CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations Robert D. Cromey aiV€Tm /-LEVTOt JUiAAOV epWTtK7] Tt'> 7} TOV II€pL.KAEoV'> aya- , "'A ' l' \ , ,,.... \ 7T'Y1lTL.'> Y€V0/-L€VTJ 7rpo,> lT7ralTUXv. TJV j.L€V yap aVTcp YVVTJ , , " ,..., ~'~I ' , 7rpOlTTJKovaa JL€V KaTa Y€VO'>, O"VvcpKTJKVL.a 0 7r1TOVL.Kep 7rpO- 'c '" K \ \ ,,, '\' " s:,' , ,~ T€POV, €~ ov al\.l\.uxv €T€K€ TOV 7rI\.OVG"wv· €T€K€ u€ KaL. 7rapa Tep II ~-'(J 'II' l' ~ 13' ,,, €PL.KA€L. :::.av L.7r7rOV KaL. apaAov. €L.Ta TTJ'> O"V/-L ('wG"€W'> OVK OVlTTJ'> , ~, ~,' ,,' 13 \' c's:, , , aVTOL.,> ap€G"TTJ'>, €K€L.VTJV JL€V €T€pep OVI\.OJL€VTJV o"vV€~€uWK€V, aVTO,> BE T,.ryV 'Aa7raaiav Aaf3wv EG"T€pg€ BUXlj>€POVTW'> (Plut. Per. 24). It would seem in fact more an erotic sort of love that Perikles de­ veloped for Aspasia. For while his wife was his kinswoman, she had been wedded first to Hipponikos, from whom she bore Kallias the wealthy; and then while with Perikles she bore Xanthippos and Paralos. Afterwards when life together did not prove apt for them, then at her own wish he assisted in providing a dowry when she married another man, and he, taking up with Aspasia, loved her in quite a different fashion. Plutarch's marital sequence for this thrice-married woman often is denied accuracy, is often accepted, both with equal insouciance due to failure to perform the necessary genealogical calculations. Yet if Plutarch's testimony ultimately cannot be proven right by indepen­ dent evidence (and if that were the case, there would be no cause for dissension), one must admit the weakness of the counter-argument heretofore, to the effect that Plutarch's anonymous lady must first have wed Perikles, then Hipponikos, then someone else. This altera­ tion of Plutarch's sequence was proposed by Beloch long ago and is maintained recently by J. K. Davies. Both Beloch and Davies offer three fundamental objections to accepting Plutarch's sequence. Each objection may be examined in turn: (1) the age of Hipponikos' daughter Hipparete when she wed the famous Alkibiades: Plutarch's testimony appears to make her too old for the match. (2) The age of Hipparete's brother Kallias III Hipponikou: according to Plutarch's marital scheme, he seems too active as a very old man. (3) The ages 203 CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 204 PERIKLES' WIFE: CHRONOLOGICAL CALCULATIONS of Perikles' sons: Plutarch's sequence seems to make them too young to wed.! (1) Hipparete's age. Beloch assumed that if this woman had in fact married Hipponikos II first, engendering both Kallias III and Hip­ parete I, Hipparete would be much older than her husband Alki­ biades. Beloch's fundamental assumption probably is correct, that Alkibiades would not marry an older woman-despite the special and tempting circumstance that Hipparete's father, one of the fifth cen­ tury's wealthiest men, pledged a huge dowry, and a further sum for the birth of a first son (Andoc. 4.13). Beloch's calculations unfortunately are based upon a single incor­ rect assumption: that Hipponikos II engendered both his children (Kallias III and Hipparete) by the same wife, Plutarch's anonymous woman. Hipparete however is nowhere said to be daughter of that woman and of Hipponikos II; the product of that marriage always is said to be Kallias III alone. Hipparete naturally is called Kallias Ill's sister, &SEAl/>i}, and she still is daughter of Hipponikos. But she is his daughter by a second marriage, after Hipponikos had put away Kallias Ill's mother: Kallias is not Hipparete's frater uterinus, he is OUK O!JA>­ J..t7-J'TPW~, not of the same mother.2 W. E. Thompson has, apparently unnoticed, already alighted on this fact.3 One therefore must derive from it the necessary conclusions: (a) that the age of Hipparete at her wedding to Alkibiades III should not and cannot be calculated from the dates of the marriage of Plutarch's anonymous woman to Hip­ ponikos; Hipparete's birth-year is unknown, but it was after that of her brother Kallias III; (b) that Hipparete was younger than Alki­ biades when they wed - or at least, since this assumption is more firmly based in text and in actual marital practice than was Beloch's, it should be the preferred alternative. (2) The age of Kallias III Hipponikou, Hipparete's half-brother, when ambassador to Sparta in 371. Kallias III went to Sparta as am­ bassador on an important mission in 371, and was "still alive, even if not active" in 367/6; "to recede before 450 for his birth year," says Davies (263), "becomes progressively more and more improbable for each additional year. 450 itself is as likely a date as any." Thus Da­ vies' date for Kallias' birth makes him aged about 79 in 371 and 83 in 1 K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte2 11.2 (Strassburg 1916) 35; J. K. DAVIES, Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford 1971: hereafter 'Davies') 262. 