In contrast to other ancient Greek philosophical schools of the time such as the Academy, Peripatos and Stoa, there is ample evidence of women in the Epicurean Garden. In addition to Batis, the sister of Metrodorus and wife of Idomeneus; Themista, wife of Leonteus; and Leontion, a hetaira turned philosopher who had relationships with Epicurus and Metrodorus, and a son and a daughter with the latter; there is evidence for hetairai in the school: Mammarion, Hedeia, Nikidion, Boidion, Demetria and Erotion.Footnote 1 Since the Epicurean hetairai have sexualized or gendered aptronyms—for instance, Mammarion means ‘Tit’ and Hedeia ‘Sweety’—and we do not know much else about them, some scholars doubt whether these women were real people rather than critics’ concoctions of the supposedly debauched Epicurean way of life.Footnote 2 As the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names shows, however, these names are well attested in other sources, which makes it unlikely that they are complete fictions.Footnote 3 More importantly, these Epicurean women are mentioned in Philodemus.Footnote 4 This would be strange if anti-Epicurean critics had invented them. Nevertheless, these women remain in the shadows, because appeals to epigraphical evidence to support their historical reality have not been successful so far.Footnote 5
The extant evidence does not show that all functions within the Epicurean community were open to women as they were open to men.Footnote 6 For instance, there is no indication that women held leadership roles in an Epicurean community.Footnote 7 And there is only evidence that a single woman, Leontion,Footnote 8 may have written a philosophical treatise directed against Theophrastus.Footnote 9 This is surprising because if Leontion were a philosopher, we would perhaps expect that she would have written more than a single treatise; and although there were many women connected with the Epicurean school in some way, we have no evidence that they wrote anything.
Regardless of whether Epicurean women took up more pre-eminent roles within the school, they were clearly addressed by Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus explicitly speaks to women in his writings;Footnote 10 and Epicurean teachings themselves contain progressive ideas on women since they free them from an existence within the traditional family setting and the role expectations that come with it.Footnote 11 For instance, Epicurus considers the desire for sexual intercourse a natural and unnecessary desire, one that reflects a preference and thus can be neglected if acting on the desire produces more pain than pleasure.Footnote 12 This view has consequences for the relation between the sexes. One of the main motivations for joining up with the opposite sex falls away on the Epicurean view. Epicurus does not consider marriage a precondition of leading the best life, and he counsels against having children.Footnote 13 Nor is there evidence that Epicurean women could not achieve happiness. On the contrary, Batis was probably said to possess virtue equivalent to that of Epicurus, which contrasts with Aristotle’s view, for instance, according to which women are not able to obtain the same virtues as men.Footnote 14
While these ideas on women in the Epicurean school are well known and hold true of early Epicureanism, in what follows I argue that Zeno of Sidon (second/first century b.c.e.) probably held a view that diverged from the one just described.Footnote 15 In particular, I propose that he defended a misogynist view. This points to a significant doctrinal development within the Epicurean school.Footnote 16
The central piece of evidence for the claim that Zeno defends a dismissive view on women is a testimonium found in Soranus’ Gynecology.Footnote 17 Written in the first/second century c.e., this text has not been sufficiently appreciated by the scholars who have studied the status of women in the Epicurean school.Footnote 18 In the testimonium which is fr. 28 in the collection of Zeno’s fragments by Angeli and Colaizzo, Soranus (Gyn. 3.3) discusses whether men and women are subject to different diseases and adduces a series of reasons meant to establish the affirmative. One of these reasons is the authority of the philosophers:
φύσϵι τϵ τὸ θῆλυ τοῦ ἄρρϵνος διαφέρϵι μέχρι τοῦ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλην καὶ Ζήνωνα τὸν Ἐπικούρϵιον ϵἰπϵῖν ἀτϵλὲς μὲν ϵἶναι τὸ θῆλυ, τέλϵιον δὲ ϵἶναι τὸ ἄρρϵν.
