12-09-2007, 01:08 PM
Also Cepheus, about whom there's a bit of a mystery, not clearly addressed by Allen: was he an African king, or not? It is very tempting (and not, modernists will excuse me — or not — on the oily grounds of "multiculturalism" and other cant-words of our Zeitgeist) to see in that constellation one more link among many between the ancient Mediterranean and ancient Africa. Allen's quick gallop thru the matter brings up the whole business of the two Aethiopias, on either side of Arabia; for which there seems to be some evidence.
In re Aspasia, Jona: her career, so to speak, got better by far in the Middle Ages as we know (as did Alexander's and Alcibiades') — might you consider a second page on that? It would be a very interesting one, I think, and you're the guy to write it.
   A very quick poke around Elfinspell, a quirky but very rich repository of medieval and Renaissance stuff, turns up the statement by the way that "she is said to have studied under Gorgias of Leontini". Any idea what the source of that 19c statement is? If true, might she not have had something to do with coaching Pericles after all, without that being demeaning?
   There's also another passage in Elfinspell about Aspasia reconciling Xenophon and his wife, which sounds plausible enough.... Like I said, disentangling fact and medieval embroidery might be instructive and entertaining.
B
In re Aspasia, Jona: her career, so to speak, got better by far in the Middle Ages as we know (as did Alexander's and Alcibiades') — might you consider a second page on that? It would be a very interesting one, I think, and you're the guy to write it.
   A very quick poke around Elfinspell, a quirky but very rich repository of medieval and Renaissance stuff, turns up the statement by the way that "she is said to have studied under Gorgias of Leontini". Any idea what the source of that 19c statement is? If true, might she not have had something to do with coaching Pericles after all, without that being demeaning?
   There's also another passage in Elfinspell about Aspasia reconciling Xenophon and his wife, which sounds plausible enough.... Like I said, disentangling fact and medieval embroidery might be instructive and entertaining.
B
