Hipparchia the Cynic

Hipparchia ( _el. Ἱππαρχία) of Maroneia was a Cynic philosopher, and wife of Crates of Thebes, who lived c. 325 BC. She is famous for living a life of Cynic poverty on equal terms with her husband on the streets of Athens. Like most Cynics, her influence lies in the example of her life, choosing a way of life which was usually considered unacceptable for respectable women of the time.

Life

Hipparchia was born c. 350 BC in Maroneia, Thrace.Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 96] Suda, "Hipparchia".] Her family came to Athens, where Hipparchia's brother - Metrocles - became a pupil of the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes.Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 94] Hipparchia fell in love with Crates, and developed such a passion for him, that she told her parents that if they refused to allow her to marry him, she would kill herself. They begged Crates to dissuade her, and he stood before her, removed his clothes, and said, "Here is the bridegroom, and this is his property." Hipparchia, however, was quite happy with this; she adopted the Cynic life assuming the same clothes that he wore, and appearing with him in public everywhere.Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 97] Crates called their marriage "dog-coupling" ("cynogamy").Suda, "Krates".] We are told that they lived in the stoas and porticoes of Athens, [Musonius Rufus, 14. 4.] and Apuleius and later Christian writers wrote salacious accounts of them having sex, publicly, in broad daylight. [Apuleius, "Florida" 2. 49.] Although this would have been consistent with Cynic shamelessness, ("anaideia"), the mere fact that Hipparchia adopted male clothes and lived on equal terms with her husband would have been enough to shock Athenian society. Hipparchia had at least two children, a daughter,Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 93] and a son named Pasicles.Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 88] It is not known how or when she died. There is an epigram ascribed to Antipater of Sidon, as the sort of thing which may have been written on her tomb:

I, Hipparchia chose not the tasks of rich-robed woman, but the manly life of the Cynic.
Brooch-clasped tunics, well-clad shoes, and perfumed headscarves pleased me not;
But with wallet and fellow staff, together with coarse cloak and bed of hard ground,
My name shall be greater than Atalanta: for wisdom is better than mountain running. ["Greek Anthology", 7.413. This translation based on those of: William Paton, "The Greek anthology" (1918); Arthur Way, "Greek Anthology" (1939); Mary Ellen Waithe, "A History of women philosophers" (1991).]

Philosophy

The Suda says she wrote some philosophical treatises, and some letters addressed to Theodorus the Atheist. None of these have survived. There are some accounts of her encounters with Theodorus:

When she went into a symposium with Crates, she tested Theodoros the atheist by proposing a sophism like this: "That which if Theodoros did, he would not be said to do wrong, neither should Hipparchia be said to do wrong if she does it. Theodoros hitting himself does not do wrong, nor does Hipparchia do wrong hitting Theodoros." He did not reply to what she said, but pulled up her garment.

We are told she was neither offended nor ashamed by this "as most women would have been." We are also told that when Theodorus (quoting a line from the "The Bacchae" of Euripedes) said to her:"Who is the woman who has left behind the shuttles of the loom?" she replied

I, Theodorus, am that person, but do I appear to you to have come to a wrong decision, if I devote that time to philosophy, which I otherwise should have spent at the loom?"Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 98]

Many other anecdotes existed about Hipparchia, but they have been mostly lost. We know also that Crates taught Zeno of Citium; it is impossible to say what influence Hipparchia had on Zeno in his development of Stoicism, but Zeno's own radical views on love and sex (as evidenced in his "Republic") may have been influenced by the relationship of Hipparchia and Crates.

Later Influence

Hipparchia's fame undoubtably rests on the fact that she was a woman practising philosophy and living a life on equal terms with her husband. Both facts were unusual for ancient Greece or Rome. Although there were other women who chose to live as Cynics, Hipparchia is the only one who is named to us. [A "Nicion", a courtesan nicknamed the "Dog-Fly", appears in the "Banquet of the Cynics" quoted by Athenaeus (iv.157a), but there is no reason to suppose she is not fictional.] She is also the only woman to have her own entry among the 82 philosophers in Diogenes Laërtius' "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers", and she continued to fascinate later writers. There are, for example, a set of "Cynic Epistles", written in the 1st century AD, some of which purport to give advice from Crates to Hipparchia:

Our philosophy is called Cynic not because we are indifferent to everything, but because we aggressively endure what others, due to being soft or general opinion find unbearable. So it is for this reason and not the former that they have called us Cynics. Stay, therefore, and continue as a Cynic - for you are not by nature worse than we [men] are, for neither are female dogs worse than male - in order that you might be freed from Nature, [The sense here is uncertain, since the Cynics strongly believed in living according to Nature.] as all [people] either because of law or due to vices, live as slaves. [Pseudo-Crates, "Epistle" 29, from Wimbush, L., (1990), "Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook".]

Modern influence

The German writer Christoph Martin Wieland made Crates and Hipparchia the heroes of his epistolary novel "Krates und Hipparchia" (1804). Crates and Hipparchia also feature in Marcel Schwob's "Vies Imaginaires" ("Imaginary Lives", 1896).

References

External links

* [http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/hipparch.htm Hipparchia - The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
* [http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/diogenes/dlhipparchia.htm Diogenes Laërtius' "Life of Hipparchia"]