sokrates' mistress xanthippe

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SOKRATES' MISTRESS XANTHIPPEAuthor(s): P.J. BicknellSource: Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science, Vol. 8, No. 1 (May, 1974), pp.1-5Published by: De GruyterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40913336 .Accessed: 08/05/2014 19:45

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1.

SOKRATES' MISTRESS XANTHIPPE

Aristoxenos, Fragment 54 Wehrli.

a. (Cyril, contra Julianum 6.186)

yeypatpe yitp ' iiXiv nepl auxo IIop

2*

In the course of his exposition Fitton observes that Aristoxenos made two points about Xanthippe's social status. She was a citizen (uoXxiv), not an alien; she was ordinary in contrast with the high-born Myrto. "Ordinary" is the construction placed by Fitton11 on xoivoxepav. He duly admitsl2 that LSJ give no examples of xoivs as applied to a person with quite this sense , and he fails to cite any instances of his own. Given the indubitable malig- nitas1^ of Aristoxenos and the fact that toils xoivaTs of the previous sentence are commonly taken to be "prostitutes",14 a more natural and consistent rendering, in default of some positive indication to the contrary, would be "more promiscuous." There is, however, a complicating factor in the shape of a neglected passage from Tzetzes1 hypothesis to Aristophanes1 Clouds.

J. Tzetzes, Hypothesis to Aristophanes' Clouds, p. 368, col. II, lines 3-8 (Koster)

6'5o yuvaxas xv (the subject is Sokrates) v xax otxiij) ouvoi5aas canrS), Zavdi'mtnv Kal Mupxw, TTiv yev xaipiaxpiav, xnv ot uyeiaav x vywv, xai xaixas iaicXnxxioyvas XXnXais pwv yeXqi ippuxov Xeyuvra. There can be no doubt that Tzetzes ' information derives in the last in-

stance from Aristoxenos, Equally clearly there is some connection between xaipioxpia15 and xoivoxepav. There are two possible explanations.

1. Either outside the extract absorbed by Porphyrios, or in a phrase a sentence within it which for reasons of delicacy or because of a lapse of belief Porphyrios glossed over, Aristoxenos categorically stated that Xanthippe, one of Sokrates' women, also engaged in homo- sexual activity. In that case xoivoxepav could only be by way of reiteration or underlining of the fact that Xanthippe was receptive to lovers of both sexes. Such a twist to xoivs would be quite unexceptionable. As Fitton emphasises,1" basically, as applied to a person, the word conveys that he is not exclusive in his associa- tions .

2. xaipiaxpia is the contribution of Tzetzes or an intermediary who thus sought to be explicit about proclivities of Xanthippe deduced from Aristoxenos1 xoivoxepav.

Of these two alternatives the former seems to me eminently preferable, for Tzetzes, or his source, would, in the absence of any counter-indication, have surely understood xoivoxe*pav in some less exotic sense; for example, "promiscuous" (with males only) .

Aristoxenos himself, then, is likely to have described Xanthippe as xaipi'axpia. Whether or not we are to believe sjiim is another matter. For Fitton1?, Aristoxenos1 bias against Sokrates comes out in the application to the philosopher of such terms as iccueuxos18 and axnyoa'5vn,19 but not in factual misrepresentation of his domestic arrangements and sexual habits. On the whole, I think, this is true, but it remains possible that in these areas the tendenz manifests itself iiv innuendo. Are we intended to infer, for example, that rivalry for the possession or control of their man was not the only reason for the quarrels, hilarious to the Aristoxenean Sokrates, between Myrto and Xanthippe?

Finally, if my central contention is valid, the interpretation of n Y*P tous YayTtfs i fats xoivais XPfaSai yvais has to be reconsidered. It is improbable, as already emphasised, that xoivaTs has a radically different sense to xoivoxepav. Both xas yayexas and xats xoivais are, I think, generic. Sokrates, Aristoxenos rather cumbrously informs us, onfined his heterosexual attentions to two categories of women, legal wives [of reputedly orthodox sexual mores] and ambisexuals [whose habits removed them from the marriage market] . Myrto


3.

was the wife, Xanthippe the non-conformist partner. Aristoxenos, whatever else he intended, did not mean to suggest that Sokrates, either consecutively or simultaneously, had other women of either type.

P.J. Bicknell Monash university.

APPENDIX

According to Aristoxenos F54 Myrto was a duyaxpLon of Aristeides the Just. Plutarch (Aristeides 27.3) duly credits Aristoxenos with this view which he ascribes, in addition, to Hieronymos of Rhodes, Demetrios of Phaleron, and Aristotle. Diogenes Laertios (2.26) credits Aristotle with the notion that Myrto was the Aristeides ' duyctTnp . Athenaios (555d) makes Myrto the daughter of a homonymous grandson of. the great statesman; he names Aristotle, Aristoxenos, Demetrios, Kallisthenes and Satyros as authorities for this assertion.

In Fitton's opinion, Aristotle, Aristoxenos, Demetrios, Hieronymos, Kallisthenes and Satyros all described Myrto as the great Aristeides1 auytxTpion, by which they meant daughter's daughter. Diogenes' Suycrrnp is the result of somebody's careless copying of duyatpiii the substitution of a more familiar word. The more complex account in Athenaios looks like an attempt to ration- alise the mistaken view found in Diogenes. 1 i am not convinced that "&uY What is not in doubt is that identification of Myrto as a great-grand- daughter of Aristeides the Just suits perfectly from the chronological point of view. Aristeides died in 46724 leaving his son Lysimachos and his un- married daughters in dire poverty.25 On the motion of Alkibiades ("the elder") the demos provided for Lysimachos and married his sisters from the prytaneion at public expense. Myrto1 s grandmother, then, acquired a husband in 467 or the following year. Aristeides, her father, could have been born by the end of 465. 21 If he married about the age of 30, the birth of Myrto could fall C.433. Her first marriage, in that case, would take place c.418.