2 On the term see Philo, De spec. leg. 3.4 (303), 'Solon's law'; schol. Ar. Nub. 1371; Oem. 57.20; on Kallias as ade/phos of Hipparete, Plut. Ale. 8.8; Hipparete as adelphe of Kallias, Andoc. 4.13; daughter of Hipponikos, Isoc. 16.31, Andoc. 4.13. 3 "Athenian Marriage Patterns: Remarriage," CSCA 5 (1972) 213 0.18. CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 ROBERT D. CROMEY 205 367. If we accept Plutarch's sequence, however, a Kallias born about 456 would be aged 85 in 371, 89 in 367. The sole objection here is general disbelief that so old a man (aged 85) could undertake a trip to Sparta, or rather that the Athenians would vote to send him, since ambassadors were appointed by show of hands and not chosen by lot. Yet there are excellent reasons, general and specific, why Kallias would be appointed to this embassy if ambulatory at all. The general reasons may seem unpersuasive to us, but not to the Athenians. Embassies were preceded by (if they did not necessarily include) a keryx, 'herald'; Kallias' clan were the Kerykes, not for the Eleusinian rites alone but also in diplomacy, a point noted by others.4 Insofar as the word for ambassador, presbys, means 'old man', Kallias was well qualified. To these general reasons Xenophon with his excel­ lent Spartan sources fortunately adds ad hominem explanations for Kallias' presence in 371 (Hell. 6.3.1-5). In Xenophon's reconstruction of his speech, Kallias informs the Spartans that he is a most apposite head for this mission because (a) he is a Spartan proxenos in Athens, having inherited that post from his illustrious, much-traveled grand­ father; (b) the Athenians usually chose men of his family to wage war (not an idle boast: Plut. Arist. 5.5, Thuc. 3.91.4, Xen. Hell. 4.5.13) and to arrange peace (cj. Hdt. 7.151, Diod. 12.7). (c) The Athenians already have sent him twice to Sparta to arrange a cease-fire and a peace, and both times he was successful. (d) A priest of Demeter, he requests that the ravages of the Athenian cereal crops be ended. It matters little whether we think Kallias' reasoning is persuasive our­ selves, for as Xenophon pointedly says, most of Kallias' speech is an excuse for his being there at all; although imposing, Kallias is a figure­ head. Serious proposals are made later by eight other men. Clearly Kallias was an appropriate and necessary head of the mis­ sion in 371 no matter what his age. One further piece of Kerykid chronology yet allows an older Kallias in 371: as Davies himself calculates, Kallias' grandfather Kallias II served as ambassador to distant Susa at age 81, and again to Sparta at age 84, about the same age at which his grandson is to be thought too feeble to travel the same roads. For these Kerykids were very much what Davies calls them, a family of "long-lived men" (262-63, 269). Accordingly an argument that Kallias Hipponikou, aged 85 in 371, was too old to be selected as head of a mission to Sparta seems in- 4 D. J. Mosley and F. Adcock, Diplomacy in Ancient Greece (New York 1975) 153. The embassy generally, Mosley, "The Athenian Embassy to Sparta in 371 B.C.," PCPhSN.S.8 (1962) 41-46. CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 206 PERIKLES' WIFE: CHRONOLOGICAL CALCULATIONS substantial. This argument was the most serious objection to ac­ cepting Plutarch's testimony on our anonymous woman's marriage to Hipponikos. (3) The ages of Xanthippos Perkleous and his brother when wed. Two out of three arguments in favor of rearranging Plutarch's testi­ mony seem on close inspection to be quite weak. One has less suc­ cess in demolishing the third argument because evidence is so slight that a case for rearranging Plutarch's sequence, or for preserving it, might be made with equal conviction. Into the balance therefore may be thrown a piece of new testimony, from Plato.5 According to Plutarch (Per. 37.3) Perikles' sons were born before 451, when he passed his citizenship law (c! Arist. A th. Pol. 26.4). Perikles' sons were married men when they died ca 430, preceding in death their father and his anonymous sister (Per. 16.4). One of Plutarch's principal sources on their lives was the acerbic Stesim­ brotos of Thasos, who recorded-or rather narrated (Per. 13.11, 16.4, 36.1-3) - the story of a quarrel between Perikles and his