A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Leontium

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LEONTIUM,

An Athenian courtezan, who lived about B. C. 350, became a convert to the philosophy of Epicurus. She married Metrodorus, one of the principal disciples of Epicurus, and had a son by him, whom Epicurus commended to the notice and regard of his executors. She wrote in defence of the Epicurean philosophy, against Theophrastus, one of the principal of the peripatetic sect. The book is said by Cicero to have been written in a polite and elegant style. From her love of letters, she was drawn by Theodoras the painter, in a posture of meditation.