“I feel full and I feel joy and I feel warm as if I had slipped out of old age each time I sense from your deeds and your letters how much you have surpassed yourself, since you long ago left the masses behind you. If a tree coming to fruit pleases a farmer, or if a shepherd finds joy in the growth of his flock, if everyone looks at at their own student as if they had been testing them since childhood, what do you think happens to those who have educated a mind and shaped it young when they see it full grown?
I claim you as mine–you are my work. When I noticed your ability, I put my hand on you, encouraged you, I spurred you on and never let you move slowly, but constantly pushed you. I do this now too, but I am rooting for someone already running who cheers for me in turn.
“What’s left?” You ask, “I am still willing.” This means the most, not just the beginning, as they say, “half done is the task begun”–no, this depends on the spirit. The greater task of goodness is the desire to become good. Do you know what I call a good man? Someone complete, certain, one no limitation or desire can debase. I see that person in you, if you persevere, lean in to your labor, and make sure that all your words and deeds relate and support one another and form a unitary person. No one whose actions are disharmonious will have a balanced soul. Bye-bye.
Cresco et exulto et discussa senectute recalesco, quotiens ex iis, quae agis ac scribis, intellego, quantum te ipse, nam turbam olim reliqueras, superieceris. Si agricolam arbor ad fructum perducta delectat, si pastor ex fetu gregis sui capit voluptatem, si alumnum suum nemo aliter intuetur quam ut adulescentiam illius suam iudicet; quid evenire credis iis, qui ingenia educaverunt et quae tenera formaverunt adulta subito vident?
Adsero te mihi; meum opus es. Ego quom vidissem indolem tuam, inieci manum, exhortatus sum, addidi stimulos nec lente ire passus sum, sed subinde incitavi; et nunc idem facio, sed iam currentem hortor et invicem hortantem.
“Quid aliud?” inquis; “adhuc volo.” In hoc plurimum est, non sic quomodo principia totius operis dimidium occupare dicuntur; ista res animo constat. Itaque pars magna bonitatis est velle fieri bonum. Scis quem bonum dicam? Perfectum, absolutum, quem malum facere nulla vis, nulla necessitas possit. Hunc te prospicio, si perseveraveris et incubueris et id egeris, ut omnia facta dictaque tua inter se congruant ac respondeant sibi et una forma percussa sint. Non est huius animus in recto, cuius acta discordant. Vale.
“These facts are as accurate details about Plato as we are able to gather in our laborious research of the things said about him. Speusippus, an an Athenian son of Eurymedon, took over for him. He was from the deme of Myrrhinos and was the son of Plato’s sister, Pôtônê.
Speusippos was the leader of the school for eight years, and he began after the 108th Olympiad. He had statues of the Graces dedicated in the Museion which Plato built in the Academy. Although he remained an adherent to Plato’s theories, he was not like him at all in his character. For he was quick to anger and easily induced by pleasures. People say that he threw a little dog into a well in a rage and he went to Macedonia to the marriage of Kassander thanks to pleasure.
Two women, Lastheneia of Mantinea and Aksiothea of Phlios, were students of Plato who are said to have heard Speusippus speak. Writing at the time, Dionysus says mockingly: “It is possible to evaluate your wisdom from your Arcadian girl of a student.” And, while Plato made everyone who came to him exempt from tuition, you “send everyone a bill and take money from the willing and unwilling alike!”
“It is necessary that a woman be completely good and well-ordered. Someone could never be like this without virtue. For the virtue which is proper to each thing causes the object which welcomes it to be more serious. The excellence of the eyes improves the eyes; that of hearing improves the ears; the horse’s virtue betters the horse and a man’s virtue improves the man. In the same way, a woman’s virtue ennobles a woman.
The virtue most appropriate to a woman is prudence. For through prudence a woman will be able to honor and take delight in her own husband. Many may in fact think that it is not fitting for a woman to practice philosophy, just as she should not ride a horse or speak in public. But I believe that while some things are particular to a man and others to a woman, there are some that are shared by both man and woman, even though some are more appropriate to a man than a woman and those better for a woman than a man.
For example, serving in an army or working in politics and speaking in public are proper for a man. For a woman, it is running the household, staying at home, and welcoming and serving her husband. In common I place bravery, an understanding of justice, and wisdom. For It is right that virtues of the body are proper for both a man and woman along with the virtues of the soul. And, just as having a healthy body is useful for both, so too is the health of the soul.