sons over their inheritance.6 Their marriage and quarrel, if factual, presuppose perhaps one year's marriage for both sons before their deaths. The fourth century had its own notions on the proper akmai at which to breed eugenically, visible in the works of Xenophon (Mem. 4.4.19-33), Plato (Resp. 461c, Leg. 838A-C, 924E), Menander (As­ pis 267, 305-15), and Aristotle (e.g. Pol. 1334b30-1336a2). Although these opinions are themselves derived from the works of physicians and natural philosophers (Arist. Pol. 1335a40), and these in turn affected by popular socio-economic currents, popular prejudice sup­ posed that the proper physical akme of the male at marriage and procreation is ca 30-35 years of age (a physical peak merely; mental prime comes later); and there were good reasons why a woman must be younger.7 In actual practice however there were variations from this rule of thumb, depending upon incentive. Davies recalls (268) that Kallias Ill's son Hipponikos III "was probably aged between 20 and 25" when he intended to claim in court (Em.8tKa'eu9at, Andoc. 1.120) one of the daughters of Epilykos. Is there evidence that Peri­ kles' sons married earlier than was customary? 6 The 'Springhouse Decree' (IG }2 54) cannot be dated and "no conclusion with regard to the matrimonial status of Perikles' sons or the birth of grandsons may legiti­ mately be based on this text": A. G. Woodhead, "The Date of the Springhouse De­ cree," ArchCl25126 (1973/4) 757. Cj Davies 457, Thompson (supra n.3) 213 n.18. 6 Stesimbrotos' vicious narrative may be alleviated by considering Kresilas' portrait­ bust of Perikles as dedicated by his son Xanthippos: A. Raubitschek, "Zur Perikles­ statue des Kresilas," ArchCl 25/26 (1973/4) 620-21. 7 Discussion in "Sokrates' Myrto," GrazBeitr 9 (1980) 57-67. CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 ROBERT D. CROMEY 207 In Protagoras Plato presents a mis en scene that appears to depict Kallias III as eldest, Xanthippos and Paralos as next oldest, and Alki­ biades III as youngest of Protagoras' auditors.8 Plato's chronology thus would reflect Plutarch's~ it would even prove that Plutarch was correct. But Plato's whimsy with historical evidence in Protagoras was noticed long ago, by Athenaios (or one of llis personae). Whatever his sources, Athenaios' criticisms strike home (218-19). They are that: (a) the dramatic date of Protagoras must be before 430 because Plato uses Xanthippos and Paralos as actors (although with nothing to say), and they died in 430. (b) Hippias of Elis also is present in Kallias' house, together with TWlI gElIWlI 7TOAtTai TE aVTov (315 c), "of the strangers present, some fellow-citizens of his," an improbable presence (sup­ poses Athenaios) were Athens then warring with Sparta and her allies, including Elis. Athenaios, who has looked, cannot find in his books a period of truce allowing Hippias to visit Athens. (c) Kallias' father Hipponikos II apparently is newly dead (3150), an event occurring shortly before the presentation of Eupolis' Kolakes of 42211 where, says Athenaios, Kallias was shown beginning to squander his father's property. (d) Again, it is Protagoras' second visit to Athens (310E)~ Athenaios calculates this arrival as happening between 425 and 421, and finally selects the late 420's for the dramatic date of Protagoras. But parallel to this chronological confusion, Plato constructs a curi­ ously precise genealogical reckoning. The poet Agathon appears as I ., I ~ 'TI I" t'll lIEOll TL ETL /-tEtpaKLOlI ... 7TatutKa aVUalltOV, a young man s 1 something of a boy ... Pausanias' plaything" (3150-E). Sokrates' friend Hippokrates Apollodorou was ETL yap 7Tatt;, "still a boy," when Protagoras first visited Athens (310E), so that when Sokrates re­ marks that he and Hippokrates are T,/-LE'S yap ETL lIEOt, "still young men," even Plato must intend irony in contrasting Sokrates with Protagoras, since in 432 Sokrates was aged 37, in 420 49 (3148). Xanthippos Perikleous walks on one side of Protagoras, on the other walks KaAALat; <> t17T'TTOlliKOV Kat &SEAcpOt; aVTOV <> <>/-LOf,Lr,TPLOt; TIap­ aAOt; <> TIEptKAEOVt;, "Kallias son of Hipponikos and his brother by the same mother Paralos son of Perikles" (314E). Xanthippos and Paralos are lIEOt, lIEallia-KOt, i,.AtKtWTat, 'coevals' of the sculptor Polykleitos' sons (3280, 319E, 328c). They are acpETOt, like 'sacred cattle' brows­ ing on education aimlessly wherever they find it (320A).9 Sokrates B P. Bicknell, without discussion, notes also that passages of Prl. like 314c-315A suggest that Plutarch was correctly informed: Studies in Athenian Politics and Genealogy (Historia Einzelschr. 