Here, I launch the first part of a 3-part discussion of TC's Glory and the Lightning, published late in TC's career (1974). I remind you I include it with her Meditteranean books, with a comment below why it comes later than the others. I consider it special, not just for the great personages involved. It is also the place you can see TC concentrate on (perhaps grapple with) Greek thought, in an historical time prior to that she attempted in her other volumes.

It is the first of the Open Road promotions that was supposed to appear today. *|FNAME|*, it has not yet appeared in my in-box, but if it does, I will send it with a separate newsletter.

As I have done previously, with the much earlier Pillar of Iron (1965; likely, though, springing from the notebooks recounted by TC at that time), the newsletters will follow TC's own partition. Here these are, yes, prosaically labeled: As a couple, Aspasia and Pericles were the subject of adoration, vicious gossip and astonishing influence on the great names of Greece in the 400's BC. She, Aspasia, lived in the time (470-400BC) of and was known to Plato, who refers to her in his works. As I suggested in a previous Newsletter, before Jesus, Aspasia (whose arrival in Athens was without fanfare) and Cleopatra (who was born rich beyond measure) would have stood on pedestals (or maybe plateaus) of recognition far higher than most other women of antiquity.

The comparison goes further, for both – though very young in the days they first gained renown – have an historical record attesting to the effect of their voices, and the astonished response to their intelligence and erudition, on noteworthy listeners. There was an historical record, with only a handful for comparison: including the far more ancient Hatshepsut (an exemplar without comparison, even including males); Nefertiti (like Aspasia known for her beauty, though not much else) and, closer to her times, Sappho (whose genius has inspired many, including no less than Edna St. Vincent Millay).

As visceral evidence of her respectful historical renown consider this:

From the period in which Marie Antoinnette was patron to many artists, including her personal portraitist, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun.

Marie Bouliard: Self-portrait as Aspasia: 1794. Imagine the confidence of a young female artist, venturing to portray such a woman, almost a drumbeat in TC's rendering, whose very appearance drew – historically documented – admiring gasps from august bodies of males.

The legend that Aspasia, from Miletus, was a hetaera (discounted by some historians; and sometimes interpreted as high society courtesans) is taken up with nuance by TC. She uses that to account for Aspasia's education, imagination and clever manners. The most famous of these hetaera was Thargelia. TC ensconces this woman as Aspasia's mentor, and then her savior when Aspasia makes her escape from the house of a wealthy accomplished Persian satrap. TC has never quite embraced another female so wholeheartedly as she does Aspasia. Plutarch, a constant TC source (as I discussed in Pillar of Iron) says she was compared to Thargelia.

While Part I is entirely of TC's creation, in parallel with the similar parts in Pillar of Iron and Great Lion of God, it contains much to admire. Even for those who hope for historical versimilitude. As always, TC accounts for her heroine's life path from her childhood. She uses the ancient respect for education to account for Aspasia's perspicacious awareness of the distinction between a Republic and a Democracy.

Part I covers much more than 1/3rd of this novel. Its early chapters inform us greatly – while displaying Aspasia's preternatural question-asking intelligence – of TC's attempt (almost like from the grave) to inhabit our times. TC was not a fan of autocracy, and as in other novels, this one calls for translating TC's conservatism from the time before Ronald Reagan to today.

When the occasion arises I will return to this extraordinary novel starting from this point. Whether it is Aspasia or TC, this is a more than interesting discussion putting us back to the time, before money overran politics, that the Mediterranean world (following Solon) first addressed government outside of empire.

You can see a long list of previous Pericles-Aspasia inspired novels here. I pulled these from Wikipedia.
Note: Glory and the Lightning appears as the last item of that discourse.

Michael Fried, Grandson
For the Descendants of Taylor Caldwell
The sign-up for the Descendants of Taylor Caldwell Newsletter: is here.
Newsletter signups should include a legitimate First and Last name for security.