The virtues of the body are health, strength, good perception, and beauty. Some of these are better for a man to nourish and keep; and others are more appropriate for a woman. Courage and wisdom are certainly more proper for a man both die to the nature of his body and the power of his mind. But prudence is proper for a woman.
For this reason it is important to recognize what a woman trained in prudence is like, in particular from what number and kinds of traits this possession graces a woman. I propose that this comes from five things. The first is from respecting the sanctity and reverence of her marriage bed; the second is a sense of propriety for her body; the third is concerning the actions of those from her own household; the fourth is from not practicing the occult rites and the celebrations of the Great Mother; the fifth is in proper and moderate sacrifices to the divine.
Of these traits, the most important and vital for prudence in terms of her marriage bed is staying uncontaminated and fully separate from some other man. For, to start with, a woman who breaks this law does wrong against her ancestral gods, because she provides for her home and her family not true born allies but bastards.
The one who does this transgresses against the natural gods whose oath she took, following the practice of her forebears and relatives, “to participate in the common life and to produce offspring according to the law.” She also commits injustice against her country, because she does not stay with those who were assigned to her. Then she acts even beyond those for whom the greatest of penalties is assigned because of the excess of this injustice: this is because to commit an error or an outrage for the sake of pleasure is unlawful and the most unforgivable. Ruin is the outcome of all outrage.”
“What is it? I don’t fear that people may change you. I do fear that they will slow you down. Someone who delays you causes a lot of harm, moreover, and especially given how fast life passes and how we make it even briefer by our inconsistency, always starting up something new and then immediately moving on to something else. We separate life into pieces and then squander it.
Hurry up, then, my dearest Lucilius, and think how fast you’d accelerate if an enemy were behind you or if you thought a horseman were overtaking you to run you down as you ran. This is happening! The enemy is at your back. You should step to it and flee, reach a place of safety, considering all along that it is noble to complete your life before death and then spend the rest of your time in peace, taking nothing for yourself because you already have a lucky life, one made no luckier by being longer.
When will you reach the time when you understand that time is nothing to you, when you can be tranquil and calm, heedless of tomorrow, because you have made the most of your life!?”
Quid ergo est? Non timeo, ne mutent te, timeo, ne inpediant. Multum autem nocet etiam qui moratur, utique in tanta brevitate vitae, quam breviorem inconstantia facimus aliud eius subinde atque aliud facientes initium. Diducimus illam in particulas ac lancinamus.
Propera ergo, Lucili carissime, et cogita quantum additurus celeritati fueris, si a tergo hostis instaret, si equitem adventare suspicareris ac fugientium premere vestigia. Fit hoc, premeris; accelera et evade, perduc te in tutum et subinde considera, quam pulchra res sit consummare vitam ante mortem, deinde expectare securum reliquam temporis sui partem, nihil sibi, in possessione beatae vitae positum, quae beatior non fit, si longior. O quando illud videbis tempus, quo scies tempus ad te non pertinere, quo tranquillus placidusque eris et crastini neglegens ut1 in summa tui satietate!
“For [Hermippos] says that when Pythagoras was in Italy he built a little home in the ground and told his mother to write down on a tablet what happened and the time and then to send it down to him until he came up again. His mother did that.
Later, when Pythagoras finally came up again he was shriveled and almost a skeleton. After he came to the assembly, he was saying that he came from Hades. Then he read aloud to them what had happened. And they were overwhelmed by what he said, crying and weeping and believing that Pythagoras was divine. They believed it so much that they gave him their wives so that they might learn some of his philosophy from him. They were called Pythagorean Women. Well, that’s what Hermippos says…”
There is another version of this in the Scholia to Sophocles’ Elektra 62-64
“Pythagoras confined himself in an underground hole and told his mother to tell people that he had died. When he reappeared, he told a lot of marvelous tales about resurrection and the things which happen in the underworld, and, to the living he related a full account of all the companions he happened to meet in the underworld; from this arose the belief that he was Aithalides son of Hermes before the Trojan War, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, then Pyrrhus the Delian, and then finally Pythagoras. Sophocles seems to be hinting at this story. Some assert, though unpersuasively, that the lines are aimed at Odysseus. But this is unconvincing, because Odysseus never did anything of the sort.”
