Timycha

Timycha (Greek Τιμύχα ) was, according to the legendary lore, a native of Sparta Pythagoreerin who lived in the 4th century BC in southern Italy. Because of their steadfastness she was glorified as a hero. Whether it is a historical figure or a literary fiction, is unclear. Since her husband Myllias according to another tradition, a contemporary of the philosopher Pythagoras was so lived in the 6th century BC, is in Myllias and Timycha possibly two historical figures of the 6th century, the legend of the future in a time were added.

Timycha occurs in the biographies of Pythagoras, who wrote the Neoplatonist Porphyry and Iamblichus. The Pythagoras Biography of Porphyry is incompletely received, the missing closing; the story of Timycha begins at the end of the traditional text and aborts already in the middle in the first sentence. For Iamblichus, however, the legend is given in detail. Both authors rely on the philosophy historian Hippobotos and Neanthes of Cyzicus, whose reports are lost. In his list of the most important Pythagoreerinnen Iamblichus Timycha called in the first place.

The legend of the Spartan Timycha and her husband Myllias from Croton similar to that of Damon and Phintias. Both stories glorify the courage and fidelity of the steadfast Pythagoreans, which are provided by a tyrant to the test and do not think even in the face of death or torture from deviating from its principles. The sinister opponent of the Pythagorean heroes in both cases is the tyrant Dionysius II of Syracuse ( 367-357 and 346-344 BC). He tries to seduce the Pythagoreans to treason and wants to impose them as a friend. In contrast to ultimately bloodless course at Damon and Phintias is at Myllias and Timycha a horror story.

Iamblichus is the story again as follows. Dionysius was his attempts to win Pythagoreans as friends, failed because it was not enough as the tyrant characterological requirements for inclusion in a Pythagorean bond of friendship. Then he tried it with violence; he wanted Pythagoreans arrest and intimidate, to make them compliant. He hired a troop of thirty men, a crowd of about ten Pythagoreans, who were traveling by Metapont of Taranto, to lie in wait in an ambush and capture them. The hijacked Pythagoreans saw that resistance was hopeless, and fled. They nearly escape, but they arrived on the run in a bean field. Since they could not touch the beans because of a religious taboos them was so that the escape route blocked. Then they fought against the superior numbers of the enemy, until they were all dead; none was found. On the way home met the men of the tyrant on Myllias and Timycha, who had remained behind the other Pythagoreans because Timycha was heavily pregnant and could only walk slowly. You captured them and took them to Dionysius. The pair refused all proposals of the tyrant - even participation in his reign - from. They refused and the reason for the taboo beans, which belonged to the secret knowledge to call him. Then Dionysius did separate the two, because he hoped to bring the pregnant woman under torture to talk. Timycha but bit his tongue off and spit them out before the tyrant. So they wanted to prevent the risk that they would still weak under torture.

The story combines several elements that were considered in antiquity as typical Pythagorean, attracted attention and curiosity of the public aroused: the absolute discretion of the Pythagoreans, their absolute reliability, the exclusivity of their covenant, and the mysterious beans ban was puzzled about its cause. The philosophical confrontation of people living with a ruler was a popular material in the ancient world.

Comments

• Philosopher ( Antiquity)
• Greek ( Ancient )
• Born in the 4th century
• Died in the 4th century
• Woman