and by nature the female sex differs from the male to the point that both Aristotle and Zeno the Epicurean say that the female sex is imperfect, but the male sex is perfect.Footnote 19
‘Zeno the Epicurean’ must be Zeno of Sidon.Footnote 20 Yet we would have more faith in the testimonium if Soranus told us in which work Zeno made the claim that women are by nature imperfect.Footnote 21 On the basis of the above passage, it is also unclear whether Soranus even had first-hand or second-hand knowledge of Zeno,Footnote 22 and whether the words Soranus uses to describe Zeno’s position were the ones Zeno himself used. Nevertheless, the report in Soranus captures the core idea underlying Zeno’s divergent position on women.Footnote 23 It fits perfectly with the other textual evidence on Zeno if we examine the writings of his student Philodemus of Gadara.Footnote 24
The degree of Philodemus’ dependency on Zeno is difficult to ascertain. We know that Philodemus refers to Zeno in his works,Footnote 25 that he shows great reverence for his teacher Zeno,Footnote 26 and that at least two of Philodemus’ works are transcriptions of Zeno’s lectures: On Frank Criticism, according to the subscript at the end of P.Herc. 1471,Footnote 27 and a further work whose title we do not know and that is not otherwise extant.Footnote 28 Except for some testimonia in later authors, however, Zeno’s own writings—which were probably voluminous—Footnote 29 have not survived. Therefore we are unable to check Philodemus’ claims against Zeno’s, and it is for the most part unclear to what extent Philodemus is following his teacher.Footnote 30 Nevertheless, I argue in what follows that at least when it comes to the status of women, Philodemus came to a different conclusion than his teacher. After all, among Philodemus’ extant works, On Frank Criticism is the most critical of women. But as already noted, On Frank Criticism is based on Zeno’s lecture notes, and the comments in this work perfectly align with Soranus’ report on Zeno’s view on women.Footnote 31 By contrast, other works by Philodemus, which are probably not based on Zeno’s, advance a more progressive view on women. To resolve the discrepancy, therefore, the dismissive stance on women advanced in On Frank Criticism ought to be ascribed to Zeno rather than to Philodemus himself.
In On Frank Criticism, Philodemus claims first that there are different types of students and that their age and sex accounts for the main differences among them. As a result of these differences, students ought to be taught in different ways (col. vi.a.1–8; Konstan, Clay, Glad, Thom and Ware’s translation):
δῆλον δὲ γέγονϵ ἐκ τῶν ϵἰ]ρημέ[νων, ὅτι καθ᾽ ἕκαστο]ν ὁ μὲ[ν] μακρά, [ὁ δὲ μικρὰ διοίσ]ουσ[ι]ν, ὥσπϵρ γ[υναι]κὸς μϵιράκιον δια[φέρϵι γυναικῶν] τϵ καὶ νϵ[ανίσ]κων γέροντϵς ἅμ[α διοί]σουσιν.
It has become obvious from what has been said] that they {teachers} will differ for each {student}, one much, [one little,] just as a lad differs from a woman and old men will differ from <[women]> and youngsters alike.Footnote 32
Second, Philodemus maintains that women generally handle frank criticism poorly (col. xxii.a.1–11; Konstan, Clay, Glad, Thom and Ware’s translation):Footnote 33
καὶ] μᾶλλον ὑ[π]ολαμ[βά]ν[ο]υσιν ὀνϵιδίζϵσθαι καὶ [μᾶλ]λον ὑπὸ τῆς ἀδοξίας θλίβον[τ]αι καὶ μᾶλλον ὑπονοοῦσιν πονηρὰ πϵρὶ τῶν νουθϵτούντων καὶ καθόλου πάντα, δι᾽ ἅ τινϵς δάκνονται, μᾶλλ[ο]ν ἔχουσιν χϵιμάζοντα, καὶ θρασύτϵραι δ᾽ ϵἰσὶ κα[ὶ] χαυν[ό]τϵραι καὶ φιλοδο[ξότϵραι.
