Pericles and Aspasia : a story of ancient Greece
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 477-487).

"Two lovers crest the wave of the golden age of Athens: Pericles, statesman and general, and Aspasia, his courtesan, a philosopher's daughter and a brilliant woman in her own right. In a world of hierarchies, he is at the top when she arrives as little more than flotsam cast up on Athenian shores. Their love transcends social sanctions, enduring and deepening despite the grave threat it presents to Pericles' reputation as a leader of the Athenian democracy. The novel unfolds against the background of the arts and history of the Golden Age seen through the eyes of two individuals who lent their particular brilliance to make it "golden," Pericles, the great orator and visionary of democracy and its most influential woman, Aspasia. Their story takes them from the Agora--Athens' marketplace--to the Acropolis, from the mercantile, raunchy Athenian Port Piraeus across the Aegean Sea to East Greece. Pericles and Aspasia--together and apart--navigate treacherous paths from venal calculations to impassioned philosophical inquiry, from high-stakes sea battles to the passions of family life. Pericles and Aspasia engages issues that are vital today--the paradoxes of democracy, the tensions of hierarchy, the ironies of gender, and others--but this novel is immersed in classical Athens: the city, its sunshine, its physical presence, its people and their struggles and aspirations."--,Page 4 of cover.

Yvonne Korshak received her BA cum laude from Harvard, and her MA in Classics and Classical Archaeology and PhD in Art History from the University of California, Berkeley. As a professor at Adelphi University, she has taught Art History and topics in the Humanities, served as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History, Director of the Honors Program in Liberal Studies and Director of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. She has written and spoken widely on topics of Greek art and archaeology and on European painting, particularly on van Gogh, Courbet and David. Her blog, "Let's Talk Off-Broadway," focuses on art and theater. She has excavated at Old Corinth, Greece and, to write this novel, has followed in the tracks of Pericles and Aspasia, visiting almost all the cities and towns, landscapes and seascapes in Greece and in what today is Turkey that figure in this book. The Sword of the War God, a sequel to Pericles and Aspasia, will appear soon.