19 [1972]) 77 n.3. 9 Perhaps a term anticipating their deaths, since it is used also of those who have been dedicated to the gods, like Euripides' Ion (Jon 822, Plut. Mor. 768B). CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 208 PERIKLES' WIFE: CHRONOLOGICAL CALCULATIONS remarks that neither son of Perikles has inherited his father's arete (319E, cf. Meno 94B). Protagoras answers that it is unfair to judge them, there is still hope: lIEOI. yap (328D). Plato's words mirror the judgement found among Protagoras' own works, for according to Plutarch, Protagoras wrote that Perikles' sons died "when they where youthful and fair," 'T(;w yap viEwlI lIETJlItWlI Oll'TWlI Kat KaAWlI (Mor. 118E: DK 80F9), and in composing Protagoras Plato, despite his re­ markable gift for mimesis, probably helped himself generously to quotations or paraphrases of Protagoras' true opera. For Kallias III, Plato gives no precise term to describe his age. It must be deduced more approximately. To house his philosophers, Kallias has just cleared out his father's treasury (315D, doubtless artistically symbolic rather than real), is newly embarked on con­ structing this "prytaneion of wisdom," as Hippias of Elis generously calls it (337D), and is a mature head-of-house. Alkibiades is shown as much younger. Although Sokrates still may be hunting Alkibiades' fleeting wpa, although Alkibiades may still be KaAo~, nevertheless he is CtllT,P En, CtllT,P f..'ElI'TOI., "yet a man, a true man," because his beard has just come in (309A). And although Plato assumes that Alkibiades and his brother Kleinias IV have been Perikles' wards for some time (320A), if Alkibiades were born by 449, by 432 he would be 17, in 420 an overripe 30 (Athenaios notes these difficulties in a general way, 219F-220A). SO then, although Plato's genealogical details appear curiously pre­ cise, nevertheless in laying out the scene of Protagoras he twice blunders chronologically. He assumes that Kallias is head-of-house by 430. He also describes the occasion as Protagoras' second visit to Athens. But perhaps it is in genealogy rather than in chronology that Plato the historian may be taken more seriously, for one's general impression from Protagoras is that Plato himself thought Kallias III eldest, Perikles' sons younger, and Alkibiades III youngest in respect to one another. These were members of an upper class with whom Plato was intimate, and whatever the date of Protagoras' composition, Kallias III lived long into Plato's prime. To summarize: Hipparete was not the daughter of Perikles' wife and her age therefore is inconsequential for dating the marriages of that woman, or for verifying Plutarch's chronology. Kallias III Hip­ ponikou may have lived amply long to be selected as ambassador to Sparta in 371 at age 85; there were excellent reasons for sending Kallias to Sparta, and his own grandfather provides an almost exact chronological parallel in the ambassadorship. Xanthippos' and Paralos' ages when they wed are uncertain; but Kallias III (as Plato appears to CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 ROBERT D. CROMEY 209 depict him) seems older than his half-brothers, a quotation ascribed to Protagoras appearing to support Plato's evaluation. All this follows the scheme of Plutarch's marital sequence at Pericles 24.5 better than it fits a rearrangement of that sequence. Plutarch's evidence is acceptable, then, if one allows the following chronology. Kallias III Hipponikou II was born ca 457 ~ his mother, Plutarch's anonymous woman, then divorcing Hipponikos married Perikles ca 455/4 (456/5 in any case is Davies' date for her transfer from a first husband to second) ~ her first son by her second known marriage, Xanthippos, was born ca 454/3, making him at least 23 at his death.lO Merely in chronological outline there seems little here to cause unease, and this anonymous woman's discomfort in bearing so many children in such regular succession easily is paralleled in other soci­ eties as well as the Athenian. An objection may be raised at this point, that Perikles' late age at marriage makes Plutarch's chronology unlikely: if born about 494 he would be 39 or 40 at the time of his first marriage.H That it was in fact his first marriage is shown by the names of his sons, since it was customary to name a first son after his grandfather (Xanthippos); a second was named for oneself, but Perikles, sacrificing self-interest, gave his second son instead the democratic, political name Paralos, 'patron saint' of