Hipparchia of Maroneia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Life
Hipparchia was born c. 350 BC in Maroneia, Thrace.[1][2] Her family came to Athens, where Hipparchia's brother - Metrocles - became a pupil of the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes.[3] Hipparchia fell in love with Crates, and developed such a passion for him, that she told her parents that if they refused to allow her to marry him, she would kill herself. They begged Crates to dissuade her, and he stood before her, removed his clothes, and said, "Here is the bridegroom, and this is his property."[1] Hipparchia, however, was quite happy with this; she adopted the Cynic life assuming the same clothes that he wore, and appearing with him in public everywhere.[4] Crates called their marriage "dog-coupling" (cynogamy).[5] We are told that they lived in the stoas and porticoes of Athens,[6] and Apuleius and later Christian writers wrote lurid accounts of them having sex, publicly, in broad daylight.[7] Although this would have been consistent with Cynic shamelessness (anaideia), the mere fact that Hipparchia adopted male clothes and lived on equal terms with her husband would have been enough to shock Athenian society. Hipparchia had at least two children, a daughter,[8] and a son named Pasicles.[5][9] It is not known how or when she died. There is an epigram ascribed to Antipater of Sidon, as the sort of thing which may have been written on her tomb:
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