Sôphrosunêfor Later Greek Women

Abstract

AbstractClassical authors disputed whether virtue had gendered forms: the Socratics argued that it didn’t; Meno and Aristotle claimed that it did. The chapter begins with an overview of this debate. It then turns to close readings of two post-Classical texts, each of which is closely informed by those debates. The first is the On Women’s Sôphrosunê, ascribed to a late-Hellenistic or early Roman-era woman called Phintys. This work opens with a theory about gendered virtue and proceeds to vaunt a conservative—husband-respecting, social-norm-obeying—sôphrosunê for women or wives. Readers must wonder whether Phintys enjoins submissiveness, the abandonment of agency, or, by contrast, an active self-possession governed by norms of women’s thoughtful acceptance, the constitution of agency. The other text is Iamblichus’ letter to a woman named Arete on the subject of sôphrosunê. Unlike Phintys, Iamblichus does not assume that this virtue is gendered, and he leaves no question whether sôphrosunê is the virtue of agency.