sailors, son of Poseidon, but perhaps really honoring the reconquest of the Helles­ pontine and Asian paralia achieved ca 55l.12 Therefore no 'Perikles' from a previous marriage seems possible, dead as an infant. This objection is countered strongly by Perikles' known devotion to public service and his apparently calculating intention in marrying. Plutarch says both that Perikles took a close-fisted, exacting care of his finances, assigning a talented slave to be his estate's accountant (16.3-5); and that Perikles only exceptionally allowed family matters to distract him from public business (7.4). Both statements are meant to illustrate Perikles' efficient self-discipline in serving the common­ weal. 10 "Hipparete's mother exchanged husbands c. 455," Davies 263. 11 For the date of Perikles' birth see Davies 457. 12 There are alternatives for the derivation of his name, but add to Jacoby's citation of sources (ad FGrHist 328F47-48 n.7) schol.Dem. 2l.l71 (DindJ, that the Para/os "sailed to the Paralia, that is the Asian and Hellespontine. For it was dispatched to the allies if the Athenians wished to command something," and schol. Aeschin. 3.162, that the ship was named for residents of the Attic paralia who manned it. It is curious to be named so directly for a hero (the proper anthroponym would be Paralios, cf Kirchner PA 11611), but parallels perhaps exist: in the first century B.C. [TIlapa'\o~ in the cata­ logue IG 112 1959.6, and in the fourth IIapa'\~~ of Hesperia 19 (950) 28 no.4. CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 210 PERIKLES' WIFE: CHRONOLOGICAL CALCULATIONS For his marriage seems similarly purposed to reduce family life to its necessary minimum, if considered in light of contemporary Athe­ nian attitudes toward 'marriage' (our word: the Greeks had no word for marriage, Arist. Pol. 1253bl0, avwvvf.Wv yap 1} yvvatKO~ Kat av8po~ cnJ'EVet~). It may appear banal to point out that marriages are meant to produce children, but since there were other sexual outlets available, some also producing children, the structural purpose of full marriage in Athenian society needs emphasis: it was the most unas­ sailable way of shifting about within society property and family cults, a civic and religious responsibility for Perikles and any citizen. One reason why this full marriage lacked a name is that it was a trial marriage until a child was born, and vocabulary of ritual bears this out, since a woman was an arotos, 'field', her father by a handshake (the probable meaning of the term E'}"'Ytfr,) lending her over for use but not ownership to her husband in a terminology used also for agricultural implements.13 The birth of a child, presumably meaning a male, meant that provisions of the contract were fulfilled, both her father and her husband achieving transmission of cult and property, since her son eventually succeeded to his share of her father's prop­ erty. Two sons insured such stability, and if one married a kins­ woman, property complexities were reduced to a minimum by keep­ ing them within the (extended) family. The 'marriage', having a­ chieved its purpose, was no longer trial and could, in fact, be dis­ pensed with, both partners able to divorce. These general considerations all seem to typify Perikles' marriage. He married a kinswoman (any first cousin would do), in a union un­ comfortable to both. She produced two sons. She left Perikles on her own initiative to wed again. Securing her dowry's return and her re­ marriage were the legal responsibility of her nearest kinsman; accord­ ing to Plutarch, Perikles helped endower her, probably here meaning that he generously added something to the original dowry she had brought with her and which had never properly 'belonged' to him. 13 TaV1TW 'YIIT/Ulwll 7Taioow E7T' apoT~ UOt 8i8w1-U (vel sim.) , say fathers-in-law to grooms in Menander (Pk. 1013; cf. Dys. 842, Sam. 726 Sandbach); on child-making as a woman's work, J.-P. Vernant, My the et pensee chez les Grecs I (Paris 1974) 140-41; general terminology, H. J. Wolff, "Marriage Law and Family Organization in Ancient Athens," Traditio 2 (1944) 42-65, with A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens I (Ox­ ford 1968) 32 n.1. 