In Philosophia: Female Philosophers of Ancient Greece and Rome

Aimée Wilkinson | Lancaster University

In scholarly discussions of ancient Western philosophy, female philosophers are rarely mentioned. This can partially be explained by the fact that none of their works have survived, so our understanding of them can now only be reached through the descriptions provided in other ancient texts. The same, however, is true of Socrates, who did not produce any written works during his life. Modern understandings of him are formed from others’ descriptions and the use of his voice in their work, yet we do not disregard him or his contribution to ancient Western philosophy as a result.

Reconstructing female philosophers’ lives and teachings is a challenging endeavour, particularly because many only feature briefly in the surviving source material. It is, nevertheless, a worthwhile pursuit which could lead to a greater appreciation of their influence on Western philosophy. Women were contributing directly to philosophy from the early days of the sixth century BC up until the ‘last Pagan generation’ in the fourth century AD. After this point, the rise of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire resulted in a diminished role for women in philosophical teaching and debate and efforts were not made to preserve their writing. This article brings attention to these often-overlooked women and explores the challenges of reconstructing their lives using the limited available source material.

The School of Athens by Raphael, painted around 1510, featuring Hypatia amongst other notorious Western philosophers. (Credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The first ancient female philosopher we shall encounter is arguably the most well-known in Western history. She is the only woman included in Raphael’s fresco The School of Athens, and is strongly associated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the triumph of Christianity over Paganism. It is her death, however, that is often centred in both ancient histories and modern scholarship rather than her teachings and influence on Western philosophy. I am, of course, referring to Hypatia of Alexandria, born around 350-370 AD in Roman Alexandria, Egypt.

Using histories written largely by Roman Christian authors following her death, it is possible to reconstruct a general biography of Hypatia’s life and career. For example, we learn that she was educated by her father, Theon, in mathematics until her teen years, and whilst she enjoyed the subject, she was also interested in philosophy, which she saw as a way of finding truth. Socrates of Constantinople (not to be confused with Socrates of Classical Athens), in his Ecclesiastical History, stated that Hypatia was the head of the Plotinian/Neoplatonic School in Alexandria, founded by Plotinus in the third century AD. She assumed this role around 380 or 390 AD following the early retirement of the former head of the school, her father. Her school gave a comprehensive introduction to the works of Plato and Aristotle and combined mathematical teachings with Neoplatonic philosophy. This centred around a desire to understand the universe and mortals’ place in it. She taught mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, taking classical texts and grounding them in contemporary interpretative traditions.

Additionally, Hypatia developed instruments for astronomy and measurement, such as the astrolabe and the hygrometer respectively, and is said to have written multiple works of mathematics, though none survive today. She is also described as using dialectics as a teaching method, a process which involves pitting opposing viewpoints against each other in order to gain a greater understanding of the truth. Whilst male students populated her school, Hypatia was able to engage with a wider audience through her public lectures. Through these lectures, she participated in Alexandrian political philosophy, which she used to promote unity among Pagans and Christians.

Hypatia died in 415 AD at the hands of a Christian mob who accused her of magic during a time of increasing religious and political tensions. The extreme brutality of her death sent shockwaves through the Roman world. In both ancient history and modern scholarship her death is considered a marker of the end of Paganism in the empire and was a major event in the fall of the Western Empire itself. The notoriety of her death is why she is perhaps the most well-known ancient female philosopher.  

The histories which mention Hypatia, such as Damascius’ Life of Isidorus and The Chronicle of John, written by the Bishop of Nikiu, were all written by members of the male Christian elite. These writings typically portrayed Hypatia in one of two somewhat conflicting ways. Some painted her as a sorceress of ‘Satanic wiles’, a narrative that fitted the events surrounding her death, with the Christian mob accusing her of influencing (or in some cases enchanting) Orestes against Cyril, worsening Christian political tensions. Others painted her as a virgin ideal (as she never married), or a mystical theurgist, that is, someone who does ‘god-work’ or uses rituals to better connect with the divine. To look beyond this politically motivated rhetoric and to gain an understanding of how Hypatia was more broadly perceived, we are aided by surviving letters sent to her from her student, Synesius. Synesius’ letters allow us to see Hypatia through the eyes of someone to whom she was a teacher and friend. Through these letters, we can see her character and curriculum. We see a teacher who had a great intellectual and emotional impact on her students, and for whom she was a confidant. Whilst the image created by both the histories and Synesius’ letters are vastly different, both portray a highly influential woman deeply ingrained in the philosophical and political climate of Roman Alexandria.

Unfortunately, Hypatia is a unique female figure in ancient philosophy in that much can be pieced together of her life through the surviving sources. The nature of her death and its portrayal as a pivotal moment in the history of the Roman Empire ensured that she was the subject of many writings. Whilst other female philosophers do feature in ancient sources, descriptions are often more brief or infrequent.

Statue of Arête, the goddess of virtue and excellence that Arête gets her name, from the Ephesos-Museum der Antikensammlung des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien. (Credit: Author photo, courtesy of Edward Baker) 

Leontion, for example, appears briefly in the works of Diogenes Laërtius and Cicero. In both cases, she is described as a hetaerae, or a high-class courtesan. In Laërtius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Book X, which focuses on Leontion’s teacher, Epicurus (341- 271 BC), this description of her is accompanied by the claim that she was an object of desire for another member of the Epicurean school named Metrodorus. These descriptions tell us nothing about her teachings or doctrines. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers also includes a letter Epicurus wrote to Leontion, though this reveals little other than his affection for her: ‘O Lord Apollo, my dear little Leontion, with what tumultuous applause we were inspired as we read your letter’. Cicero, in De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods, I.93), does credit her by stating that ‘Her style no doubt is the neatest of Attic’, claiming in his De Optimo Genere Oratorum (IV. 13) that ‘speaking in the Attic fashion means speaking well’. Beyond this, however, his descriptions are similar to those provided by Laërtius. He describes her as a ‘loose woman’ and uses her as a tool to insult the men of the Epicurean school. Therefore, we do not get a clear idea as to her character, intellect, or teachings.