“The most famous women Pythagoreans were: Timukha, the wife of Mullias of Kroton, Philtus, the daughter of Theophoris of Kroton amd sister of Bundakos, Okellô and Ekkelô, the sisters of Okkelos and Okkilos of Leukania, Kheilonis, the daughter of the Spartan Kheilôn, Kratêsikleia, a Spartan and wife of Kkleanôr the Spartan, Theano, the wife of Brotinus of Metapontos, Muia, the wife of Milo of Kroton, Lastheneia from Arcadia, Habroteleia the daughter of Habrotelos the Tarentinian, Ekhekrateia from Phlius, Tyrsênis of Sybaris, Pesirrodê of Tarantum, Theadousa the Spartan, Boiô the Argive, Babeluka the Argive, and Kleaikhma the sister of Autokharidas of Laconia. There are seventeen in total.”
“Passerby, learn my name and who my father was;
Learn everything that happened by fate.
My father was Mithradates. My mother was Khrêstê
And I am Kainis, the heavy-fated. I died at twenty years old
From prolonged childbirth, just barely experienced in life.
What more can I say to you, stranger? As is right for mortals,
Pity wretched me and honor my sorrow
with tears from the corners of your eyes
As you pass by my tomb.”
“She made it to her 18th year
But now lies buried here
Because jealous Hades stole her away
From an ill-fated childbirth.
[She left*] this pillar as a sign of prudence and great reverence
On the earth and with great wisdom
She showed her works with knowledge
As she lived with [him?] for five years**.
And [then] Kodrates wept terribly
As he covered you alone in the earth,
Your parents’ only hope.”
[the remaining words are unclear]
*Perhaps a different subject/verb: He/they put up, vel sim.
**I am really unclear about the lines’ meaning from εἰκόνα through συνοίκησε̣ν̣. This last verb is typical for describing marital cohabitation
MET 24.97.92 Marble votive relief fragment of goddesses, mother, nurse, and infant
“In summary, you will be wise, if you close your ears–something for which wax isn’t sufficient. You need something thicker than what Odysseus’ companions used. That voice he feared was tempting but it still wasn’t all encompassing.
The song you should fear doesn’t come from a single crag but resounds from every part of the earth. So, don’t sail past one place you can’t trust because of its insidious pleasure, but avoid every city.
But be deaf to those you love the most, especially: they hope for terrible things with good intention. If you want to be happy, beg the gods that nothing your friends hope for you happens. See, those things they wish to pile up for you are not good. There is a single good, one sound foundation for a good life: to trust yourself.”
Ad summam sapiens eris, si cluseris aures, quibus ceram parum est obdere; firmiore spissamento opus est quam in sociis usum Vlixem ferunt. Illa vox, quae timebatur, erat blanda, non tamen publica, at haec, quae timenda est, non ex uno scopulo, sed ex omni terrarum parte circumsonat. Praetervehere itaque non unum locum insidiosa voluptate suspectum, sed omnes urbes. Surdum te amantissimis tuis praesta; bono animo mala precantur. Et si esse vis felix, deos ora, ne quid tibi ex his, quae optantur, eveniat. Non sunt ista bona, quae in te isti volunt congeri; unum bonum est, quod beatae vitae causa et firmamentum est, sibi fidere.
“That [female] substance, even though it possesses all segments of the body in potential, actually exhibits none of them. For it contains those kinds of elements in potential by which the female is distinguished from the male. For just as it happens that at times deformed children come from deformed parents and at times they do not, so too in the same way sometimes female offspring come from females and sometimes they don’t, but males do instead. For the female is like a deformity of the male and menstrual discharge is like semen, but unclean.”
“These causes are also of the same. Some [offspring] are born similar to their parents while others are not. Some are similar to their father; others are like their mother, applying both to the body as a whole and to each part. Offspring are more like their parents than their ancestors and more like their ancestors than passersby.
Males are more similar to their father and females are more similar to their mother. But some are not like any of their relatives, but are still akin to human beings while others are like not at all like humans in their appearance, but rather like some monster. For whoever is not like his parents is in some way a monster because nature has in these cases wandered in some way from the essential character. The first beginning of this is when a female was born instead of a male.
But this is necessary by nature since a race of things divided by male and female must be preserved and since the male may at times not be in control because of age or youth or some other reason, it is necessary for species to have female offspring. Monstrosity is not necessary for any reason or specific ends, but it is necessary by probability of accident—since its origin must be considered as residing here.”
