Theano

Many Pythagorean writings were attributed to her in antiquity, including some letters and a few fragments from philosophical treatises, although these are all regarded as spurious by modern scholars.

• Name — Theano • Native Name — Θεανώ • Born — c. 6th century BC • Birthplace — Croton or Metapontum • Era — Ancient Greek philosophy • School Tradition — Pythagoreanism • Spouse — Pythagoras or Brontinus

Little is known about the life of Theano, and the few details on her life from ancient testimony are contradictory. According to Porphyry, she came from Crete and was the daughter of Pythonax. In the catalog of Aristoxenus of Tarentum quoted by Iamblichus, she is the wife of Brontinus, and from Metapontum in Magna Graecia, while Diogenes Laertius reports a tradition from Hermesianax where she came from Crotone, was the daughter of Brontinus, married Pythagoras, and while some claim that after Pythagoras' passing, she took over his school, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that was not the case.

The surviving fragment of On Piety preserved in Stobaeus concerns a Pythagorean analogy between numbers and objects; Walter Burkert notes that this statement, that "number does not even exist" contradicts the Platonic idealism of the Neopythagoreans and Neoplatonists, and attributes it to the Hellenistic period, before the advent of Neopythagoreanism in the early Roman period.

The various surviving letters deal with domestic concerns: how a woman should bring up children, how she should treat servants, and how she should behave virtuously towards her husband. The preserved letters are as follows: • To Eubule: On caring for infants. • To Euclides: A short letter to a physician who is ill. • To Eurydice: On behavior when a husband is unfaithful. • To Callisto: On etiquette towards maids. • To Nicostrate: On behavior when a husband is unfaithful. • To Rhodope: On a philosopher named Cleon. • To Timonides: Addressed to an unfaithful lover There are also references to a letter addressed To Timareta, which is referenced by Julius Pollux in his Onomasticon for its use of the word οἰκοδεσπότης.

In addition to the works in Greek, there is a collection of 65 sayings in Syriac attributed to Theano. Titled Advice of Theano, it is a gnomology originally composed in Greek around the 3rd century. It is pagan in origin and was not "Christianized" by its Syriac translators and copyists. In addition to the Advice, several isolated sayings attributed to Theano and a passage in the scholia of Pseudo-Nonnus are found in Syriac translation (from lost Greek originals).

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