… [and] they {i.e. women} assume rather that they are being reviled and they are all the more crushed by the disgrace and they rather suspect evil things concerning those who admonish and in general they rather deem upsetting everything by which some {of their sex} are stung, and they are too impulsive and too vain and too fond of their [reputation …
And finally, Philodemus writes that women themselves believe that their natural weakness warrants special treatment (col. xxii.b.1–9; Konstan, Clay, Glad, Thom and Ware’s translation, modified):
καὶ ἀξιοῦσι] τὴν τῆς φύ[σϵως] ἀσθένϵιαν ἐλϵϵῖσθαι καὶ συνγνώμης τυγχάνϵιν καὶ μὴ προπηλακίζϵσθαι πρ[ὸ]ς τῶν ἰσχυροτέρων ἐξϵπί[τη]δϵς. ὅ[θϵ]ν καὶ ταχέως ἐπὶ τ[ὰ] δάκρυα καταντῶσιν, ἀπὸ καταφρονήσϵως ἐπικ[ό]πτϵσθαι νομίζουσαι.
and they {i.e. women} think it right] that their natural weakness be pitied and that they meet with pardon and not be intentionally ridiculed by those who are stronger {than they are}. Hence they quickly reach {the point of} tears, believing that they are reproved out of contempt.Footnote 34
One could take the last passage to mean that women come to an incorrect assessment of how they ought to be treated (that is, that they ought to be pitied), and that women are also wrong to think that they are naturally weak. But in line with Soranus’ report, we could also think that Philodemus in the above passage is not questioning the natural weakness of women per se, but only the treatment that they ought to receive as a result of their natural constitution. Such a reading would supply us with a reason for why women ought to be treated differently from men (that is, the need to be taught by different teachers) and for why women handle frank criticism less well, namely, that they are by nature inferior to men. Put differently, the testimonium in Soranus would provide the missing explanation for why different treatment of women is justified, which does not otherwise follow from the extant passages of On Frank Criticism. Footnote 35 Furthermore, this explanation is especially interesting because it uses nature as the differentiating feature between women and men. It thus refers to an essentialist explanatory category, which seems atypical in Epicureanism and so points to a significant innovation by Zeno.
The reader might object that the attitude towards women found in On Frank Criticism could be Philodemus’ own. After all, if his other works also advanced misogynist ideas, and these texts were not based on notes on Zeno’s lecture, but were probably Philodemus’ own, then it would not follow that Zeno was the originator of a dismissive view on women. An analysis of Philodemus’ other works, however, shows that these texts either reproduce ideas found in early Epicurean authors or that they defend a much more progressive view on women incompatible with the view advanced in On Frank Criticism. As a result, these other Philodeman works support the thesis defended here, namely, that the misogynist view can probably be traced back to Zeno.
Philodemus merely reproduces the view on women already found in early Epicurean authors in On Property Management, On Music and On Choices and Avoidances (?), where Philodemus repeats the sceptical attitude towards marriage already found in Epicurus. In the first work, Philodemus makes clear that there can be ‘a happy life even without her (that is, a wife)’ (ϵὐδαίμονος ζωῆς καὶ χωρὶς αὐτῆς, On Property Management, col. ix.2–3; Tsouna’s translation). In the second work, Philodemus in the same vein speculates ‘if indeed marriage may also be considered a good in an unqualified way’ (ϵἰ δὴ καὶ γάμος ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν ἂν λέγοιτο, On Music IV, col. v.35–7; translation mine). And in the third work, if the restoration is correct, Philodemus makes clear that an external good like marriage contributes little to the best life when compared to the adherence to the most important teachings outlined in the Principal Doctrines (P.Herc. 1251 = On Choices and Avoidances, col. xv.6–16; Indelli and Tsouna-McKirahan’s translation):Footnote 36
χρὴ [δὲ κ]ατέχϵιν καὶ δι[ότι σ]υμβά[λλϵ]ται μὲν ϵἰς τὸ κ[ατ]ατυγχ[άν]ϵιν καὶ τὸ πϵρ[ὶ τ]ῶν κατὰ μ[έρο]ς ποητικῶν τῶν ἔξω[θϵν ἠ]κρ[ι]βωκέναι πῶς ἔχϵι [πρὸς] ἡμᾶς, οἷον πολυτϵλϵίας καὶ μο[ρ]φ[ῆς] καὶ πλούτου κοινῶς καὶ [γά]μου καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων, ἀλλὰ μικρὸν ὡς πρὸς τὰ κυριώτ[α]τα πϵρὶ ὧν ὑπϵμνήσ[α]μϵ[ν.
