Philosopher
Hipparchia
fl. 310–290 BCE
Also known as Hipparchia of Maroneia
Cynic philosopher, wife of Crates, one of the few known women philosophers of ancient Greece, famous for her shamelessness and her sharp wit at men's symposia.
Hipparchia came from Maroneia in Thrace and flourished around 300 BCE. She was probably born between 340 and 330 BCE and took up the Cynic life in her mid-teens, perhaps led to philosophy by her brother Metrocles, a former student at Aristotle’s Lyceum before following Crates.
She married Crates and lived with him in poverty. Diogenes Laertius reports that she wrote letters, jokes and philosophical refutations, all now lost; what we know comes from anecdotes in later authors. With Crates she is considered a direct influence on Stoicism.
Key ideas
- Living by nature
- With her husband Crates, Hipparchia lived out the Cynic view that virtue comes from living rationally by natural law: rejecting material convention, embracing self-sufficiency and hardship.
- Shamelessness
- Accounts of her life stress her belief in human shamelessness (anaideia), the Cynic refusal to be ruled by conventional shame.
- Defying gender roles
- Cynics normally rejected marriage, yet her marriage to Crates challenged Greek expectations of women’s place in marriage as well as Cynic doctrine; she argued at symposia traditionally attended only by men.
- Tradition
- Western
- Region
- Maroneia and Athens
- Branches
- Ethics
- Period
- Ancient Greek and Roman
- Themes
- The good life
Terms on this page
- anaideia
- Shamelessness: the Cynic refusal to be governed by conventional shame, for which Hipparchia was famous.
Sources
- Laura Grams, Hipparchia, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy