In Crotona, Pythagoras and wife Theano founded THE WORLD'S FIRST UNIVERSITY. It was COEDUCATIONAL!K L. Guthrie, in his book, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, lists the names and birthplaces of 218 students of Pythagoras-L and Theano (more than we know about Socrates' students!), including 16 women students:
Note:
- Timycha. the wife of student Myllias the Crotonian;
- Philtis, daughter of Theophrius the Crotonian;
- Mya, wife of Milon the Crotonian;
- Byndacis, sister of Lucasian students Ocellus and Occillus;
- Chilonis, daughter of Chilon the Lacedaemonian;
- Cratesiclea, wife of Cleanor the Lacedaemonian;
- Claecmas, sister of Autocharidas the Lacedaemonian;
- Nisleadusa the Lacedaemonian;
- Theano, wife of student Brontinus of Metapontum;
- Lasthenia the Arcadian;
- Abrotelia, daughter of Abroteles the Tarentine;
- Pisirrhonde the Tarentine;
- Echecratia the Philasian;
- Tyrsenis the Sybarite;
- Bryo the Argive;
- Babelyma the Argive.
- Guthrie says his named women students are "among the most illustrious women students", implying more women students, either unnamed in the source or in his book;
- 3 women are sisters of 4 male students -- which would have been remarkable in my WWII generation!
In THE LIFE OF GREECE, V. II, p 162, of his HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION, Will Durant says, "Two centuries before Plato, he [Pythagoras] laid down the principles of equal opportunity for both sexes and did not perely preach but practised it. Nevertheless, he recognized natural differences of function; he gave his women pupils considerable training in philosophy and literature, but he had them introduced as well in maternal and domestic art, so that the 'Pythagorean women' were honored by antiquity as the highest femine type that Greece ever produced." (Durant also references a book, Greek Women, by N. Carroll, 1908.)