It is necessary to bear in mind also that a further factor which contributes to success is a thorough understanding of individual sources of external goods and how they stand in relation to us—for example, luxury and beauty and wealth, generally speaking, and marriage and the like—but its contributions are small in comparison to the cardinal tenets which we mentioned.
Philodemus advances a more progressive view on women in other passages of On Property Management as well as his Epigrams than the one defended in On Frank Criticism and the Soranus testimonium. In On Property Management, Philodemus criticizes the view, defended in the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics, that the best form of rule in the city-state is not a monarchy, whereas in household management is a monarchy (cols. vii.45–viii.7). This criticism opens up the possibility of a more equal relationship between the sexes because it implies that women and men could manage the household together in a more democratic fashion.Footnote 37 Likewise, in col. viii.24–40, Philodemus rejects the view that women are considered mere property (κτῆσις) of their husbands rather than their genuine partners.Footnote 38
In the Epigrams, Philodemus articulates a more progressive view on women than the one that is found in On Frank Criticism. It is a difficult question whether the contents of any given epigram can be ascribed to the author Philodemus and whether there is doctrinal continuity between the ideas advanced in the Epigrams and in philosophical treatises such as On Frank Criticism and On Property Management.Footnote 39 Four points help us to address that question, however. First, none of Philodemus’ epigrams that feature women mocks them in any way; they rather capture brief snippets of their respective lives. Second, two poems have female narrators (Epigrams 25, 26 Sider). If these are in fact by Philodemus, it would indicate that he was open to taking up a female perspective. It is difficult to imagine that such a stance is compatible with a completely dismissive attitude on women, especially since these epigrams do not make fun of women. Third, two poems that are part of the Xantho series express a positive evaluation of women. In Epigram 3 Sider, an unnamed lover asks a hetaira, Xantho, to sing a certain line to him, to which the hetaira replies that the line he asks her to sing does not make any sense (Sider’s translation):
Xantho comes across as much more intelligent than her lover. We might infer that Philodemus acknowledges that some women, sometimes, are more intelligent than men.
Fourth, Epigram 7 Sider addresses Xantho as ὦ φιλϵράστρι᾽ ἄκοιτις, which gives Xantho the triple identity of a wife, lover and friend.Footnote 40 This combination is unusual because Xantho is described as a friend, which, given the importance of friendship in Epicureanism, is especially significant.Footnote 41 As a result, it seems unlikely that the narrator would not cherish his wife and consider her as an equal partner of sorts, which again points to a positive evaluation of women.
In summary, then, since Philodemus is probably not following Zeno’s lecture notes in the epigrams and these texts present women in an unambiguously positive way, the epigrams further support the idea that a dismissive view of women can be traced back to Zeno, Philodemus’ teacher. Zeno’s view on women thus not only differs from that of Philodemus himself, but also from early Epicurean authors. No text supplies us with a reason why Zeno innovated and diverged from the view on women that early Epicurean authors held. But the neglected testimonium in Soranus shows that Zeno’s view was different from other Epicurean authors and that he introduced an essentialist explanation on the difference between the sexes into Epicureanism that was not found in Epicurus himself. This indicates a significant doctrinal development within the Epicurean school.
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