discipline highlight Aspasia as a prominent exponent. And yes, the main thing Aspasia has been known for throughout history is as a rhetorician. Trakking (talk) 14:08, 31 October 2023 (UTC)