The accompanying simplified stemma illustrates the proposed relationships diagrammatical ly .


4.

Lysimachos I PA 9504

Aristeides I (the Just) PA 1695

Lysimachos II PA 9505 daughter

Aristeides II PA 1696 Aristeides III

Myrto PA 10500

Notes:

1. J.W. Fittoti, "That was no lady, that was ....", CQ 64 (1970), pp. 56-66.

2. Despite the recent attempt at rebuttal ("Socrates and the daughter of Aristides", Phoenix 27 [1973] , pp. 7-25) by L. Woodbury.

3. Diogenes reports three views as to Sokrates' domestic arrangements: 1. (attributed to Aristotle) Sokrates married Xanthippe and then replaced her with his second wife Myrto; 2. (ascribed to "others") Sokrates1 first wife was Myrto who was replaced by the second, Xanthippe; 3. (on the authority of Satyros and of Hieronymos of Rhodes) Sokrates had Xanthippe and Myrto simultaneously. As Fit ton (op. cit. pp. 57-58) emphasises, Plutarch and Athenaios are quite unequivocal to the effect that Aristotle emphasised that Sokrates married Myrto when he already had Xanthippe.

4. This approximate date follows from Plato's description, for which s below, of Lamprokles as yeipctxtov at the time of his father's trial.

5. Not necessarily their only son, for note Diogenes 2.37. The other children of Sokrates and Xanthippe, if there were indeed such, will have died in infancy.

6. At the time of Sokrates' death his sons by Myrto were both ay ixpoi; see below. The marriage has to be subsequent to the dramatic date between 424 and 418, of Plato's Laches; see Woodbury, op. cit. p. 13.

7. On the precise connotation, see the appendix.

8. The fact that Lamprokles was not so named could be significant, provided that an elder brother had not died a short time after his birth. Only in rare cases, as far as one can judge, was a legitimate first son not named after the paternal grandfather. Whatever the meaning of Aristoxenos' xoivoxepav, it is unlikely that the family of Xanthippe the pallake exceeded that of Sokrates in status to the extent that, for example, the oikia tyrannike of Kleisthenes of Sikyon surpassed the house of his son- in-law Megakles. And we cannot, even be completely sure that no elder brother of Kleisthenes of Athens died in infancy.


5.

9. Here also (for the other occasion, see the appendix) I part company with Fit ton. Phaidon and his companions find Eav&iicicnv - yiyvdaxei yap (surely a hint at her irregular status) - ixovav xe to cuiov auxoo xai itapaxadnyevnv. Lamprokles is one of Sokrates1 itoui'a at 116b. Xanthippe would more likely have her own child with her than one of Myrto's two offspring. Ixouaotv is simply "with", not "holding". Why aoTOU? Not because Xanthippe is holding one of Myrto's babies (so Fit ton, op. cit. p. 60), Xanthippe may well have born a child or children before she became the mistress of Sokrates.

10. Fitton, op. cit. p. 60.

11. Compare Woodbury, op. cit. p. 17.

12. Fitton, op. cit. p. 60, note 5.

13. On which see below.

14. So also Fitton, op. cit. p. 60.

15. Always "lesbian", "t rib ad". The earliest appearance is at Plato, Symposion 191e,

16. Fitton, op. cit. p. 60 note 5.

17. Fitton, op. cit. pp. 59-60.

18. Aristoxenos F55 Wehrli, where we find, in addition, yadns and lhXoloto.

19. Aristoxenos F54a Wehrli (Cyril, contra Julianum 6.185).

20. Fitton, op. cit. pp. 57-58.

21. Thus Fitton slants the observation in Athenaios that Myrto's father could not be the Aristeides since ot xpvoi ou auyxupouotv. The intention, however, may be to obviate future error rather than to resolve an existing incongruity.

22. In his "Sokrates"; see Plutarch, Aristeides 27. 4-5.

23. See the previous note.

24. See Nepos, Aristeides 3.3.

25. Plutarch, Aristeides 27.2.

26. So, for example, E . Vanderpool at Hesperia 21 (1952), pp. 5-6. The daughters of Aristeides the Just would have been long past child-bearing age and probably dead by the time that the Alkibiades entered on public life.

27. It is possible, in view of his mother's family, that Aristeides, although named after his maternal grandfather, was an eldest son (see note 8 above). I allow, however, for a previous male child.


Article Contentsp. 1p. 2p. 3p. 4p. 5

Issue Table of ContentsApeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science, Vol. 8, No. 1 (May, 1974), pp. 1-35Front MatterSOKRATES' MISTRESS XANTHIPPE [pp. 1-5]PLATO'S DIVIDED LINE: ESSAY II: MATHEMATICS AND DIALECTIC [pp. 7-18]PLATO'S DIVIDED LINE: APPENDIX: THE FUNCTION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LINE [pp. 19-21]"PHILIA" in the "GORGIAS" [pp. 23-25]ON SPIKING THE IMITATION REGRESS [pp. 27-30] , , in 340e-341b, 503b [pp. 31-32]FEMINISM IN BOOK V OF PLATO'S "REPUBLIC" [pp. 33-35]Erratum: SYMBOL AND STRUCTURE IN HERACLITUSBack Matter

sokrates' mistress xanthippe

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