هيباركيا

الموقف

None of her writings survives, though the Suda credits her with philosophical treatises and questions addressed to Theodorus; what we know comes from anecdotes and from later letters, forged in the name of Crates, that are addressed to her. Yet the anecdotes make a philosophical point: she lived the Cynic programme of self-sufficiency, shamelessness and freedom of speech exactly as a man would. At a banquet she silenced the philosopher Theodorus with a syllogism of his own kind – if Theodorus does no wrong when he strikes Theodorus, Hipparchia does no wrong when she strikes Theodorus. For the Cynics, convention, including the one that confines women, has no authority against nature. Her example was cited by later writers on women and philosophy.

الحياة والسياق

Hipparchia came from a wealthy family of Maroneia in Thrace and lived in Athens in the late 4th century BCE. According to Diogenes Laertius, she fell in love with the Cynic Crates of Thebes, a pupil of Diogenes, rejected richer suitors and threatened to kill herself unless her parents let her marry him. She adopted his dress and way of life, lived with him in public and bore him children. Her dates are approximate.

الأعمال الرئيسة

• No writings survive (the Suda lists treatises and questions to Theodorus); the “Cynic Epistles” attributed to Crates and addressed to her are later forgeries (1st–2nd century CE)

يرد في

• رحلة «من غارغي إلى أولوولي» · المحطة 2 من 10