Sparagus, or Sparrow-grass. See Botany Index.

ASPASIA of Miletus, a courtezan who settled at Athens under the administration of Pericles, and one of the most noted ladies of antiquity. She was of admirable beauty: yet her wit and eloquence, still more than her beauty, gained her extraordinary reputation among all ranks in the republic. In eloquence she surpassed all her contemporaries; and her conversation was so entertaining and instructive, that notwithstanding the dishonourable commerce she carried on in female virtue, persons of the first distinction, male and female, resorted to her house as to an academy: the even numbered Socrates among her hearers and admirers. She captivated Pericles in such a manner, that he dismissed his own wife, in order to espouse her; and, by her universal knowledge, irresistible elocution, and intriguing genius, she in a great measure influenced the administration of Athens. She was accused of having excited, from motives of personal resentment, the war of Peloponnesus; yet, calamitous as that long and obstinate conflict proved to Greece, and particularly to Athens, it may be suspected that Aspasia occasioned still more incurable evils to both. Her example, and still more her instructions, formed a school at Athens by which her dangerous profession was reduced into system. The companions of Aspasia served as models for painting and statuary, and themes for poetry and panegyric. Nor were they merely the objects, but the authors of many literary works, in which they established rules for the behaviour of their lovers, particularly at table; and explained the art of gaining the heart and captivating the affections. The dress, behaviour, and artifices of this class of women, became continually more seductive and dangerous; and Athens thenceforth remained the chief school of vice and pleasure, as well as of literature and philosophy.