Myia

Myia was a daughter of the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras . In ancient sources she is mentioned as a Pythagorean . According to this, she lived in the late 6th and perhaps even in the early 5th century BC. BC in southern Italy, then settled by Greek people .

The Neo-Platonist Porphyrios mentions Myia as the daughter of Pythagoras and his wife Theano . Porphyrios reports that Myia wrote Pythagorean scripts. These works are lost. The only thing that has survived is a definitely bogus letter that she allegedly sent to a woman named Phyllis. It gives advice on how to deal with a toddler and how to choose a wet nurse (a popular topic in Hellenistic and Imperial literature). In research, opinions differ widely about the dating of the letter; the conjectures vary between the time around 200 BC. And the late 2nd century AD

Porphyrios writes that the daughter of Pythagoras played a leading role first among the girls and later among the women in Croton , where her father lived. For this message, which the late ancient Neo-Platonist Iamblichos of Chalkis also reports, Porphyrios refers to the historical work of Timaeus of Tauromenion , which has not survived.

Iamblichus also reports that the daughter of Pythagoras married a "Menon of Croton". There is probably a spelling mistake in the text transmission, because what is obviously meant is the famous Pythagorean and wrestler Milon von Kroton , who caused a sensation with his Olympic victories. At another point Iamblichus names a Pythagorean woman named Myia, whom he does not refer to as the daughter of Pythagoras, as Frau Milons. Since Myia was not a common name, the two passages seem to refer to the same person.

Lucian of Samosata attests that Myias name was a household name in the 2nd century. He mentions her briefly and notes that he would have a lot to say about her if her story weren't already widely known.

The church writer Clemens of Alexandria names Myia among the women philosophers in a chapter of his Stromateis , in which he wants to show that women can reach the same perfection ( teleiótēs ) as men. In the Suda , a Byzantine lexicon, Myia is called a Sami woman . This information is related to the fact that the homeland of Pythagoras was the Greek island of Samos; he had emigrated to southern Italy.

Editions and translations

• Alfons Städele: The letters of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans . Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1980, ISBN 3-445-02128-7 , pp. 162–165 (critical edition and translation of the spurious letter), pp. 267–287 (introduction and commentary).
• Kai Brodersen (Ed.): Theano: Letters of an ancient philosopher . Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-018787-6 (uncritical edition of the letter [pp. 110–113] and the source texts on Myia with translation).

literature

• Bruno Centrone: Myia . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, CNRS, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 573-574 (with a compilation of older literature).

Remarks

1. ↑ Porphyrios, Vita Pythagorae 4; Iamblichos, De vita Pythagorica 30,170.
2. ↑ Lukian: Muscae encomium 11.
3. ^ Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 4,19,121,4.
4. ^ Ada Adler (ed.): Suidae Lexicon . Vol. 3, Leipzig 1933, p. 421 (Adler no. Μ 1363; online ).