page_title: Hipparchia of Maroneia
section_title: Modern influence
hierarchical_section_title: Hipparchia of Maroneia / Modern influence
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraving depicting the Greek philosophers Hipparchia of Maroneia and Crates of Thebes. From the book Proefsteen van de Trou-ringh (Touchstone of the Wedding Ring) written by Jacob Cats. Hipparchia and Crates are depicted wearing 17th-century clothing. In the scene depicted, Crates is trying to dissuade Hipparchia from her affections for him by pointing to his head to show how ugly he is. Hipparchia's parents can be seen peeking behind the curtain.
context_page_description: Hipparchia of Maroneia was a Cynic philosopher, and wife of Crates of Thebes. She was the sister of Metrokles, the cynic philosopher.
  She was born in Maroneia, but her family moved to Athens, where Hipparchia came into contact with Crates, the most famous Cynic philosopher in Greece at that time. She fell in love with him, and, despite the disapproval of her parents, she married him. She went on to live a life of Cynic poverty on the streets of Athens with her husband.
  Little survives of her own philosophical views, but like most Cynics, her influence lies in the example of her life, choosing a way of life which was usually considered unacceptable for respectable women of the time. The story of her attraction to Crates, and her rejection of conventional values, became a popular theme for later writers.
context_section_description: The story of Hipparchia's pursuit of Crates, despite the disapproval of her parents and the initial reluctance of Crates, was a popular tale from the 16th century onwards. It featured in Lodovico Guicciardini's commonplace book Hore di ricreatione published in 1568, and it was one of the stories told by the Dutch poet Jacob Cats in his Touchstone of the Wedding Ring (Proefsteen van de Trou-ringh) published in 1637. William Penn wrote about her in his No Cross, No Crown, which he wrote in prison in 1668. For Penn she was an example of puritan discipline and virtue:
  I seek not the Pomp and Effeminacy of this World, but Knowledge and Virtue, Crates; and choose a Life of Temperance, before a Life of Delicacies: For true Satisfaction, thou knowest, is in the Mind; and that Pleasure is only worth seeking, that lasts for ever.
  Her marriage to Crates inspired Pierre Petit to write the Latin poem Cynogamia, sive de Cratetis et Hipparches amoribus in 1676. In the same century, Clemenza Ninci, an Italian nun, wrote a play entitled Sposalizio d'Iparchia filosofa (The marriage of Hipparchia the philosopher). The play deals with Hipparchia's desire to marry Crates, and the obstacles which are placed in her way until she achieves her desire. The play was written for convent performance (with all the parts played by nuns) and was not published until the 19th century. The German writer Christoph Martin Wieland made Crates and Hipparchia the heroes of his epistolary novel Krates und Hipparchia (1804). Crates and Hipparchia feature in Marcel Schwob's Vies Imaginaires (Imaginary Lives, 1896). The American writer H.D. wrote a novella Hipparchia (1921), a highly fictionalised account of Hipparchia's daughter, (whom H.D. imagines is also called Hipparchia). Hipparchia was an inspiration for the book L'Étude et le rouet (1989) (translated in English under the title Hipparchia's Choice) by the French feminist philosopher Michèle Le Dœuff, a reflection on women's relation to philosophy. Martha Nussbaum, in her speech to the University of Chicago Law School graduating class of 2010, presented Hipparchia'a life as an illustrative example of the benefits of continuing education beyond academic settings.
  A genus of butterflies, Hipparchia, bears her name.
caption: Engraving of Hipparchia and Crates from the Touchstone of the Wedding Ring by Jacob Cats. Depicted in 17th-century clothing, Crates tries to dissuade Hipparchia from her affections for him by pointing to his head to show how ugly he is
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