τέρας: can mean ‘monster’ (as translated here) or divine sign/omen. In cognates and parallel forms it is also associated with magic and the unnatural.
πηρόω (πεπηρωμένον) is a denominative verb from the noun πηρός, which means “infirm, invalid” (hence: “blind or lame”)
Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York.
19: “Perhaps the founding association of femaleness with disability occurs in the fourth book of Generation of Animals, Aristotle’s discourse of the normal and the abnormal, in which he refines the Platonic concept of antinomies so that bodily variety translates into hierarchies of the typical and aberrant.”
20: “What this passage makes clearest, however, is that without the monstrous body to demarcate the borders of the generic, without the female body to distinguish the shape of the male, and without the pathological to give form to the normal, the taxonomies of bodily value that underlie political, social and economic arrangements would collapse.”
20: “This persistent intertwining of disability with femaleness in Western discourse provides a starting point for exploring the relationship of social identity to the body. As Aristotle’s pronouncement suggests, the social category of disability rests on the significance accorded bodily functioning and configuration.”
“I have seen that best man, Aufidius Bassus, worn out, ravaged by old age. Now they have already pressed him down enough that he cannot be raised up. Old age has fallen down upon him with all of its great weight. Well, you know that his body was always weak and drawn. Yet for a long time he managed it–or perhaps I should say contained it–until it suddenly failed him.
Just as a ship that springs a leak can be stopped up with one fix or another, yet when many places begin to open up at the same time and yield to the water, it is impossible to save the floundering vessel–it is the same way for an aging body. You can cover up or make up for the weakness to a certain extent, but once it is like a condemned building, and every joint is loose, and one part falls apart while others are repaired, well then we need to take a look around to see how we can leave.
Yet, Bassus’ mind is sharp. Philosophy grants this: to laugh at the sight of death, to be brave despite the body’s condition, to be happy and unfailing even as the body fails. A great captain knows how to sail even with torn sails; even as the ship fails, they can still direct what remains of their body on its course. Our Bassus is doing this. He looks to his own end bravely and with a detachment you would think too severe even for watching someone else’s death.
Bassum Aufidium, virum optimum, vidi quassum, aetati obluctantem. Sed iam plus illum degravat quam quod possit attolli; magno senectus et universo pondere incubuit. Scis illum semper infirmi corporis et exsucti fuisse. Diu illud continuit et, ut verius dicam, continuavit; subito defecit. Quemadmodum in nave, quae sentinam trahit, uni rimae aut alteri obsistitur, ubi plurimis locis laxari coepit et cedere, succurri non potest navigio dehiscenti; ita in senili corpore aliquatenus inbecillitas sustineri et fulciri potest. Ubi tamquam in putri aedificio omnis unctura diducitur, et dum alia excipitur, alia discinditur, circumspiciendum est, quomodo exeas.
Bassus tamen noster alacer animo est. Hoc philosophia praestat, in conspectu mortis hilarem et in quocumque corporis habitu fortem laetumque nec deficientem, quamvis deficiatur. Magnus gubernator et scisso navigat velo, et, si exarmavit, tamen reliquias navigii aptat ad cursum. Hoc facit Bassus noster et eo animo vultuque finem suum spectat, quo alienum spectare nimis securi putares.
The Gulf Stream (1899). Oil on canvas, 71.4 x 124.8 cm (28.1 x 49.1 in). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
In our annual tradition, we are re-posting this list with more names and updated links. Most of the evidence for these authors has been collected only in Wikipedia. I have added new translations and new names over the past few years (especially among the philosophers). Always happy to have new names and links suggested.
I originally received a link to the core list in an email from my undergraduate poetry teacher, the amazing poet and translator Olga Broumas. The post is on tumblr on a page by DiasporaChic, bit the original author is Terpsikeraunos.
Women in ancient Greece and Rome with surviving works or fragments
PHILOSOPHY
Here is a list of Women philosophers with testimonia and fragments (with French translations and commentary).
