Volume: Volume 8, Issue 2

This paper will focus on women as philosophers in the Graeco-roman world: its time span will be extended , roughly, from the 6th c BC to the end of the 4th c AD. This rather elongated time span is due to the scarcity of the sources: Although there is a significant progress on the subject of the role of ancient Greek and Roman women in religion, economy and –even-politics, this is due to the bulk of information which can be gathered from- both - inscriptions and papyri. We cannot be so lucky on the subject of women ‘s share in intellectual life. The surviving material written by women is flimsy and fragmented: we know the names of some female poets and some fragments of their poems, but what about female philosophers? Of course, there is a list which –according to Richard Hauley –records the names of sixtythree women philosophers of antiquity. The problem with that list is: were these women genuine philosophers or they were simply ciphers or heroines of anecdotes? In other words, did those women produce philosophical work? This seems to be a moot point in the historical research: For most of them, we cannot be sure about anything else except their name and some short story, usually in connection with a male philosopher and of anecdotal character. There were some female students in various schools of philosophical thought, starting from the Pythagorean ones, through Plato’s academia to the various epicurean “gardens”. Some women, even taught, though this is a rather rare phenomenon. But the only philosophical works which survives under a woman’s Konstantinos Mantas ELECTRYONE (2022) Vol.8, Iss. 2, 48-60 http://www.electryone.gr-ISSN: 2241-4061 49 name consists of a few epistles by Pythagorean women sent to other women who sought their advice. These epistles present problems to the researcher: Some deny that they could have been written by women, thus considering them as having been written by men using female pseudonyms. This is an argument colored by sexist prejudice: if we accept that, we should deny all female authorship in antiquity. Of course, women philosophers can be connected to female mathematicians : in antiquity, a philosopher had had to be well-versed in mathematics and there are references to female mathematicians from the mythological era(Aethra, the mother of Theseus) up to late antiquity(Hypatia). Also, some women in postclassical Alexandria were alchemists and theurgoi. This is another aspect of female spirituality : it seems that it was easier for women to participate in philosophical work of a metaphysical nature(close to witchcraft). The story of Sosipatra(4th c AD), as it has been recorded by Eunapius in his Lives of the sophists is simila to fairy tales and apocryphal texts. Another important aspect of the history of women philosophers is that they were closely linked to a male philosopher: usually , as his wife or daughter(Theano, Hipparchia, , Sosipatra, Hypatia).Like most of women doctors, female philosophers seem to have profited due to this kind of nepotism which was prevalent in antiquity. So, the fact that women, even, when they taught philosophy seem to have done so in their home, needs not to surprise us. In the Hellenistic and Roman era, women could act in various civic roles , as benefactors and titular office –holders but only as members of local aristocratic dynasties and in a “privatized’ civic system of rule. Last but not least: who should we call a philosopher in antiquity? The epigraphical material shows, that most of the inscriptions engraved on tombs, honouring women as philosophers, imply that the deceased were honored as educated women- not as creators of genuine philosophical works. The same seems to apply to the empress Julia Doman, wife of the emperor Septimius Severus-she was given the honorific title of philosophos, but she did not write anything. Her contribution to philosophy is limited to the foundation of a philosophical salon and to her commission of the writing of the biography of the legendary sophist and magician Apollonius of Tyana.

This article examines the physicality of the female characters in the tragedies of Medea, Hecuba, Andromache and Trojan Women by Euripides. Using the theories of performativity by Judith Butler as a key, the research seeks to explore how female physical behavior on stage could resonate elements about their performativity of gender in the Athenian society of the fifth century. Through a recording of references on the female body and after drawing parallels with the according speeches of the characters, a very fierce potential of disavowing the Athenian societal norms arises for the tragic heroines. The female figures manage to accept and utilize the social prescriptions in their favor in order to achieve some control over their lives. In this way, they meticulously employ their consciousness and they transform their passive adherence to males into a powerful abnegating means of manipulating them. Their abnegation patterns fall into eight categories for the purposes of organizing the way females produce their physicality and perform their gender. These patterns are submission, acceptance, supplication, subversion, indulgence, death, imprisonment and reproductive power.

: It is widely accepted that all civilizations have used a calendar. To the question: “Did the Aegean, the Minoan and the Mycenean Civilization use a calendar?” the answer is yes. So, have any of those calendars survived and been examined scientifically, and, if so, what kind of calendars are they?" Presumably, most calendars were created on perishable material and thus did not survive. But there are also imperishable materials such as ceramics and stone which were used for the recording of the passage of time. Surviving Megalithic constructions such as Avebury, Newgrange, Stonehenge and others may have functioned partly as calendars. In this paper, after a short discussion on the different types of calendars used in prehistoric times, a unique Aegean lunisolar calendar carved on a block of Aegean marble (dated 2750-2300 BCE) is examined and decoded. This unusual artifact was found in 1964 on the Aegean Island of Keros by the archaeologist Chr. Dumas (1968), who named it “The Dove Vase”. This unusual artifact was found in 1964 on the Aegean Island of Keros by the archaeologist Chr. Dumas (1968), who named it

The main aim of the study is to identify the Hesiodian motifs in Plato’s philosophy. Thus the study is founded on the assumption that myth (the poetic tradition) and logos (the philosophical tradition) do not represent two distinct paradigms in ancient Greek thought, but more a kind of thought continuity. We will look for these motives or analogies at the level of organisation of the world (kosmos) and at the level of organisation of society (polis). We will deal primarily with Plato’s dialogues Timaeus, Republic and Symposium. The goal of the submitted study is to answer the question of whether and to what extent did Hesiod’s work influence Plato’s ideas about the organisation of the world and society as such.