'Trial marriage' is exampled in other societies, but for Athens see the suggestions of W. K. Lacey, "Aspects of Greek Marriage," A ULLA, Proceedings and Papers, 13th Congr. (I970) 59-60; The Family in Classical Greece (Ithaca 1968) 198; and Dem. 19.122, Xen. Mem. 2.2.4, PI. Resp. 457ff; the tragedy of a childless woman, Isae. 2.7-9, 7.26. CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 ROBERT D. CROMEY 211 Perikles' marriage thus seems another example of serving state before self: his obligation to the state of transmitting cult and prop­ erty without state intervention was accomplished with dispatch. Only years later he took an interest in the Milesian hetaira Aspasia, and after taking Kleinias and Alkibiades as wards into his house in 447, elevated Aspasia about the same time to the rank of pallake, a legal union because it was defined by law as outside any property con­ siderations whatever-dowry, inheritance of any kind for anyone.14 His growing sons could only approve his consideration of their rights as heirs, and it was only after their deaths and shortly before his own, about 429, that upon Perikles' pleas the demos allowed his nothos by Aspasia to enter Perikles' phratry, become a full citizen, and at that point to assume the name 'Perikles' (Plut. Per. 37.5); if born about 447, he would at age 18 in 429 be ready to enter upon his duty as an ephebe. Viewed in such a light, Perikles' tardiness in marriage fits Plutarch's calculations easily enough; and the kinswoman he took was already of proven fertility (even excepting Hipparete as not her child), a valuable adjunct to a house like Perikles', until then scant of heirs. But if it is only by indirect means that Plutarch's chronology may be justified, perhaps nevertheless it is a constructive step to have indicated the weakness of previous arguments against it. Granted, Plutarch himself sometimes seems arbitrary in his decision whether to accept or reject the chronological evidence. Witness his insouciance in accepting as truth the legend that Solon met Kroisos: not only is the meeting attested by many authors (although clearly Solon wrote nothing about it himself), but, Plutarch continues, it also suits So­ lon's ethos, his loftiness, and his wisdom. 14 Aspasia, pallake in 447: although the son of a pallake necessarily was a nothos (it re­ mains uncertain whether nothoi were citizens: summary of discussion in P. J. Rhodes, "Bastards as Athenian Citizens," CQ N.S. 28 [19781 89-92), it is natural to suppose that Perikles II was born after his father's citizenship law of 451, as Davies does (458). It also is logical to assume that Perikles II was born after his father's divorce. Perikles' wife therefore bore his sons between 454 and 451. Davies presents circumstantial evidence that "Perikles' divorce from his wife happened at least five years before his relationship with Aspasia began," evidence perhaps untroubled by Davies' decision (263, 457) to place Perikles' divorce in 455. In 447/6 when their father died at Koroneia, Alkibiades and his brother Kleinias became wards of Perikles and his brother Ariphron; they lived in Perikles' house (PI. Pr!. 320A), presumably without their mother Deinomache but with Perikles' sons. There was sufficient room for scandal (c/ Antisthenes at Ath. 220D) that 447 was an appropriate moment for Perikles to regularize his relationship with the hetaira Aspasia by making her his pallake, a reasonably respectable union (by definition a pallake lived with her protector). Small property considerations in pallakia were admitted: Harrison (supra n.13) 14. CROMEY, ROBERT D., Perikles' Wife: Chronological Calculations , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:3 (1982:Autumn) p.203 212 PERIKLES' WIFE: CHRONOLOGICAL CALCULATIONS Nor does it seem right to me to forsake it for certain so-called chronological tables which thousands are emending to this very day and cannot reconcile in their internal contradictions into any single argument (Sol. 27.1). It is, however, unwise from a few arbitrary decisions in controversial matters to censure Plutarch for chronological negligence generally. He often is aware that there are severe problems, knows where to go for guidance, and his trustworthiness in the routine narration of Perikles' wife's marital sequence may be contrasted favorably with his censure, for chronological errors in quite routine matters, of the writings of Stesimbrotos (Per. 10.6, 26.l, 35.4; Them. 2.3, 24.5) and Idomeneus (Arist. 10.8). Hypotheses built about such a 'reconstruction' of Plu­ tarch's note at Perikles 24.5 accordingly will need revision.15 VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY July, 1982 15 E.g., the birth-year of Kallias III, the 'impossible' chronology by which Deino­ mache might become Perikles' wife, and certain Alkmeonid chronology: Davies 263, 18, 379. Davies' work long will remain a standard reference, and such corrections naturally will occur.