A little more is known of Arête, who lived during the third and fourth centuries BC. She is referenced by many ancient authors, including Diogenes, Aelius, Clement of Alexandria, and Strabo. She was the daughter of Aristippus of Cyrene, a student of Socrates (Classical Athens), who founded the Cyrenaic school subscribing to hedonism. Arête was said to have been educated at Plato’s Academy and by her father before taking over his school. During her career, Arête taught over a hundred students and published forty books, none of which survived. She, in turn, passed the school on to her son. We know from Diogenes’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers (II.86) that Arête’s son was nicknamed ‘mētrodidaktos’ or ‘mother-taught’. Though the surviving sources do give us a sense of Arete’s life and her influence on the Cyrenaic school, we do not have the same level of detail about her teaching style and doctrines as we do with Hypatia.

The Debate of Socrates and Aspasia by Nicolas-André Monsiau, 1801. (Credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The quantity and variety of sources discussing Hypatia allow us to look beyond the political narratives that cloud her representation within some of these documents. However, for those female philosophers we have fewer sources on, the challenge of reading between the lines of these political narratives is greater. This is the case with Aspasia, who moved to Athens during the fifth century BC and later held great influence in the city. In addition to other like-minded women, influential figures such as Plato and Socrates were known to debate rhetoric with her, and in some cases, learn from her, as she is ascribed by multiple ancient writers, such as Xenophon and Lucian. Plato even makes her the subject of Socrates's conversation in his Menexenus, with him claiming that she instructed him in oratory. However, despite Aspasia’s grand influence over Athenian philosophy, many ancient and modern accounts of her focus on her position as Pericles’ mistress, often using their relationship as a way to attack him. Additionally, much that is known of her teaching and philosophy is focused on her orations, and how she instructed others in their orations, such as Pericles. This is possibly a byproduct of the mocking claims over her overbearing involvement in Pericles’ life and politics, with her receiving blame for his misjudgements and even for contributing to the start of the Peloponnesian War.

A further factor that serves to complicate our attempts to reconstruct the lives of female philosophers includes the perception of these women as religious figures during their lifetimes. One example of this is Sosipatra of Pergamum, a prominent philosopher in the Eastern Roman Empire of the fourth century AD. Eunapius assigned considerable space in his text, Lives of the Sophists, to a discussion of Sosipatra. Indeed, she is the only woman discussed in depth and receives more room than most other figures in the book. Given the space Sosipatra is afforded in this text, it seems likely that Eunapius knew her personally, perhaps maintaining a close personal relationship with her. The narrative Eunapius constructs, though lengthy, is centred around his perception of Sosipatra as a divine or semi-divine being. Whilst this presentation of Sosipatra provides us with hints as to her character, it also obscures what can be known about the events of her life and her philosophical teachings.

 A seated classical woman. (Credit: Carole Raddato from Frankfurt, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

   Likewise, Themistoclea, a priestess at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi during the sixth century BC, is thought to have had great influence on figures such as Pythagoras. Laërtius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Book VIII proclaims that she is the person from whom ‘Pythagoras got most of his moral doctrines’. She subscribed to the idea of Mathematical Proportion, which viewed the cosmos as orderly and harmonious, with everything having a mathematical relationship to each other. However, little else is known of her doctrines, and as with Sosipatra, her image as near the divine overshadows her role and achievements as a philosopher.

Priestess of Delphi by John Collier, 1891. (Credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

This article has explored the many challenges of attempting to reconstruct the lives and legacies of some of the women who have shaped ancient Western philosophy, whilst also highlighting these women as significant historical figures. Whilst the barriers to a deep understanding of these women have been highlighted, the possibility of finding more than initially expected of these figures who are so often ignored in historical accounts has also been accentuated. Despite the obstacles to truly understanding their lives and doctrines, we can still gauge their great influence on the figures who discuss them and those with whom they were associated. Just as women have so far been largely ignored across historical narratives on the grounds of being difficult to truly access and understand, it does not mean they should continue to be; an effort can be made to bring them back into these narratives and give them the recognition they deserve. 

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Further Reading:

• Learn more about women philosophers throughout history: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/ 

• Katharine R. O’Reilly and Caterina Pello, Ancient Women Philosophers: Recovering Ideas and New Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023) 

• Edward J. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) 

• Heidi Marx, Sosipatra of Pergamum: Philosopher and Oracle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) 

• Mary Ellen Waithe, A History of Women Philosophers: Volume 1: Ancient Women Philosophers 600 B.C. - 500 A.D. (Dordrecht: Brill, Nijhoff, 1987) 

Aimée Wilkinson is the Gender and Classics Editor at EPOCH and an MA student in Digital Humanities at Lancaster University. Her research focuses on women in Graeco-Roman Pagan religious spaces, as well as women more generally in ancient history. She utilises digital methodologies to approach ancient text and to reimagine spaces in new ways.  

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