Although prostitution is considered the oldest profession in the world, if a woman combined beauty, great intelligence, a high level of education or great good luck, her sexual talents could take her far beyond any expectations. Three of these women – Aspasia, lover to Pericles, Theodora, wife to the Byzantine emperor Justinian, and Diane de Poitiers, mistress to Henri II of France, were all powerful women.
Aspasia and Pericles
Aspasia (470-400 BC) was born in Miletus of Ionian Greek origin, in what is today part of Turkey. It is not known how or why she settled in Athens, however, it is there that she became the most famous woman of her time in Greece. Many aspects of her life are still murky, but it is said that she was a hetaera, or courtesan, and even that she ran a brothel. She was the great love of Pericles, the first citizen of Athens, general and de facto ruler of that democratic city state.
Pericles and Aspasia moved in together following his divorce. Hetaeras were performers with a high level of education, and Aspasia was no exception. Brilliant and eloquent, despite many enemies who charged her with corruption and sought to bring down Pericles, she nevertheless won grudging respect from many philosophers, artists and statesmen. Pericles often consulted with her with regards to political matters and once wept openly when he defended her to his fellow Athenians.
Because Aspasia was not a native Athenian, and a hetaera, she enjoyed freedoms that Greek women could only envy: she owned property, paid taxes and moved freely about town. For good or ill, Aspasia’s intelligence haunted the writings of such philosophers as Socrates, Plato and Xenophon. In a world where Greek women were more marginalized than their Roman counterparts, Aspasia’s influence was great, even to being blamed for both the Peloponnesian and the Samian Wars!
Theodora and Justinian
Theodora (497-558 C.E), daughter of a bear keeper and a dancer at the Hippodrome in Constantinople, literally lived a rags-to-riches story that took her from a life as a comedienne/prostitute to Empress of the Byzantine Empire. Petite, witty, vastly intelligent and despite descriptions of her lasciviousness, genuinely concerned about the rights of women from the lower castes, she presided, with her husband, over the Christianization of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Justinian fell madly in love with her when he was 40, first making her his mistress and then his wife with some legal maneuvering, since royalty could not then marry prostitutes. During the Nika Riots involving the two political parties, the Blues and Greens, while Justinian was preparing to flee with his court, Theodora stood her ground and gave an inspiring speech on leadership. This action quite possibly saved Justinian’s rule.
Theodora became a Monophysite Christian (believing Christ was a human who became divine), as opposed to her husband’s Orthodoxy. She succeeded in enacting laws that protected the rights of all women, whether slave or noble, prostitute or maid, making crimes such as rape punishable by death. Theodora even created institutions that provided prostitutes with alternative careers. Her compassion and firsthand knowledge of the plight of women helped her to create the most advanced society of her time.
Diane de Poitiers and Henri II
Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566), was the daughter of a nobleman who almost lost his head in a treasonous affiliation with the Connetable de Bourbon, but who was pardoned by François I. She married Louis de Brézé at 15, and at his death in 1531, she took to wearing only black. Exceedingly beautiful, athletic, brilliant and politically astute, Diane made herself indispensable to the family of François I, sowing the seeds of her relationship to the future Henri II.
Though she was 20 years older than Henri II, five years after he married Catherine de Medici in 1533, she became his full-fledged mistress. So all-consuming was her influence over the king, he consulted her on all matters, effectively shutting his wife out of political power. She and Catherine bore him a total of 10 children, whose education she oversaw, generously insisting that her royal lover sleep with his wife and create heirs.
For more than 25 years, Diane lived as the richest and most powerful woman in France, whose beauty and intelligence remained intact well into her 50s. When Henri died as a result of a jousting accident, Catherine de Medici wasted no time in exiling her to her estates for the remainder of her life.
Sources
Andersson, Bonnie S., and Zinsser, Judith P. A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Pre-History to the Present, Volume 1, Harper & Row, NY,1988.
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