Aesara of Lucania: “Only a fragment survives of Aesara of Lucania’s Book on Human Nature, but it provides a key to understanding the philosophies of Phintys, Perictione, and Theano II as well. Aesara presents a familiar and intuitive natural law theory. She says that through the activity of introspection into our own nature – specifically the nature of a human soul – we can discover not only the natural philosophic foundation for all of human law, but we can also discern the technical structure of morality, positive law, and, it may be inferred, the laws of moral psychology and of physical medicine. Aesara’s natural law theory concerns laws governing three applications of moral law: individual or private morality, laws governing the moral basis of the institution of the family, and, laws governing the moral foundations of social institutions. By analyzing the nature of the soul, Aesara says, we will understand the nature of law and of justice at the individual, familial, and social levels.” – A History of Women Philosophers: Volume I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 B.C.-500 A.D., by M.E. Waith
Melissa: “Melissa (3rd century BC)[1][2] was a Pythagorean philosopher…Nothing is known about her life. She is known only from a letter written to another woman named Cleareta (or Clearete). The letter is written in a Doric Greek dialect dated to around the 3rd century BC.[2] The letter discusses the need for a wife to be modest and virtuous, and stresses that she should obey her husband.[2] The content has led to the suggestion that it was written pseudonymously by a man.[2] On the other hand, the author of the letter does not suggest that a woman is naturally inferior or weak, or that she needs a man’s rule to be virtuous.[1]” –Wikipedia
Perictione (I and II): “Two works attributed to Perictione have survived in fragments: On the Harmony of Women and On Wisdom. Differences in language suggest that they were written by two different people. Allen and Waithe identify them as Perictione I and Perictione II. Plato’s mother was named Perictione, and Waithe argues that she should be identified as the earlier Perictione, suggesting that similarities between Plato’s Republic and On the Harmony of Women may not be the result of Perictione reading Plato, but the opposite–the son learning philosophy from his mother. On the Harmony of Women, however, is written in Ionic prose with occasional Doric forms. This mixed dialect dates the work to the late fourth or third centuries BC. The reference in On the Harmony of Women to women ruling suggests the Hellenistic monarchies of the third century BC or later. On Wisdom is written in Doric and is partly identical with a work by Archytas of the same name. This work should be dated later, to the third or second centuries BC. Both the dates of the works and their dialects mean Perictione as the mother of Plato could not have written them. We then have two Pythagorean texts, attributed to otherwise unknown women named Perictione who should be dated perhaps one hundred years apart.” –Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology, by I.M. Plant
*N.B. This account leaves out the the basic narrative from Diogenes Laertius, that Plato’s father Ariston raped his mother Perictione.
Phintys: “Phintys (or Phyntis, Greek: Φίντυς; 4th or 3rd century BC) was a Pythagorean philosopher. Nothing is known about her life, nor where she came from. She wrote a work on the correct behavior of women, two extracts of which are preserved by Stobaeus.” –Wikipedia
*Note, Stobaeus (4.32.61a) calls her the daughter of Kallikrates the Pythagorean (Φιντύος τᾶς Καλλικράτεος θυγατρὸς Πυθαγορείας). Here are some of her fragments on the prudence befitting women: part 1 and part 2.
Ptolemais of Cyrene: “Ptolemais is known to us through reference to her work by Porphyry in his Commentary on the Harmonics of Ptolemy. He tells us that she came from Cyrene and gives the title of her work, The Pythagorean Principles of Music, which he quotes. She is the only known female musical theorist from antiquity. Her dates cannot be known for sure. She clearly preceded Porphyry, who was born about AD 232; Didymus, who is also quoted by Porphyry, knew Ptolemais’ work and may even have been Porphyry’s source for it. This Didymus is probably the one who lived in the time of Nero, giving us a date for Ptolemais of the first century AD or earlier…One of the problems in dealing with this text is that it is in quotation. Porphyry does not clearly distinguish between the text he quotes from Ptolemais and his own discussion of the issues raised…A second issue is the problem of the accuracy of the quotation. Porphyry says in the introduction to fragment 4 that he has altered a few things in the quotation for the sake of brevity. We should not assume that this is the only quotation to have suffered from editing. On the other hand, where he quotes the same passage twice (fragment 3 is repeated almost verbatim in fragment 4) his consistency is encouraging. Ptolemais’ extant work is a catechism, written as a series of questions and answers. She discusses different schools of thought on harmonic theory, distinguishing between the degree to which they gave importance to theory and perception. Her text prefers the approach of Aristoxenus to that of the Pythagoreans, thus she should not be thought a Pythagorean, despite the title of her work.” –Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology, by I.M. Plant
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