Pythagorean Women: Their History and Writings by Sarah B. Pomeroy
2015; Classical Association of the Middle West and South; Volume: 111; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/tcj.2015.0020
ISSN2327-5812
Autores Tópico(s)Classical Philosophy and Thought
Resumo240 BOOK REVIEWS the most original contributions to our understanding of the genre. Her book will serve both as a basis, and as a stimulus and challenge for further research on the satyr playfor a longtime to come. BERND SEIDENSTICKER Institut für Grieschische und Lateinische Philologie, bs1@sedat.fu-berlin.de * * * * * Pythagorean Women: Their History and Writings. By SARAH B. POMEROY. Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. xxii +172. Hardcover, $49.95. ISBN: 978-1-4214-0956-6. Onlyafractionofwhatancientwomenwrotehassurvivedantiquity,andrelatively little of that is prose. The authenticity of what little we do have has been doubted, but since recent research has shown that it was not uncommon for elite girls and womentobeliterateandevenwell-educated,theideathatwomencouldhavewritten prose treatisesand epistlesno longer seemsimplausible. Mary Ellen Waithe began her 1991 Ancient Women Philosophers (A History of Women Philosophers, v.1) with a discussion of the writings attributed to Pythagorean women, along with some translations and commentary by Vicki Lynn Harper . In Pythagorean Women Sarah Pomeroyhas made the hypothesisof authenticity seem even more plausible, by providing a characteristically lucid and comprehensive re-construction of the ambiences in which the Pythagorean women were likelytohavelived.SheshowswhyPythagoreanismwouldhaveofferedimportant advantages to females in propertied families in the prosperous Greek settlements in Southwestern Italy: a healthynutritional regimen,education for girls,and maritalfidelityformenaswellasforwomen .ThecultofHera,thegoddessofmarriage, appears to have particular importance in Croton. The high proportion of female gravesinMetapontummayalsosuggestthattherewaslessfemaleinfanticidethere than in the restof the Greek world. The second half of Pomeroy’s book consists of a selection of letters and sayings attributed to Pythagorean women (some translated by Pomeroy herself), along with helpful introductions and commentaries. There is a final chapter by Vicki Lynn Harper about the Pythagorean women as philosophers, showing how BOOK REVIEWS 241 theyintegratePythagoreantheoriesofharmonyintotheiradviceabouthousehold management and the challengesposed bymarriage and the bearing and raising of children.ThelettersbywomencompriselessthantenpercentofallextantPythagorean letters (compare The Garland of Meleager, where women wrote only three percent of the epigrams). Of the eight Pythagorean women authors, two names (TheanoandPerictione)appeartobelongtoatleasttwodifferentwomen.Pomeroy suggests that the first Perictione might have been Plato’s mother; but if so, wouldn’t a comic poet have said something about it? They liked to make fun of Pythagoreans and their eating habits (e.g., Alexis’ Pythagorean Woman, fr. 201-3 and Men from Tarentum, fr. 223 and Aristophon’s Pythagorean, fr. 10, 12; see S. D. Olsen, Broken Laughter, Oxford2007: 242-8). The possibilitythatPythagorean womencouldhavewritten theirown letters has greater appeal than what they appear to have written. Even as stern a critic of women’s behavior as Semonides of Amorgos would have approved of the sanctimoniousadvicethewomengiveabouttheimportanceofchastity ,modestandunostentatious clothing, and piety, or how to select a wet nurse, raise children, and treat one’s parent. Practically everything they say about women’s lives has analoguesin texts by men. Pomeroysuggests that onlya woman would offer the kind of the advice given by Theano II in two letters advising women not to overreact when their husbands take on a mistress. But Euripides has Andromache say that shenotonlyacceptedHector’sinfidelitybutnursedhisbastardbabies(And.213– 27, cf. Tro. 643–58). Like manyoftheancientliteraryepistlesattributed tomale philosophersand politicians, but composed by rhetoricians, the style of the letters is formal, their content general, and their tone didactic, without any of the little anecdotes and personal details that would make them sound like personal letters from real women. Most do not make much use of the kind of abstract reasoning characteristic of Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy. The exception is the treatise on numbers byAesara (the name ofone of Pythagoras’ daughters) but the attribution depends upon an emendation (Stobaeus 1.49.27 Wachsmuth). In the manuscript tradition ofStobaeus the author of this letter is a male,Aisarosor Aresas. A glimmer of personality comes through only in the apothegms of Pythagoras ’wifeTheano,afewofwhichPomeroyincludesinherchapterabouttheletters. Unlike the Theano of the letters, Theano of the apothegms comes across as a woman who was capable of expressing herself forcefully and who understood Py- 242 BOOK REVIEWS thagoras’ theoryof numbersand its connection to piety (eusebeia), and the consequencesofhistheoryoftransmigration . BytheearlycenturiesAD thisTheanohad become a legendary figure, endowed with wisdom and courage. (She is said to have bitten off her tongue so she could not answer questions posed to her by a tyrant , an act that Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras [194] attributes to Timycha...
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