Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 4.19.120

Clement of Alexandria · Miscellanies · ca. 198–203 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: Pagan women too showed virtue: Lysidice and Philotera in modesty, Leaena who endured torture without betraying the tyrannicides, and the Argive women led by Telesilla who repelled the Spartans.

Greek text · Stählin 2:301

Ναὶ μὴν Δίων ὁ φιλόσοφος Λυσιδίκην τινὰ γυναῖκα ἱστορεῖ διʼ ὑπερβολὴν αἰδοῦς αὐτῷ χιτῶνι λούεσθαι, Φιλωτέραν δέ, ὁπότε μέλλοι εἰσιέναι τὴν πύελον, ἡσυχῇ ἐπαναστέλλεσθαι τὸν χιτῶνα καθʼ ὅσον τὰ γυμνὰ τὸ ὕδωρ ἔσκεπεν, εἶτα κατʼ ὀλίγον αὖθις ἀνιοῦσαν ἐπενδύσασθαι. ἢ γὰρ οὐχὶ καὶ βασάνους ἤνεγκεν ἀνδρείως Λέαινα ἡ Ἀττική; συνειδυῖα αὕτη τοῖς ἀμφὶ τὸν Ἁρμόδιον καὶ Ἀριστογείτονα τὴν κατὰ Ἱππάρχου ἐπιβουλὴν οὐδʼ ὁπωστιοῦν ἐξεῖπεν εὖ μάλα στρεβλουμένη. φασὶ δὲ καὶ τὰς Ἀργολικὰς ἡγουμένης αὐτῶν Τελεσίλλης τῆς ποιητρίας Σπαρτιάτας τοὺς ἀλκίμους τὰ πολέμια φανείσας μόνον τρέψασθαι καὶ ἐκείναις τὸ ἀδεὲς τοῦ θανάτου περιποιήσασθαι.

English · Claude translation

Indeed Dio the philosopher relates that a certain woman, Lysidice, through excess of modesty, bathed in her tunic; and that Philotera, when she was about to enter the bath, would quietly draw up her tunic as far as the water covered her nakedness, and then, gradually coming out again, put it back on. And did not Leaena of Attica bear tortures bravely? She knew of the plot of Harmodius and Aristogeiton against Hipparchus and revealed nothing at all, though severely racked. They say too that the Argive women, led by Telesilla the poetess, merely by appearing turned the brave Spartans from war and won for themselves freedom from the fear of death.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:301 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 2, Stromata Buch I–VI, GCS 15 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906); vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 2–3 (GCS 15, 17, 1906–1909), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Stählin, GCS 15, 17. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1906–1909); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made) · Book 3 is left partly untranslated (in Latin) there.
Topics
Martyrdom, Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

  • Leaena's story is also in Pausanias 1.23.2; Telesilla's in Pausanias 2.20.8.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4.19.120 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/4/19/120/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4.19.120 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/4/19/120/).

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