Phintys was a

Pythagorean Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to: Philosophy * Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras * Ne ...

philosopher, probably from the third century BC. She wrote a work on the correct behaviour of women, two extracts of which are preserved by

Stobaeus Joannes Stobaeus (; grc-gre, Ἰωάννης ὁ Στοβαῖος; fl. 5th-century AD), from Stobi in Macedonia, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. The work was originally divided into two volumes containin ...

. According to Stobaeus, Phintys was the daughter of Callicrates, who is otherwise unknown. Holger Thesleff suggests that this Callicrates might be identified with

Callicratidas Callicratidas ( el, Καλλικρατίδας) was a Spartan navarch during the Peloponnesian War. He belonged to the mothax class so he was not a Spartiate, despite his status he had risen to prominence. In 406 BC, he was sent to the Aegean to ...

, a Spartan general who died at the

Battle of Arginusae The naval Battle of Arginusae took place in 406 BC during the Peloponnesian War near the city of Canae in the Arginusae islands, east of the island of Lesbos. In the battle, an Athenian fleet commanded by eight strategoi defeated a Spartan fle ...

. If so, this would make Phintys a Spartan, and date her birth to the late fifth century BC, and her

floruit ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

to the fourth century. I. M. Plant considers this emendation "fanciful". Iamblichus mentions Philtys in his list of female Pythagoreans;Iamblichus, ''Life of Pythagoras'', 267 he says that she was from Croton and that her father was called Theophrius. I. M. Plant believes that Iamblichus' Philtys, though also a Pythagorean and similarly named, is distinct from Stobaeus' Phintys. Two fragments attributed to Phintys are preserved in Stobaeus. However, not all scholars agree that the fragments are authentic: Lefkowitz and Fant argue that the works attributed to female Pythagoreans, including Phintys, were actually rhetorical exercises written by men. They are written in the Doric dialect, and amount to about 80 lines of prose. The language used dates to around the fourth century BC, although some features of it appear to be deliberate archaisms; it was likely actually composed in the third century BC, though a date as late as the second century AD was suggested by Friedrich Wilhelm in 1915. The fragments discuss the differences between men and women, and argues for chastity as the most important virtue for women. Phintys gives a series of ways that women ought to practice self-control, concluding that the most effective way is to only have sex with her husband in order to produce legitimate children. Along with her defence of women's chastity, she argues that the practice of philosophy is appropriate for women as well as men.

Notes

References

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External links

* ''From the treatise of Phintys, the daughter of Callicrates, on the temperance of a woman''. Translated by Thomas Taylor, published 1822, at

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"Phintys of Sparta"
by Kate Lindemann at the Society for the Study of Women Philosophers {{Authority control 4th-century BC women writers 4th-century BC writers 3rd-century BC women writers 3rd-century BC writers 4th-century BC philosophers 3rd-century BC philosophers Ancient Greek ethicists Ancient Greek women philosophers Ancient Greek women writers Ancient Crotonians Pythagoreans Doric Greek writers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 3rd-century BC Greek women