Theano of Crotone: the great unknown
Today is a good day to write about the first female mathematician in history. And no, it’s not Hypatia of Alexandria, no matter how hard Wikipedia tries.
And not only Wikipedia, there are many pages that put Hypatia as “The first Greek mathematician (of which there is evidence)”. In those three words there are three mistakes:
She wasn’t Greek, Hipatia was Egyptian. She wasn’t mathematics either…. well, let’s write a little more about this: Hipatia was mainly devoted to astronomy, although she also made contributions in Philosophy and Mathematics, and she was also a writer and inventor (and unfortunatly, she also contributed to astrology). And last, but not least, and what interests us for this post: she was not the first female mathematician.
This doesn’t mean that Hipatia’s life wasn’t intense (I’m sure I’ll return to Hipatia another day, there’s a lot to tell about her), but if we’re going to write about the first mathematical woman, we have to know Theano of Crotone (He can write as Theano or Teano).
Who was Theano of Crotone?
How come the name doesn’t even ring a bell?
Teano was born in 546B.C. (Yes, more than 900 years before Hipatia). At that time there were very few women who had the opportunity to be on the same level as men, and in that small group was Teano.
Why?
Theano was part of an innovative religious current: the orphics.
The orphics mixed the beliefs of Greek and Egyptian mythologies. They prayed to the god Apollo, believed in reincarnation, in purity of soul, and often performed strange rites, rites that were forbidden and considered taboo.
Yeah, you’re thinking about it. If she had a religion with “curious customs”, she was Greek, and lived at this time, surely it has something to do with a certain “cult”… of course: Teano of Crotone was a member of the Pythagorean School. And no, she wasn’t the first woman to enter this school, we know there were at least 17 other women already.
Oh, really?
Yes, although at that time women could hardly do anything science-related, in the Pythagorean school what was most important was the devotion to mathematics. There were no restrictions by sex to be part of it (although there were restrictions by religion). In fact, they considered it important for a woman to be intelligent and cultured. The Pythagorean School was quite liberal in this for the time being, especially considering that, for everything else, the Pythagorean School was very conservative, a little-point for Greek mathematicians.
And what did Teano do in math?
She wrote several treatises on mathematics, on numbers, on polyhedrons, on proportions, on order, on harmony, on aerial proportion, on Pythagoras… in fact, fragments of some of his letters are preserved, like this paragraph, in which he talks about the essence of the Pythagoreans, who believed that everything was made by numbers:
“I have heard it said that the Greeks thought that Pythagoras had said that everything had been begotten by numbers, but this statement disturbs us: How can we imagine things that do not exist and can beget?
He did not say that all things were born of numbers, but that everything was formed according to numbers, for in numbers reside the essential order, and the same things can be named first, second, and so on, only when they participate in this order.”
It is curious that, although Theano also thought that everything was formed by natural numbers (counting numbers), she was the first person to consider the existence of the golden number; a number with infinite decimal numbers (1.61803398874989…). A very advanced thought for this time.
With all this, there is one thing that is clear: Theano of Crotone was not only the first female mathematician in the history (at least, the first one we know of today), but she was also an important person, not only among the Pythagoreans, but also among mathematicians.
Oh, I forgot about it!
Theano of Crotone was the daughter of Milon, a very rich athlete, and was also (drum roll) the wife of Pythagoras.
Yes, Pythagoras, the real Pythagoras, the one about this theorem with the hypotenuse and all that stuff. Not only was he a member of the Pythagorean school, but there he met Pythagoras, and they ended up getting married. In fact, when Pythagoras was killed, Teano continued to lead the Pythagorean school from exile.
Well, but this information is important!
Why didn’t you say so before?
Because it wasn’t necessary. Theano already shines by itself. If I had written in the first paragraph “Teano de Crotona, the wife of Pythagoras” (as they do many of the few pages that speak about Theano), that could have blurred everything else, downplaying the importance of Teano’s own life.
And today, when there are lists and posts like “The Most Influential Mathematics”, “The Most Important Scientists”, or “Women Mathematicians”, in none of them does Theano de Crotona appear, and yet in almost all of them Hipatia of Alexandria usually does…
